Hey there, it's Martine.

Today, I want to share with you a story that I haven't been able to stop thinking about these past few days.

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the horrific plane crash at Ronald Reagan, Washington National Airport, just outside D.C. A Black Hawk helicopter

collided with an American Airlines passenger jet over the Potomac River. Sixty-seven people were

killed. As you might recall, many of those people were members of the figure skating community

coming back from a competition in Wichita. The crash raised major questions about crowded airspace, air traffic controller staffing,

and the number of similar close calls at this airport and at others.

Recently, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board

said the accident was, quote, 100% preventable.

I think about this crash a lot. DCA is my go-to airport, and in the past year, every time I've

taken off or landed there, I gaze out the window, down at this wide, flat stretch of the Potomac, and I wonder,

what would it have been like to be there in the hours after that crash? What did it take

to carry out that kind of recovery effort and to try to give some comfort to these families?

Those are some of the questions that my colleague Emma Uber sought to answer.

She's a reporter for the metro section here at the Post, and in the past few weeks and months,

she has been speaking to family members of the victims, as well as first responders and city officials,

to understand better how the aftermath played out and how they

think about what they went through. There are so many details here that are truly unforgettable,

and it's one of those things where I could interview Emma about her reporting, or I could just

let Emma share that story herself, just as it was written.

So here is Emma reading that story.

The brown teddy bear smelled like oil and jet fuel.

...