is doing everything we can to keep them safe. and with that, i'm going to turn it back to them here in to find it from. and while i'm working on a fire chief of m all fire and rescue, our unit says to tell you all related to a 2048. we received a alert from a f, a tower of an aircraft incident involving a commercial aircraft and a helicopter. our units immediately responded and deployed it, 3 boats and immediately called the mutual aid resources again, and she finally said, some active operation that's going to last many hours as we continue to work through recovery efforts and rescue operations. this will be ongoing for quite a while. our thoughts and prayers are with the families and our communities, and we appreciate all the caesars forward to our agency and our federal partners.

so with that, i wanted to turn to the, the senators who are from kansas, who wanted to see a few words 1st sen, moran and then senator marshall mer. thank you. and mr. secretary, thank you. and to our 1st responders. thank you very much for all that's taking place here. i'm jerry moran. i'm in united states senator from kansas. and i share the subcommittee and in commerce committee on board responded and what we're looking for, what's gonna happen next? a good evening, as was said time. jack potter, the presidency of the much phone washing airports authority of thank you will be here tonight. and under these, a very, very room circumstances. first, well, i want to let you know that we're providing support to all the families who are involved. american allies is established pay

a phone number for them to reach out. that's been published. but let me repeat it. it's 180-679-8215. so that families of folks that were on the plane are asked to contact them. we did have folks who are at the airport to pick up loved ones. and so american has set up a center in their american, in their lounge, the north end of the airport. and we've directed the families there. and there are folks there to counselors. they have to work with the families. we did have a craft that were in the air, they were diverted to dulles airport. some 19 aircraft, we had personal, united, and others had personnel. we want to think we're model for extending their hours on the metro to make sure that those folks were accommodated. right now, as was said earlier by the chief over and a rescue mode, we will continue in that rescue mode. i want to thank all of the mutual aid

responders, all the counties of the district, folks from maryland and virginia. everybody's on site, doing the best they can and numerous boats out on the water right now. uh and t as b is on site. i wanna thanks all of the folks behind me, the secretary them, they're 2 senators for all of their support. and we're going to continue to work through the night. i do want to make an announcement. people are, you know, concerned about what's going to happen in the morning. reagan national lab, what will be closed until 11 o'clock? that's when the 1st flights will take off. but we're going to continue to do our best and work for the situation over the course of the night. and we hope to have more news as it develops. but for right now it's, it's very difficult situation out there with the cold. it's very dark, but there are numerous boats out there. there are diet teams out there.

gosh, i have not had several hours. what are your thoughts? right now? my focus is on those who are impact to prevent future class all to, to that as we have any, any like to reform. yeah. control to come right in the next base. and also, all the rescue is going to last stuff like like, you know, i mean, i think you just heard that. she said we're going to be out there as long as it takes. and we're obviously trying to get to people as soon as possible. but we are going to recover our fellow citizens. yes. this is for the cheese.

the search and rescue operations. so from guys from the fire department's point of view, we are always going to put people 1st. but i don't think that i think our operations because we have the unified command, we are all working together. and then he has to be in contact with us. and we work together to make sure that if there's crucial evidence that it's not that it's preserved, and that's something we do every day with our police department on crime scene and thing. so life comes 1st and everything else on top of so obviously there will be a review of what happened here tonight. and, and she have you,

you mentioned the senate from kansas, jerry moran. the reason we're obviously hearing from the kansas send this to is because this flies ignore the command or forgot to come in, or they were focused on another aircraft. that's something for the investigative team to figure out. and it may be difficult because there really isn't a system in place, for example, to record where the crew is looking for when they're flying the aircraft.