As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

A DC Fire and EMS fire boat captain and a dive team member who helped recover victims told NBC Washington what they saw that night and how they’re coping with trauma.

Steve Hater, with the dive team, and CJ Isbell, a marine pilot, both have spent years with the department. What they saw after a passenger plane and an Army helicopter crashed on Jan. 29 was like nothing they had ever seen, though.

“Having some years of experience and seeing a lot of things, that night – it’s some of the worst things imaginable,” Isbell said. “It was one of those situations where it just didn’t seem to stop. Just because of the sheer volume, the number of people, the area, the debris field.”

He called the scene a “nightmare.”

“It’s something you expect to see in movies, not real-life in D.C.,” Isbell said.

“I don’t think anything, regardless of time on job and what you’ve see in your careers, ever prepares you for the magnitude of what we saw that night,” Hater said.

‘Crash, crash, crash’

Isbell recalled the moment he learned of the catastrophe from air traffic control.

“The phone rang and they immediately said, ‘Crash, crash, crash.’ So we immediately grabbed our gear and ran down to the boats,” he said.

“As we came around Hains Point, it was a typical night. It was cold, windy, dark and quiet. So, we had really no indication of where the aircraft was. We headed south, and that’s when we started to smell the jet fuel. We’re outfitted with night vision and thermal imaging equipment. So, from the time of impact to the time of us arriving at the fuselage and starting to locate victims was less than 10 minutes,” he said.

“We saw part of the fuselage sticking out of the water, large debris field, lots of jet fuel. We went immediately to the fuselage, and for us, we started to recover some victims that were right at the fuselage. But seeing some habitable space potential for survivors in the fuselage, we came up and started to search inside the fuselage, for the hope that there may be a space for a survivor,” Isbell continued.

Potomac Crash Feb 26

How a therapy dog helps first responders after Potomac crash tragedy

Figure Skating Feb 25

‘Lost a generation of future champions': Legacy on Ice to benefit Potomac crash families

Potomac Crash Feb 14

Black Hawk pilots may have missed key instruction from tower before crash: NTSB

Hater was one of the first divers to plunge into the river that night.

“We’ve prided ourselves on training for worst-case scenarios. We just didn’t expect this was the worst-case scenario,” he said. “Obviously, it was cold, dark, you know. The smell of jet fuel was everywhere. The amount of lights from first responders on shore and on the river and searchlights and the helicopters overhead was borderline pushing sensory overload, trying to make sense of everything.”

“That night was an anomaly compared to typical underwater conditions around here. The visibility was actually really clear, partially due to cold water, cold weather, cold temps, the ice that we had in the days and weeks prior,” Hater continued. “We probably had 6 feet or so of visibility, which is usually unheard of. As far as what you saw underneath there, it was a mangled mess that you were trying to make sense of. Like, what am I, you know, what am I looking at here?”

Coping with trauma

Both men talked about the trauma they and others who helped in the recovery process are dealing with.

“I’ve talked to some people, and my wife and the family support. Talking to the brothers, talking to the ones that were there. You know, being able to openly talk is probably, I’d say, one of the bigger helps for me,” Hater said.

Isbell also pointed to the help of fellow first responders.

“It still seems surreal. But being around our fellow peers who were there to be able to discuss … because the average public can’t quite understand exactly all of what you’ve seen and done. So, being able to communicate that – and then the mental health professionals giving you the tools to help work through some of those things,” he said.

Hater and Isbell are just two of the hundreds of first responders from multiple agencies from D.C., Maryland and Virginia who took part in the recovery mission.

After divers, firefighters and investigators worked for days to recover the bodies of all 67 victims of the Potomac crash in January, first responders are now dealing with an unimaginable emotional toll.

Now, D.C. Fire and EMS, with the help of one special member, is providing comfort for those who rushed in to help on that fateful night. His name is Brew. He is 2 and a card-carrying member of D.C. Fire and EMS.

“His only job is to be pet,” said Captain Sharon Moulton with D.C. Fire and EMS. “He loves to just sit on people, hug them and that’s what he did, especially to the forensic team.”

