The name of one of the three soldiers killed in the plane crash in Washington is not being released.

The army identified two of the soldiers killed when an American Airlines jet and a military helicopter collided mid-air as Staff Sergeant Ryan Austin O’Hara and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves.

However, it made the unusual decision, at the request of the family, not to release the name of the third soldier.

Meanwhile, investigators announced the black box from the Black Hawk helicopter has been recovered.

They are reviewing the flight data recorder along with two from the plane as they probe the cause of the devastating crash.

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Forty-one bodies had been pulled from the river as of Friday afternoon, including 28 that had been positively identified, Washington DC fire chief John Donnelly Sr said at a news conference.

He said next of kin notifications had been made to 18 families, and that he expects that all 67 of the bodies of the dead will eventually be recovered.

“It’s been a tough response for a lot of our people,” Mr Donnelly said, noting that more than 300 responders were taking part in the effort at any one time.

Investigators have already recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder of the American Airlines plane, which struck the helicopter as the plane was coming in for a landing at the airport next to Washington.

Officials are scrutinising a range of factors in what National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman Jennifer Homendy has called an “all-hands-on-deck event”.

Investigators are examining the actions of the military pilot as well as air traffic control, after the helicopter apparently flew into the jet’s path.

Air crash investigations normally take 12-18 months, and investigators told reporters on Thursday that they would not speculate on the cause.

It has been suggested the helicopter exceeded an altitude limit.

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Mr Trump said in a Friday morning post on his Truth Social platform that the helicopter was “flying too high” at the time of the crash.

“It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???” he said.

His comments came a day after he questioned the helicopter pilot’s actions while also blaming diversity initiatives for undermining air safety.

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Details have been emerging about others who died in the crash, including Danasia Elder, a flight attendant on the American Airlines flight, WSOC-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina, reported.

“Undocumented” Colombians working in the United States should “return as soon as possible”, the country’s president has said.

Gustavo Petro also said his government would provide loans to those who take up his offer to go back home and join one of its programmes to start a business.

“Wealth is produced only by the working people,” the leftist president commented on X.

“Let’s build social wealth in Colombia.”

His comments follow an argument with Donald Trump about deportations of illegal Colombian migrants from the United States.

The new US president threatened a trade war after Colombia refused to accept deportees.

Mr Trump said he would retaliate with “urgent and decisive” measures – including 25% emergency tariffs on Colombian goods – after the South American country turned away two US military planes.

Migrants onboard were being deported as part of Mr Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The White House later said Colombia had backed down.

It added that the Colombian government had “agreed to all of President Trump’s terms” including the “unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay”.

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Mr Petro’s initial response had been bullish. “Your blockade does not scare me,” he wrote on X, “because Colombia, in addition to being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world”.

He also commented: “I don’t really like travelling to the US, it’s a bit boring.”

But a truce was negotiated following protests by investors concerned by the health of Colombia’s export economy, which relies heavily on purchases from the US.

Colombia accepted 475 deportation flights from the US from 2020 to 2024.

That put it fifth behind Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data.

It accepted 124 deportation flights in 2024.

Donald Trump has signed an executive order to open a migrant detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.

Speaking before making the act official, Mr Trump said that thousands of migrants who cannot be deported to their home countries will be held at the complex, on the island of Cuba.

“I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay,” he said.

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“Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.

“Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back.”

It comes as Mr Trump’s controversial pick for health secretary – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – faced a hearing committee where he was grilled on his views, including on vaccines and abortion.

Guantanamo Bay was set up in 2002 by then president George W. Bush to hold detainees in the wake of 9/11 and the War on Terror.

Only 15 prisoners – including Ramzi bin al Shibh, accused of being a 9/11 co-conspirator – remain at the detention centre.

At its peak, about 680 people, most suspected of terrorism and being “illegal enemy combatants”, were held at the American-run prison in Cuba.

The facility has been criticised by human rights groups and legal campaigners over potential breaches of international laws and conditions.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel deemed the decision as “an act of brutality” in a message on his X account, and he described the base as one “located in illegally occupied Cuba territory”.

In response to Mr Trump’s announcement, former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci – who briefly served under the previous Trump administration – said: “Also known as a concentration camp.

“Yet no dissent. No courageous political leader willing to stand up to this.”

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RFK Jr faces Senate hearing

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Kennedy – the president’s pick to be health secretary – faced a grilling over his views on vaccines, abortion and Medicaid at a Senate confirmation hearing.

Appearing at the Capitol, Democratic senators raised some of the 71-year-old’s previous remarks comparing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to Nazi death camps, linking school shootings to antidepressants, and his claim that “no vaccine is safe and effective”.

One senator, Sheldon Whitehouse, told Mr Kennedy “frankly, you frighten people” when discussing an outbreak of measles in Rhode Island – its first since 2013.

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The nominee said he did “not have a broad proposal for dismantling” Medicaid – a state and federal taxpayer-funded healthcare programme – and dismissed claims he was anti-vaccine by saying his children were vaccinated.

Mr Kennedy – the son of Robert F Kennedy and nephew of former US president John F Kennedy – was also questioned on his previous support for abortion and was shown statements as recent as from when he was running for president as an independent.

He said he now agrees with the president that “every abortion is a tragedy”.

Federal funding pause memo rescinded

It also comes after Mr Trump’s budget office rescinded an order freezing spending on federal grants – less than two days after it sparked legal challenges across the US.

The order on Monday sparked uncertainty over a financial lifeline for states, schools and organisations that rely on trillions of dollars from Washington.

However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Sky’s US partner network NBC that the freeze itself has not been withdrawn and that it was simply a cancellation of the memo ordering it.