Around 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 29, Lt. Kevin Hubbe and other members of Baltimore City Fire Department’s diving unit were sent to Reagan National Airport.
An American Airlines jet had collided with a military helicopter, and the Baltimore unit was among the first responders from across the D.C. region dispatched to help.
It was a cold night, and they arrived to a chaotic scene. There were many boats along the Potomac River, many people in the water and rescuers from multiple agencies doing what they could to assist with what was then a search and rescue mission.
Hubbe said the group did a “surface search” throughout the wreckage, and worked well into the morning. Visibility was limited, which made it challenging to find people in the water.
“It was rough,” Hubbe said Wednesday. “You’re trying to fight going to sleep and everything, because you’re up the entire night, but the motivation is to just keep going, to basically get closer to the incidents and do the job you were sent there to do.”
At Wednesday’s Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments meeting, dozens of first responders from D.C., Maryland and Northern Virginia were recognized for their efforts in the aftermath of the crash. The regional assistance, leaders said, made a major difference in the response.
A team relieved Hubbe’s around 9:30 a.m. the day after the crash, and he described their efforts as routine, with a focus on communication and equipment checks.
Afterward, they debriefed, checking on each other and making sure everyone was OK. They reminded each other that they’d be available for support, Hubbe said.
There will be an after-action report into the response efforts, according to D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly, crafted in coordination with other city agencies. But, he said, there’s “nothing that jumps out in my mind that says, ‘Oh my, we should have done this differently.’”
In addition to regional support, federal agencies, such as the National Transportation Safety Board, Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers, helped too.
“We had a unified command for 14 days,” Donnelly said. “We were all in it. We were all making decisions together, and everybody’s needs were met.”
Because there was so much going on immediately after the crash, Donnelly said the focus wasn’t on the challenge ahead, but instead on what could be done next.
The crash and response efforts, he said, “will leave an impact on all of us that responded, in particular our divers and boat operators that were out on the water for all those days, the Metropolitan Police officers that are still out there looking at some of the wreckage and pieces and getting it cleaned up.”
“It takes a toll,” Donnelly added.
There are support systems in place for responders, Donnelly said, and they have “better understanding of what it takes to support them now than we did even 10 years ago.”
Dogs with the program “Mutts With a Mission” played a role in that. The Virginia Beach nonprofit sent dogs to the airport site for almost a week, allowing first responders to get a break and rest with the dogs for a bit.
Chris Rinker, police chief in New Market, Virginia, said there weren’t only responders, but also “other workers in the airport, and we’ll never know the fruits of their labor, but we do see the smiles and grins on folks’ faces during this time.”
The response to the deadly crash, officials said during Wednesday’s meeting, was immediate because of the partnerships between agencies across the region.
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