Female Black Hawk pilot didn't follow orders before horrific crash: Report



An Army VH-60M Black Hawk helicopter on a training exercise collided with a PSA Airlines plane operating an American Airlines flight near D.C.'s Ronald Reagan National Airport on Jan. 29. Sixty-seven people were killed, including three Army soldiers, 60 airline passengers, and four airline crew members.

As emergency responders futilely searched the frigid Potomac River for survivors, questions began to proliferate about how such a crash was possible, especially when Black Hawk helicopters routinely operate flights in the highly controlled air corridor around the airport without incident. Many suspected human error — and when the Army initially refused to name the female Black Hawk pilot, some critics hypothesized that DEI hiring practices might be indirectly at fault.

On the basis of government documents, interviews with relevant experts, and audio recordings of the air traffic controllers leading up to the collision, the New York Times delineated the "missteps" that led to the fatal January crash in a damning report on Sunday.

'PAT two-five, do you have the CRJ in sight?'

It turns out that Captain Rebecca Lobach — the doomed helicopter's pilot whose name was withheld at the outset — failed to heed her instructor's orders moments before flying into the inbound jet, and there is no indication she was suffering any health issues that may have been to blame.

The liberal publication appeared keen to displace the reason for the crash across multiple factors and mistakes, noting, for instance, that:

  • the relevant tower controller was working double duty;
  • the controller was unable to watch the helicopter's movements in real time via the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast Out because the confidentiality of the Army aircraft's mission precluded the use of the system;
  • the controller made the uncustomary decision of asking the ill-fated jet to land at Runway 33, one of the airport's ancillary runways;
  • the vertical distance between the landing slope for a jet making its way to Runway 33 and the maximum permissible altitude for a helicopter along the route taken by the doomed Army aircraft would be a measly 75 feet;
  • the helicopter was flying well over the mandated maximum altitude;
  • the Army crew may have failed to catch a critical piece of information provided by the tower;
  • the helicopter crew requested, then bungled a "visual separation" exercise, where the "pilot is meant to see neighboring air traffic, often without assistance from the controller, and avoid it by either hovering in place until the traffic passes or by flying around it in prescribed ways"; and
  • the tower's alleged failure to notify both aircraft they were on a collision course.

Lobach, the highest-ranking soldier on the helicopter but far from the most experienced pilot aboard, was behind the controls as the helicopter neared the airport.

Cockpit voice recordings revealed that sometime after assuming control, Lobach announced an altitude of 300 feet. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Lloyd Eaves, her instructor, responded within a space of 39 seconds that they actually had an altitude of 400 feet — not only double the maximum height permissible near Runway 33 but 100 feet over the altitude mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration for that part of the route.

The Times indicated that as the helicopter approached the Key Bridge, from which the Army aircraft would head south along the river, Eaves indicated the helicopter was at 300 feet and descending to 200 feet.

Eaves apparently saw the need to repeat his instruction, telling Lobach that the chopper was at 300 feet and needed to descend.

'It could have well changed the outcome of that evening.'

While Lobach reportedly said she would comply, over two and half minutes later, she still had the helicopter at an altitude of over 200 feet — "a dangerously high level" according to the Times.

Moments later, the tower notified the Army crew that the inbound jet was "circling" to Runway 33 — a piece of information investigators believe was missed because someone aboard the helicopter was allegedly holding down the microphone key to speak, thereby blocking incoming communications.

Roughly two minutes before the collision, Eaves noted, "PAT two-five has traffic in sight." He then requested and was granted visual separation.

Nearly 20 seconds before impact — as doomed Flight 5342 made its turn toward Runway 33, flying at roughly 500 feet and now within a mile of the helicopter — the tower asked the Army crew, "PAT two-five, do you have the CRJ in sight?"

There was no response from the Black Hawk.

The controller then told the helicopter crew to "pass behind" the airplane, but Lobach kept flying directly at the inbound jet.

