WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump on Thursday blamed diversity hires for the midair collision between an airliner and a military helicopter as bodies of 67 victims of the accident were being pulled from Washington’s Potomac River by police divers.

In a press conference, Trump said left-wing diversity practices under his predecessors Joe Biden and Barack Obama kept out good employees at the Federal Aviation Administration.

Trump — who began his presidency a week ago with an onslaught against decades-old measures aimed at preventing sexism and racism in the US — singled out Biden’s openly gay transport secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“He’s run it right into the ground with his diversity,” Trump said.

The message was hammered home as Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, and new defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, took turns at the podium to repeat that diversity measures kept capable Americans out of responsible jobs.

Asked again by reporters whether he was blaming workplace diversity for the crash, Trump answered: “It could have been.”

Recovery operation

Wreckage of the Bombardier jet operated by an American Airlines subsidiary protruded from the surface, surrounded by emergency vessels and diving teams. It had been carrying 64 people.

The army Blackhawk helicopter, which had three soldiers aboard, was also in the river.

“We are now at a point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” Washington Fire Chief John Donnelly said. Twenty eight bodies had already been found.

The collision — the first major crash in the US since 2009 when 49 people were killed near Buffalo, New York — occurred late evening on Wednesday as the airliner came into land at Reagan National Airport after a routine flight from Wichita, Kansas.

Reagan National is a major airport located only a short distance from downtown Washington, the Pentagon and other major sites in the capital. The airspace is extremely busy, with civilian and military aircraft a constant presence.

Dramatic audio from air traffic controllers showed them repeatedly asking the helicopter if it had the passenger jet “in sight,” and then just before the crash telling it to “pass behind” the plane.

Meanwhile, investigators on Thursday recovered the black boxes from the passenger plane.