WASHINGTON – When Dean Naujoks first heard that a commercial passenger plane had crashed into the waters he frequents as the Potomac Riverkeeper, he wasn’t sure what to do.
If he rushed to the scene of the crash, would he get in the way of first responders? Or could he actually help, given his familiarity with the contours of the river?
On the evening of Jan. 29, an American Airlines passenger plane and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair before falling into the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport in Alexandria, VA. Sixty-seven people were killed in what has since been declared the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. in nearly 25 years.
Along with the tragic loss of life, local officials are still grappling with what the long-term impacts of a plane crash into such a widely used river might be.
Just south of where the airplane fell short of Reagan’s runway is a marina on Daingerfield Island, where the Potomac Riverkeeper Network keeps a patrol boat. When Naujoks arrived at the marina the morning after the crash, he learned that the first responders had asked around 1:30 a.m. if a riverkeeper vessel, piloted by someone familiar with the river, could help with search and recovery.
“I felt very obligated, like there’s probably a lot of material in this area, and the search crews were not [there],” Naujoks said of the waters just south of the crash site, where the Potomac’s quick currents would push debris.
Naujoks’ work as a pollution watchdog makes him familiar with the river bottom and the places where debris might collect after such a collision — debris he thought might help federal investigators trying to determine a cause.
The winds had been blowing to the southeast in the hours surrounding the crash. That, along with the river’s downstream flow, meant a good bit of debris could be collecting in coves a couple miles south of the crash site on the Maryland side of the river. But both of those, Oxon Cove and Smoots Cove, are almost impossible to navigate by boat.
“You have to know how to get in there. Only bass fishermen really go into that area,” Naujoks said. So he volunteered to look through the coves himself that morning.
With permission from Federal Bureau of Investigations officials at the marina, Naujoks steered his boat toward the two shallow bights north of National Harbor. He used a hook that usually helps him pull into docks to retrieve underwater debris that appeared to be connected to the crash, which he immediately turned over to the FBI.
Fully intact bags of chips, sugar packets, a sweater and the scattered pages of a landing gear manual were floating on the surface there. Larger pieces of the wreckage, including a passenger seat and a window from the plane, bobbed in the water along with chunks of yellow foam.
“Everything was covered in jet fuel,” Naujoks said. “It was just pretty intense being out there, really terrified you might come across something you don’t want to see while trying to provide help and stay focused.”
Naujoks said the fuel and other chemicals present in the water even two miles downstream from the crash site were enough to leave his face feeling burned. Being on the water that morning gave him just a taste of what the first responders faced in an operation that quickly changed from rescue to recovery. By the morning after the crash, it was clear there would be no survivors.
A representative for the DC Firefighters Union Local 36 told WTOP news that rescue crews battling icy waters and windchills were also exposed to “an enormous amount of jet fuel that had pooled in the river.” Some developed rashes and lost their sense of taste or smell temporarily due to their exposure, the news report said.
Naujoks was still on the water the morning after the crash when he started getting calls from the media. Some wondered if he could get them out on the water near the site, which his organization had decided they would not do. Others wondered what he knew about the potential for contaminants in the water long-term.
That’s when he called Tyler Frankel, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA. Frankel said he was initially so struck by the loss of life that he could hardly think about long-term consequences.
But, he noted, Naujoks’s observations “of items covered in fuel two miles downstream clearly show that the contamination release was not limited exclusively to the immediate crash site.”
Naujoks was also told that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association advised against trying to contain the jet fuel in the water, as would typically be done for an oil spill, because of the fuel’s potential to combust. That volatility also means that much of the jet fuel was likely to evaporate.
In addition to fuel, Frankel said contaminants like cadmium, lead and mercury are often identified at crash sites and can persist in the environment afterward. The hydraulic lubricant Skydrol that is commonly used for aircraft functions can be particularly toxic to humans and aquatic life.
Though very little swimming takes place in the Potomac River in the winter, a Polar Bear Plunge that had been planned at National Harbor a couple miles downstream of the crash site for early February was postponed and then moved online following the crash. Participants in the Chesapeake Climate Action Network’s 20th plunge observed a moment of silence for the lives lost before jumping into other bodies of water on Feb. 15.
It’s not immediately clear which of the many agencies involved in efforts at the crash site are likely to test the water for ongoing pollution concerns. After fielding such questions, Naujoks reached out to the District of Columbia’s Department of Energy and Environment to ask if the agency intended to test water quality near the site. Naujoks had looked into whether his organization could test for the presence of certain hydrocarbons associated with jet fuel and other contaminants but said those particular tests are extremely expensive.
The DOEE told Naujoks on Feb. 5 that the agency had not yet done testing but was “actively monitoring and investigating all sheen reports” from the shore. DOEE representatives forwarded the Bay Journal’s request for an update on water testing plans to the U.S. Coast Guard. A spokesman for the Coast Guard said that agency had no immediate plans to test the river water, citing previous analyses showing that jet fuel spills naturally dissipate within 18 hours.
The river surrounding the crash site was closed to boat traffic for about two weeks while crews worked to remove the wreckage. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on Feb. 11 that removal of wreckage and debris from the crash site was complete. Agencies advised that anyone finding more debris in the river that could be related to the crash should not disturb or remove it and promptly call 911.
“With wreckage removal and demobilization behind us, the Potomac is once again safe for navigation,” the Corps’ Baltimore District Commander Col. Francis Pera said, referring only to a boat’s ability to move safely through that portion of the river. “It is our hope that this helps provide the region a small sense of normalcy following this tragic event.”