Two seconds after the controller's "pass behind" directive, Eaves said, "PAT two-five has the aircraft in sight. Request visual separation."

Inside the helicopter, Eaves told Lobach 15 seconds before the collision that air traffic control wanted her to turn left, toward the river — which would open more space between the Black Hawk and the jet, now at an altitude of approximately 300 feet.

Lobach reportedly did not heed the instruction, thereby guaranteeing the deaths of 66 people and herself.

At the time of the collision, one air traffic controller can reportedly be heard in a recording taken at the time saying, "Crash, crash, crash, this is an alert three."

"I just saw a fireball, and then it was just gone," said a controller. "I haven't seen anything since they hit the river, but it was a CRJ and a helicopter that hit. I would say maybe a half-mile off the approach end of 33."

Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, the Army's director of aviation, told the Times, "I think what we'll find in the end is there were multiple things that, had any one of them changed, it could have well changed the outcome of that evening."

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Army VIP gold-top helicopter flights are common in busy DC air corridor



Army Black Hawk helicopters known as “gold-tops” operating out of Davison Army Airfield at Fort Belvoir, Va., are regularly used to ferry senior military officials to different installations and often make flights to and from the Pentagon, a former senior Army official told Blaze News.

Casey Wardynski, former assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and Reserve affairs, said gold-top VIP flights operated by the Army 12th Aviation Battalion are a normal part of traffic in the busy but highly controlled air corridor surrounding Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport near Washington, D.C.

“These are going to be some of the most experienced and senior pilots in the Army,” Wardynski said, “because they’re flying secretary of defense, secretary of the Army, chief of staff of the Army, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, these kind of folks around to various locations in the vicinity of Washington helicopter range. And they're going to be doing it day and night.”

The air corridor is 'very highly controlled.'

A U.S. Army VH-60M Black Hawk helicopter on a training exercise collided with a civilian regional airline jet inbound from Kansas late Jan. 29, erupting in a fireball and sending both aircraft into the Potomac River. Sixty-seven people were killed, including three Army soldiers, 60 airline passengers, and four airline crew members. There were no survivors.

American Eagle Flight 5342 left Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport in Wichita at 5:18 p.m. CT and was scheduled to land at Reagan National at 8:57 p.m. ET. The aircraft was a Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet operated by PSA Airlines flying as American Eagle, American CEO Robert Isom said.

Wardynski said this type of military brass shuttle service using Black Hawk helicopters is common.

“It’s not unusual for them to be flying in and out of the Pentagon at night, dropping off VIPs,” Wardynski said.

Two U.S. Army pilots and a crew chief operate a VH-60M gold-top Black Hawk helicopter past the Thomas Jefferson Memorial on March 25, 2024. Photo by Senior Master Sgt. Nicholas A. Priest

The Army has only a few true gold-top Black Hawks, he said.

“There aren’t many. They’re for the chief of staff in the Army, secretary of the Army,” Wardynski said. “I flew on a lot of the regular Black Hawk flights in that battalion, probably 20 or 30. But that helicopter is pretty much to Black Hawks what the president’s limo is to Cadillacs. It’s pretty tricked out.”

Some training missions, such as for continuity of government, are always carried out at night, Wardynski said.

'This is an airfield unlike any other in the United States.'

“If they're practicing for a contingency mission, which the one that was in question here was what’s called continuity of government, which essentially means moving key people out of the Pentagon to alternative national military command sites because some serious things are happening in the United States,” he said. “They have to do that at night.”

The gold-tops fly under a “PAT” call sign, which stands for priority air transport, he said. “So when they’re on the FAA radars, it’s going to show ‘PAT’ as their private call sign. And if you're in Washington, you see a lot of PAT flights,” Wardynski said.

The air corridor is “very highly controlled,” said Wardynski, who said he has been a passenger on gold-top Black Hawks operating along the Potomac River.

