Investigators have recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from American Eagle flight 5342, an American Airlines flight operated by PSA, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) announced late on Thursday. The recorders are now at the NTSB’s labs for evaluation. Board member Todd Inman said officials aimed to release a preliminary report into the incident within 30 days.

At least 27 bodies have been recovered from the plane and one from the Black Hawk helicopter which crashed into the Potomac River. The Bombardier CRJ-700 jet broke into three parts and was in waist-deep water in the Potomac. More than 300 emergency workers, including divers, weathered high winds and packed ice to retrieve pieces of the plane and bodies.

As many as 14 skaters and coaches, including two 16-year-olds and a married pair of world champions, were onboard the American Airlines plane. The Skating Club of Boston said Jinna Han and Spencer Lane, both aged 16, were on the plane. The club also said the Russian-born ice skating coaches and former world champions Yevgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who were husband and wife, were onboard. Other victims included ice-skating coach Alexandr Kirsanov, and two of his young students Angela Yang and Sean Kay.

Two Chinese citizens were also on the plane, state media reported citing the Chinese embassy. Senator Maria Cantwell said that the dead on the plane also included citizens from Russia, the Philippines and Germany.

The pilot and first officer on the American Airlines flight were named as Jonathan Campos and Sam Lilley in media reports. Campos was 34 and Lilley 28, it was reported.

President Donald Trump has been strongly criticised by Democrats after suggesting that the previous administration’s diversity policies were responsible for the crash. In a press conference, Trump told reporters, “We had the highest standard [of air traffic controllers in his first administration] that you could have, and then they changed it back – that was Biden,” Trump said, adding that he believed the changes were made as part of diversity programs that his administration was vowed to repeal.

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, said Trump had used the collision to “peddle lies, conspiracy theories, and attack people of color and women without any basis whatsoever”. He continued: “Have you no decency? Have you no respect for the families whose lives have been turned upside down?”

Journalists also highlighted another exchange between the president and journalists. Trump responded to a question about whether he was going to visit the scene of the plane crash by saying: “What’s the site? The water? You want me to go swimming?”

Trump later signed another executive order that officials said would stop “woke policies” in federal aviation. Trump had already signed an executive order ending diversity initiatives at the Federal Aviation Administration last week.

Conflicting reports have emerged about whether staffing levels at Ronald Reagan national airport were “not normal”. According to an initial Federal Aviation Administration report, obtained by the New York Times, the Associated Press and others, staffing levels were “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic”. According to the report, one air traffic controller was responsible for coordinating helicopter traffic and arriving and departing planes when the collision happened, the Associated Press reported, and that configuration was described as “not normal”.

But a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press that staffing at the air traffic control tower on Wednesday night was, in fact, at a normal level. The positions are regularly combined when controllers need to step away from the console for breaks or are in the process of a shift change, or air traffic is slow, the person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.

Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, said the Pentagon had launched an investigation. He added that the army helicopter crew involved in the collision was “fairly experienced”. Describing the flight as an “annual proficiency training flight”, Hegseth said: “They did have night vision goggles.”

Both the helicopter and the passenger plane had been flying in a “standard flight pattern” on a clear night before the crash, transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said. He added that it was not uncommon for military aircraft to be seen in the skies over the nation’s capital, including near Reagan National, which is located in Arlington, Virginia.

The American Airlines CEO, Robert Isom, said: “At this time we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the PSA aircraft.” He urged friends and family of those affected to call 1-800-679-8215, which is the helpline the airline has set up.

A day before Wednesday night’s midair collision near Reagan airport, a different jet there had to abort its landing and make a second approach after a helicopter appeared near its flight path, the Washington Post reported.

The US army saw an increase in very serious aviation incidents during the last fiscal year, with 15 flight and two ground incidents that resulted in deaths of service members, destruction of aircraft, or more than $2.5m in damage to the airframe, the Associated Press reported.

This article was amended on 31 January 2025. The CEO of American Airlines is Robert Isom, not “Eisen” as an earlier version said.