US President Donald Trump launched a political attack blaming diversity and inclusion policies championed by his Democratic predecessors for causing the incident.
“The recorders are at the NTSB labs for evaluation,“ the agency said in a statement to AFP.
One controller, rather than the usual two, was handling both plane and helicopter traffic, the Times quoted a preliminary Federal Aviation Administration report as saying.
Over 40 bodies had been recovered as of Thursday evening, according to US media reports.
Trump, who took office 10 days ago, turned a press conference on the disaster into a platform for his crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI -- a series of often decades-old measures meant to combat racism and sexism across the United States.
The passenger plane was carrying 64 people and the Black Hawk had three aboard.
Reagan National is a major airport located a short distance from downtown Washington, the White House and the Pentagon. The airspace is extremely busy, with civilian and military aircraft a constant presence.
However, he then launched into an extended broadside against DEI, aiming directly at Biden's openly gay transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.
The message was hammered home as Trump's vice president, JD Vance, and new defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, took turns at the podium to repeat -- without evidence -- the hard-right theory that diversity measures keep capable Americans out of responsible jobs.
Buttigieg responded on X, calling Trump “despicable.”
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy posted that Trump’s comments “blaming the FAA’s hiring of women and black people for the crash -- was disgusting.”
Trump doubled down, however, later issuing an official memo directing the government to investigate “deterioration in hiring standards” under Biden and “replacement” of anyone unqualified.
Among those on the airliner were several US skaters and coaches, US Figure Skating said. Officials in Moscow also confirmed the presence of Russian couple Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the 1994 world pairs title.
The force of the collision soon made it clear that survivors were unlikely.
Transport officials said both aircraft were on standard flight patterns on a clear night with good visibility.
And Hegseth said the chopper had “a fairly experienced crew that was doing a required annual night evaluation.”
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