“Since 9/11, Washington, D.C., has been under integrated air defense by the U.S. Army and some Air Force assets,” Wardynski said. “So you don't stray off course.

“You fly up the river or you fly down the river, and you come into Reagan either from the north or from the south, and you don’t deviate,” he said. “And if you do, you’re on air defense radars and people are going to get excited fast.”

Reagan National Airport is unusual for the heavy level of commercial air traffic, the restricted airspace, and a lot of helicopters, he said.

“This is an airfield unlike any other in the United States in terms of the amount of control exercised by FAA and to some degree the military,” Wardynski said. “The amount of helicopter traffic is extremely unusual, because you’ve got the Park Police, the National Guard, Pentagon people, and of course Metropolitan Police flying all over there.”

Wardynski said a proficiency training flight would practice “for some sort of wartime environment in which D.C. might be blacked out. The airport’s blacked out; there are no aircraft in the air.”

The U.S. Coast Guard investigates aircraft wreckage in the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., on Jan. 30, 2025.Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon Giles/U.S. Coast Guard via Getty Images

The Black Hawks do not have collision avoidance systems like commercial aircraft, Wardynski said. Although even those systems are unpredictable at low altitudes, he added.

If the helicopter pilot and crew were training with night-vision gear, that can complicate the flight due to light sensitivity and depth-of-field issues, he continued.

“The light really flares, and that can be disorienting, but that's why you practice,” Wardynski said. “It’s just maybe practicing right next to one of the busiest and most complex airports in America would be something you don’t want to do any more.”

A former U.S. Army special operator with years of experience on Black Hawk missions flown in and out of Fort Belvoir, said issues with the regional jet, the Black Hawk, and air traffic control could have played significant roles in the crash.

“Because the airline pilot had the right of way and was on final descent below 500 feet, [the airline crew] were not performing ‘heads-up checks,’” he told Blaze News. “They also had precision ground approach radar, which should have warned them of another craft in such close proximity.”

The source said the helicopter crew’s possible use of night-vision gear in this environment would be “incomprehensible, because of the restricted peripheral vision.”

Air traffic control, he said, “carries the ultimate responsibility because he allowed both aircraft to be operating at the same altitude while in such close proximity.”

A Blaze News source with air traffic control experience said he questions the decision of an experienced Army flight crew conducting a continuity-of-government exercise at a time of night with so much air traffic congestion.

“If they felt it necessary for such an exercise, they should have come back after 11 p.m., when flights in and out of Reagan have ceased,” he said.

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DC authorities suspect no survivors of deadly midair collision; haunting air traffic control audio released



A PSA Airlines plane operating an American Airlines flight collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Washington, D.C.'s Ronald Reagan National Airport on Wednesday evening. After generating a large fireball over the Potomac River, the remains of both aircraft dropped into the frigid waters.

As authorities do not expect to find any survivors amid the ice and debris, rescue efforts have given way to recovery efforts.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which has launched a joint investigation into the deadly incident with the National Transportation Safety Board, confirmed that American Eagle Flight 5342 en route from Wichita, Kansas, a PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet, collided midair with a Sikorsky H-60 helicopter while on approach to runway 33 at the airport just before 8:50 p.m. local time.

There were 60 passengers and four crew members on board Flight 5342. Three service members were aboard the helicopter, which the Pentagon indicated was out of Ford Belvoir, Virginia.

'Tower, did you see that?'

Flight surveillance data indicated that the helicopter, apparently on a training flight, was heading south along the District side of the river prior to the collision, reported the Washington Post. The plane was several hundred feet above the water when it came into contact with the Army helicopter.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy indicated during a press conference Thursday morning that the helicopter and the plane were both in a "standard flight pattern" and that based on what he has seen so far, the collision was "absolutely" preventable.

Air traffic control audio has emerged capturing the final communications between the tower and the doomed helicopter as well as observers' reactions in the immediate aftermath.

