The National Transportation Safety Board says it has recovered a cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the American Airlines plane that collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan National Airport late Wednesday.

Dozens of people are dead after a regional jet collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter Wednesday night over Washington, D.C., officials said, the nation's first major commercial airline crash since 2009.

American Airlines Flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas, was attempting to land when the plane and a Black Hawk helicopter collided.

An American Airlines plane with 60 passengers and four crew members on board collided with a military helicopter near Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night, plunging into the Potomac River.

The crucial piece of evidence is the black boxes, the flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder coming from the American Airlines regional jet. They've already been sent to the labs for examination by the National Transportation Safety Board,

There are confirmed fatalities from the collision of American Airlines Flight 5342 and the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River. Several bodies have been pulled from the Potomac River crash site,