The top US officials said that a military helicopter collided with a passenger aircraft on the Poto Mark River on Wednesday was evacuating the training tasks of government members when disaster or attack.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told Fox News that the helicopter is performing the "government continuity" exercise to help pilots "rehearse in a way to reflect real world scenes." Hegseth refused to go further, and he said he didn't want to "fall into a classification."
The troops of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter were the 12th Air Camp and were appointed as the task of evacuating the Senior officials from Washington Special Administrative Region in Washington, DC.
These locations include Raven Rock Mountain, which is a facility in Pennsylvania, which was built in the 1950s for the command center during the nuclear war.
Hegseth's comments are related to the comments from Jonathan Koziol, director of the Army Aviation Administration, and the latter told reporters on Thursday that "some of their tasks are to support the Ministry of National Defense. Some bad things happened, we need to move, we need to move.
Koziol added: "They really need to be able to understand the environment, air traffic, and routes to ensure the safe trip of our senior leaders in the entire government."
A preliminary report of FAA's collision in the air found that on Wednesday night, when U.S. airlines crashed on the Black Hawk helicopter of the Army, the responsibility for handling air traffic control at Reagan National Airport was earlier than usual.
All 67 were killed on the plane marked the most deadly US aviation crash in 16 years.
According to the New York Times, usually, the responsibilities of helicopter and aircraft are separated from 10 am to 9.30 pm to separate in the busy airspace. After 9.30 in the evening, when the traffic slows down, the responsibilities can be combined. The collision occurred before 9 pm.
A preliminary safety report from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) found that the airport's personnel were equipped with "the time and traffic of the day is abnormal", and according to the Associated Press. The personnel set by FAA and the controller union are equipped with 30 air traffic controllers at the airport, but as of September 2023, it has 19.
President Trump signed a presidential memorandum on aviation security on Thursday. He said that the Bayeng government will cancel the "damage" caused by federal agencies. Trump said "incompetent" may play a role in a crash.
Less than 30 seconds before the collision between the helicopter and the aircraft. The air traffic controller asked if the helicopter had the sight of the aircraft: "Pat-25, do you have a CRJ?" The controller called 25 times after Pat25: "PAT-25 Biography "Behind CRJ" refers to the Bombardier CRJ-700 made in Canada.
However, some people speculate that the helicopter's pilot may have been watching a plane behind the US airline aircraft landing on the queue. I also asked about the helicopter height. It was removed at 200 feet, but it seemed to have risen to 400 feet and entered the path of the passenger plane.
DC Fire Director John Donnelly SR said at a press conference that as of Friday afternoon, the rescuers had restored 41 corpses and 28 corpses were determined. He said 18 families were told to die.
Among the passengers on the plane, the members of the Boston Skating Club returned from the development camp after the 2025 American Falter Skating Championships held in Wakhito, Kansas.
The victims also include a group of hunters who, from a tour guide from Kansas, nine students and parents in Ferfax County, Virginia, four locals in the suburbs of Maryland, and two Chinese citizens
The Army has identified the two of the three soldiers on the helicopter-28-year-old Ryan Austin O'Hara, a 28-year-old Ryan Austin O'Hara in Lilbon, Georgia and Georgia's Chief Recognition Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39 -year -old Andrew Loyd Eaves. The Army said that the name of the third soldier was not released according to the family requirements.