But even before the National Transportation Safety Board completes its investigation—a neurotically thorough process that will probably take about a year, and thus meshes poorly with the news cycle and the conspiracy-theorist cycle—it is easy to see some of the lines of inquiry that crash detectives will pursue.

There are likely no survivors after an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter crashed midair near Washington, D.C, Wednesday evening, officials have said.Flight 5342 from Kansas was on the final approach to Ronald Reagan National Airport when it collided with the Black Hawk helicopter before exploding a huge fireball.

Recovery efforts are resuming Saturday at the site of the nation's worst air disaster in more than a decade. Investigators now have all three of the black boxes from the Army helicopter and passenger jet that collided in midair near Reagan National Airport and crashed into Washington D.