Just offshore of the towering national monuments of Washington, a tall crane now hovers over the Potomac River. It casts a large shadow over the effort to understand what caused the collision of a passenger jet and a military helicopter last Wednesday as a new phase of the recovery starts.

Crews working on recovery efforts for the D.C. plane crash are using a crane to lift segments of the American Airlines jet out of the Potomac River.

Recovery teams worked to pull parts of an American Airlines jet and a U.S. Army helicopter out of the Potomac River on Monday.