On the Friday after the crash, Moulton took Brew down to the temporary morgue, where she knew he would be needed.

“The actual connection with the forensic investigator is probably my most special one,” Moulton said.

Lalyn Kurash, an investigator with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, was assisting in identifying the bodies.

“She texted me just yesterday and said, you know, without Brew there, she didn’t know if she really could finish her job,” Moulton said.

There was a reason she wanted the photo taken:

“Because as [the first responders’] family members were worried about them, the pictures were very comforting to them to show that they could send them something that they were okay, they had a dog with them and the dog was making them feel better.”

For Moulton, peer support is part of her job, and she’s taking Brew wherever he’s needed — a job she will be doing Sunday at Legacy on Ice, where first responders and families of the 67 people killed can all grieve together. Part of the proceeds from the event will be shared with the D.C. Fire and EMS Foundation.

“These responders are at a greater risk of cardiac and cancer issues anyway, and so when you’re dealing with a scene that is that hazardous that has a lot of jet fuel that they were swimming around in, you know we don’t know what is going to happen in the future,” said Amy Mauro with the D.C. Fire and EMS Foundation. “But I always say that they are always there for us at a moment’s notice, and so the foundation is there for them”.

Figure Skating Feb 25

‘Lost a generation of future champions': Legacy on Ice to benefit Potomac crash families

Potomac Crash Feb 14

Black Hawk pilots may have missed key instruction from tower before crash: NTSB

Potomac Crash Feb 10

Author shares book on coping with loss with Potomac crash victims' families

Moulton said she hopes Brew can bring comfort this Sunday — even the smallest amount — to anyone grieving the terrible tragedy on the Potomac.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

News4 spoke with Kimberly Permodo, who narrowly escaped flames and is the daughter of one of the victims.

“It is just really traumatizing, what I have experienced,” Perdomo said.

Around 5:30 a.m. Saturday, Perdomo woke up to flames in the apartment she shared with her mother on Newton Street NW.

“My first instinct was to look for her, and I couldn’t find her,” Perdomo said.

Perdomo identified her mother to News4 as Arely Andrade and shared a photo of them from when she was younger.

Perdomo believes the fire began in the kitchen.

She said her mother battled health issues.

“My mom was a really hard-working woman who was suffering from cancer, and she had been fighting for it a long time,” Perdomo said.

Before putting out the flames on Newton Street, firefighters responded to another fire just hours before and only a few blocks away, on 13th Street NW.

“The whole block was blocked off, and you could see everybody evacuating from the building,” said Lily McCann, who lives nearby.

A fire broke out at a second-floor apartment around 9:30 p.m. Friday, killing a man.

Video from a neighbor shows the scene.

Firefighters said it was difficult to battle the flames because there was a lot of clutter in the home. However, neighbors felt the response was fast.

“From what we saw, seemed really quick,” McCann said. “The firemen and women that were all reacting to the fire seemed very equipped.”

Back on Newton Street, crews boarded up the building.

Firefighters said the damage was so significant it’s not safe for anyone to live there. Five people were displaced.

Perdomo wishes she could’ve stopped the fire from happening.

“It’s just really heartbreaking because it was just me and her living in the apartment,” Perdomo said. “I wish I could have woken up earlier, probably saved her.”

Firefighters believe both fires were accidental but are still investigating what caused them.

DC Fire and EMS did not immediately release the names of the victims.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

Carl Braxton, 30, lived with his girlfriend on Sedgemore Place in Bryans Road. After he was shot May 8, the sheriff’s office said Braxton assaulted his girlfriend, who ran outside and came upon 37-year-old Carlos Lavanto Garner walking his dog.

According to witnesses, Braxton walked aggressively toward Lavanto Garner and threatened to hurt him., the sheriff’s office said. Lavanto Garner shot and killed Braxton.

Charging documents reveal little else about what happened that morning.

Last week, a grand jury indicted Lavanto Garner on charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter and felony use of a firearm.

Braxton’s uncle Frankie Braxton said he feels Lavanto Garner had no right to pull the trigger.

