The National Transportation Safety Board only updated the situation regarding the flight incident that occurred last night between an Army Black Hawk aircraft and an American Airlines passenger aircraft. More than 60 people have been presumed dead, and restoration work are ongoing in the Potomac River.
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Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a lot of fresh information—with one exception: board member J. Todd Inman stated that” no ladders or presentations were deployed” later to the accident, indicating that there was no time to deploy emergency removal methods.  ,
Does it upset your analysis method that the leader is now recommending possible causes as you try to keep in mind and start this investigation, asked a reporter from NBC, Tom Costello?
Homendy wasn’t having it. Tom, with all due respect, I believe the media even enjoys stating the possible cause before we can determine the possible cause. But what I’m going to suggest is, you must give us some time.
WOW!
Does it upset your analytical process, perhaps for the president, to have the President now suggesting possible reasons here as you try to keep an open mind and start this investigation, asks NBC’s Tom Costello?
NTSB Chairwoman… pic. twitter.com/5Xmrg43fsV
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck ) January 30, 2025
According to Homendy’s bio, she was first nominated to the NTSB by President Trump in 2018 and renominated by then-President Biden in 2021. Both times, she was unanimously confirmed by the Senate.  ,
Indeed, speculation that Donald Trump was somehow to blame for the crash quickly spread to the left-wing media. Matte went over it in his blog.  ,
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” We have substantial amounts of information”, Homendy added. ” We need to verify and take our time to make sure it is accurate” . ,
Inman said to expect a preliminary report within 30 days,” and the final report will be issued once we’ve completed all our fact-finding and investigation”. Additionally,” We will not hesitate to make those recommendations public if we find something that is a significant issue that warrants immediate action.” We have a good track record on that” . ,
He added that he is confident that the “black” boxes will be discovered in the water in the upcoming hours and days despite not having been recovered. The priority, he said, is recovering the victims.  ,
” So the question was about black boxes, which are referred to as black boxes, which are typically orange”, he explained. There are still ongoing recovery efforts involving the fatalities involved, along with some debris that is coming out as well, and “recovery of life is probably more important than that right now.” We will make sure that the perishable evidence is preserved. Our method for doing that is excellent. We will probably have more than one black box, so to speak” . ,
When a military aircraft crashes, there are some special considerations. According to what we understand, the Sikorsky helicopter has some form of reporting equipment, and those will be read either by the DoD or by us, he said. We have a good starting relationship with them, and we’ve already made arrangements to do that, so I can feel at ease with what we’re going to be doing.
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Asked about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s statement that the crash was caused by a “mistake”, he replied,” We don’t know what we know just yet. We do not have enough information to support a conclusion regarding the human factor or mechanical factors. One of the reasons the NTSB is referred to as the “gold standard” is because of this.
” We will take the time that’s necessary” to complete a thorough investigation, Inman concluded.  ,
Watch the full briefing here:  ,
