Summary
Army Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, a highly accomplished pilot and top 20% ROTC cadet, was among 67 killed when her Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines jet near Washington, D.C.
Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth blamed “DEI” for the crash despite no official cause being determined.
Lobach had 450+ flight hours and numerous military honors.
Agreed, and also this is a very very very very very dumb dishonest take by the daily beast…
The conversation has been about flight traffic control not the individual pilots/copilots…
The controller advised PAT25 (helicopter) to pass behind the CRJ. The controller then asked PAT25 to confirm visual of the CRJ, and stated the CRJ’s height and vector (I believe it was descending through 1,400 ft at that point in a circling approach to runway 33).
The pilot of PAT25 confirmed visual of the CRJ. Once the pilot confirmed visual of the other aircraft, it was on her to avoid it.
Unfortunately, she was obviously looking at a different aircraft in the landing sequence, because she flew directly into the path of the CRJ instead of waiting for it to pass as instructed.
Possible the pilot misunderstood the ATC instruction, but it seems like she just was looking at the wrong aircraft.
Was another aircraft in the area? (possibly, it’s even more reason to be angry that a busy airport like this with very specific guidelines is understaffed) I haven’t looked at the radar at the time. If this was the initial error that led to the crash, the followup error possibly was that the single ATC person at the time was not able to go back and confirm that the helicopter was on a path that showed them understanding the correct plane and action to take. One or more assumptions led to the crash.
Yes there was another aircraft. Current speculation is that the helicopter pilot gave visual confirmation but was looking at the wrong plane. And further, because of the area they were in, the lights were blending in with the lights from the buildings on the ground in the background. Which would be an explanation as to why the correct plane was not identified. If that’s all true, and Trump is going to continue with this DEI shit, then the next argument will probably be that a male pilot would have had better vision to identify the correct plane despite the lights blending in with the city lights below. Because eyes.