In one clip released on LiveATC.net, a repository of of air traffic audio recordings, an air traffic controller can be heard saying around the 17:30-minute mark, "PAT25, do you have CRJ in sight? PAT25, pass behind the CRJ."

The aviator in another aircraft can be heard chiming in moments later, "Tower, did you see that?"

An air traffic controller proceeded to direct planes to circumnavigate runway 33.

'This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented.'

At the time of the collision, one air traffic controller can reportedly be heard in a recording saying, "Crash, crash, crash, this is an alert three."

In another clip, an air traffic controller states, "Both the helicopter and the plane crashed into the river. It's east of the approach end of runway 33," later adding, "All runways are closed. Nobody's landing. No one is moving at all."

"I just saw a fireball, and then it was just gone," continued the air traffic controller. "I haven't seen anything since they hit the river, but it was a CRJ and a helicopter that hit. I would say maybe a half-mile off the approach end of 33."

"We are now at a point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation," D.C. Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly said at the Thursday press conference. "We don't believe there are any survivors from this accident."

Donnelly noted that the bodies of 27 people from the plane and one person from the helicopter have been recovered so far.

U.S. Figure Skating told the Post that several members of its skating community were aboard the commercial airliner when it crashed. The likely victims, including athletes, coaches, and family members, were on their way home from the National Development Camp held in Wichita in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

"We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims' families closely in our hearts," said the statement.

President Donald Trump responded to the crash just after midnight, suggesting that something about the incident did not compute.

"The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing, why didn't the helicopter go up or down, or turn[?]" the president wrote on Truth Social. "Why didn't the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane[?] This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD!"

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Four dead after helicopter crash at naval base in Hawaii; two Black Hawk copters crash in separate Utah incident



A helicopter crash at a U.S. naval facility in Hawaii on Tuesday has left four people dead, according to officials. On the same day, two Black Hawk helicopters were involved in a training accident in Utah, but no one there was injured, the Utah National Guard said.

The deadly accident occurred at the Pacific Missile Range Facility, in Kauai, Hawaii, shortly after 10 a.m. Tuesday, ABC News reported.

The helicopter was contracted by Croman Corporation, a civilian organization that "provides range support services" to the naval base, a Pacific Missile Range Facility spokesperson said in a statement.

The spokesperson said the helicopter was involved in a range training operation on the base in Kekaha when it crashed on the northern area of the installation.

Emergency personnel were deployed to respond to the crash. The spokesperson said there were four fatalities, all civilian Croman employees.

Investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration, are under way to determine the cause of the accident.

"The helicopter was conducting routine training operations under contract to the U.S. Navy," Croman director of operations Brian Beattie said. No further details were available.

In a separate incident, two Utah National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were involved in a training accident Tuesday morning.

The helicopters crashed near a popular ski resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon, about 30 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, NBC News reported.

"We can confirm that two Utah National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters were involved in a training accident at approx. 9:30 a.m. near Mineral Basin. No crew members were injured in the accident. Both UH-60s were damaged. The incident is under investigation," the Utah National Guard tweeted.

Officials said there were no major injuries.

A spokesman with the Utah National Guard told reporters the helicopters were attempting to land during routine survivability and mobility mountain training.

“As they landed, the snow kicked up and the aircraft probably lost sight of the ground," Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jared Jones said. "We know there were portions of the rotor blade that separated from the helicopter and struck the second helicopter."

He added that no fuel leaked.

"It was a blessing that everyone was okay," Jones said during a press conference.

"We are grateful that no one was seriously injured thanks to the quick reaction and training of both command pilots," Maj. Matthew Green, commander of the 2nd Aviation Regiment, said in a statement. "Right now, our top priority is taking care of both crews."

Mineral Basin is the southeast face of Snowbird resort, which features multiple double black diamond-level slopes for experienced skiers and snowboarders.

The Utah National Guard announced Tuesday that all training flights have been canceled until further notice while safety protocols and regulations are reviewed, KSL-TV reported.