The U.S. Army has identified two of the three service members who were killed when their helicopter crashed into an American Airlines flight over the Potomac River. The identified soldiers are Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Ga. and Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Md. The third crew member, a female pilot with 500 hours of flying experience, has not been named at the request of her family.
The crash occurred on Wednesday when the three-person crew on board a Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines passenger jet carrying 64 people. The Army has not released the pilot’s name, which has led to intense scrutiny online, with misinformation spreading that the pilot was a transgender woman from the Virginia National Guard.
Senator Tammy Duckworth, a decorated former Black Hawk pilot, condemned the online speculation and President Trump’s comments suggesting the Army crew was to blame for the crash. “Every one of those troops that was in that aircraft earned their place there, and they are the most highly trained military aviators in the world,” she said.
Despite President Trump’s comments, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the crew was “fairly experienced” and was carrying out a “required annual night evaluation, they did have night vision goggles.” The exact nature of the training exercise and the flight pattern of the Black Hawk helicopter are still unknown, with officials indicating that the helicopter was supposed to be flying at a maximum of 200 feet, but was flying higher at the time of the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board has recovered the cockpit voice and flight data recorders from the plane, and investigators hope to gather more clues on the cause of the crash from the helicopter’s recording devices.