US Army Corps of Engineers to start clearing wreckage of DC plane collision Monday

(CNN) — The US Army Corps of Engineers, alongside the Coast Guard and the Navy’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving, will start clearing the wreckage from the fatal midair collision near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Monday.

Engineers will start by working to remove the remnants of the jet from the Potomac River, which they expect to take three days, according to a news release from the Corps.

Then, engineers will switch their focus to the remnants of the Black Hawk helicopter involved in the collision. They expect to finish removing the wreckage by February 12, the release says.

The timeline is “contingent upon priority of lifts, requirements for offload, cataloging of wreckage, weather and tidal considerations,” according to the release.

The salvage operations come as authorities continue to search for human remains in the aftermath of the disaster. A total of 67 people are thought to be dead after American Eagle Flight 5342 collided with the helicopter.

As of Sunday afternoon, 55 bodies had been identified, DC Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said, with the search effort hampered by near-zero visibility in the frigid water, sharp pieces of debris and the mangled metal of the wreckage.

Authorities expect to recover all of the bodies, Donnelly said at a Sunday news conference.

“We have some work to do as this salvage operation goes on, and we will absolutely stay here and search until such point as we have everybody,” he said.

An automatic work stoppage will take place if any more bodies are discovered during the salvage operations, Col. Francis Pera, commander of the Corps of Engineers’ Baltimore district, said at the news conference.

“The dignified recovery of missing flight passengers and personnel takes precedence,” he said.

Pieces of the aircraft will be lifted from the river onto a flatbed trailer that will take them to a designated hangar so they can be analyzed as part of the collision investigation. The hangar is controlled by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation.

“When we begin the lift process tomorrow, our goal is to really lift as much as we can, given the fact that we are also accounting for the human remains component,” said Pera.

Additionally, the Coast Guard is monitoring a “safety zone” north of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on the Potomac River. Only authorized vessels are able to enter the area, Capt. Pat Burkett, the central commander for Coast Guard sector Maryland, National Capital Region, said Sunday.

Donnelly, who has been meeting with families of the victims, described them as “a strong group of families that are focused on getting their loved ones back.”

“These people have suffered a terrible loss,” he said.

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