“We know that he intervened something, or put his nose in something that he really had no business to. Period. And he tore my family apart,” Braxton said.

Braxton said his sister has mixed emotions about the indictment.

“She’s pleased, but it’s not gonna bring her kid back to her,” he said. “That’s her only child; that’s her only child. They’re like best friends.”

Lavanto Garner is scheduled to go on trial in April. His attorney declined to comment.

The Charles County State’s Attorney’s Office and sheriff’s office both declined to discuss the indictment. D.C. Fire and EMS also has no comment.

News4 sends breaking news stories by email. Go here to sign up to get breaking news alerts in your inbox.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.

As rescuers worked to locate crash victims, Lenard and Tim Hutchison, of D.C.’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, quickly deployed tools to tackle another monumental task: helping divers locate underwater debris and document what they found.

The men came up with an idea for a phone-based app that Hutchison developed within hours of the disaster, one that allowed divers to take images of recovered wreckage, confirm its location in the water and upload the data, which was instantly fed into a database they turned over to investigators.

“We were able to create a common operating picture within the first hours of this incident. That allowed everybody to try to be on the same page,” Lenard said.

As the rescue operation gave way to recovery, D.C. Fire and EMS deployed sonar technology to scan the bottom of the river with sound waves, building detailed maps of the riverbed just off Reagan National Airport. The technology was purchased years ago under a grant program now under nationwide review by the Trump administration.

With the sonar mapping tool, firefighters were able to swiftly deploy divers to retrieve what they found following the collision, cutting what they said could have been a weekslong operation into just days.

“The most important thing is being out there and finding every person who lost their lives in this crash – to bring them home to their family,” Lenard said. “If you have 100 exhausted divers, your searches are not going to be as effective.”

That early effort gave them a picture of what they couldn’t see: an underwater photo album of debris they said showed wreckage as large as 18 feet and as small as a cellphone.

“Seeing personal belongings being pulled up was definitely a moment of pause. It really hit home,” Hutchison said.

The technology was so precise, it may have also recovered parts of the Air Florida plane that crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in 1982, killing more than 70 people. Lenard said D.C. Fire turned over those artifacts to the FBI for examination.

D.C. Fire commissioned the sonar equipment through a federal port security grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency a few years back, never knowing it would be used to help recover loved ones for families in a plane crash.

But now, the program FEMA states is designed to bolster security at ports across the country is under review by the Trump administration, which has placed a freeze on federal spending, including on the Port Security Grant Program.

President Donald Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA. It’s unclear what would happen to those dollars.

“It’s people’s lives and livelihoods that are at stake,” said Cary Davis, president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.

How port security funds are used

Davis said the port security program helps protect against increasing threats at the nation’s ports in ways people don’t realize, and that it’s already faced funding shortfalls for years.

“The needs far out outstrip the dollar levels that Congress in recent years has given for seaport security,” Davis said.

In fiscal year 2024, the grant program pledged $90 million in funds to ports and government authorities for maritime security plans. That’s down from $100 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to FEMA.

How D.C. Fire used the dollars on sonar technology, as well as night vision optics capabilities, and deployed them on the mid-air disaster response earned notice from top investigators.

Speaking to port leaders at a recent conference, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board praised D.C. Fire’s contribution to her investigation and commended their use of the federal funds.

“That just shows how critical those grants are,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told the I-Team. “Not just for ports, but also for these lifesaving measures and for recovery after a tragedy.”

The I-Team reached out to FEMA to ask about the future of the port security grant program that funded D.C.’s sonar technology.

In a statement, a spokesperson didn’t directly address the program but acknowledged current grantees are in limbo, saying: “FEMA is conducting a careful review of all grant allocations before releasing funds” and as “individual program reviews are completed in the coming days, we will follow up with respective grant recipients.”

D.C.’s first responders, including CJ Isbell, said that, while the funds they received years ago helped create critical technology, it’s the people they used it for who matter most.

“Our entire goal was to bring those family members home,” Isbell said. “Our job was not finished until we had that.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Katie Leslie, shot and edited by Jeff Piper and Carlos Olazagasti, and edited by Jeff Piper

Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.