Female Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Washington DC aircrash tragedy named Army captain Rebecca Lobach was former aide to President Joe Biden

 The female pilot killed in the Army helicopter collision with a passenger jet in Washington DC has been named as a former aide to President Joe Biden.

Captain Rebecca Lobach, 28, whose identity was kept secret, had served as an officer for almost six years and worked as an White House aide in the Biden administration.

She had been awarded the Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon. 

The decision to release her name came “at the request of and in coordination with the family”, according to a statement issued by the US Army.

“We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. She was a bright star in all our lives,” her family said in a statement released by the Army.

Rebecca Lobach in happier times

“Rebecca was a warrior and would not hesitate to defend her country in battle.”

The Black Hawk helicopter was conducting a training flight for Captain Lobach when it collided with an American Airlines passenger jet, killing 67 people.  

She was being overseen by Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Lloyd Eaves, who had more than 1,000 hours of flying experience and would have been expected to take over the controls in the event of an emergency.

All three soldiers on the Army aircraft were killed in the crash above Ronald Reagan National Airport, as well as the 64 passengers and crew on American Airlines flight 5342.

The crew chief of the helicopter has been identified as Ryan O’Hara, a 28-year-old father of one.

He would have sat in the back of the helicopter on its training mission through the congested airspace above Washington DC.

On Saturday, King Charles said he was “profoundly shocked and saddened” by the Washington plane crash in a tribute to victims and emergency services.

Divers continued to search the Potomac River for remains and crucial evidence that might help answer why the helicopter collided with the jet.

Rescuers expect to recover all of the remains, though the wreckage of the plane’s main body will probably have to be pulled from the water to get all the bodies, fire chief John Donnelly Sr said.

Donald Trump, the US president, has suggested the Army helicopter was to blame for the crash because it was “flying too high”.

The crew’s actions and the role of air traffic control are being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The investigations typically take at least a year, though investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.

At the time of the collision, one controller was managing traffic for both helicopters and planes, a job normally handled by two people, according to The New York Times. Staffing levels were “not normal”, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Other possible factors in the crash, including the helicopter’s altitude and whether the crew was using night-vision goggles, are still under investigation.

A key U.S. pilot messaging system was experiencing a temporary outage, which could lead to flight delays on Sunday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said late on Saturday.

The Federal Aviation Administration is working to restore the "Notice to Air Mission" or NOTAM system, Duffy said on X.

"There is currently no impact to the National Airspace System because a backup system is in place," Duffy said. "FAA has set up a hotline to communicate with aviation stakeholders and will send notices every 30 minutes with updates on the system's status."

Duffy said the FAA "activated its contingency system to supplement and support preflight briefings and continue flight operations... We are investigating the root cause and we will provide updates."

He said passengers should check with their carriers about the status of flights on Sunday, adding "there may be some residual delays tomorrow morning."

A January 2023 NOTAM outage led to the first nationwide U.S. groundstop since 2001, disrupting more than 11,000 flights.

The NOTAM system provides pilots, flight crews and other users of U.S. airspace with critical safety notices. It could include items like taxiway lights being out at an airport, nearby parachute activity or a specific runway being closed for construction.

A Southwest Airlines spokesperson said the carrier did not have any measurable delays late on Saturday "and we have people and processes in place if the situation continues into tomorrow."

Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), opens new tab and United Airlines (UAL.O), opens new tab said they were not experiencing problems early on Sunday. "All our operations continue as normal right now. We have up to date NOTAM info through backup procedures," a Delta spokesperson said.

The U.S. aviation system has faced a difficult week.

On Wednesday, an American Airlines AAL.O passenger jet and a military helicopter collided near Reagan Washington National Airport killing 67 people, the first fatal U.S. passenger airline crash since 2009 and the deadliest U.S. air disaster in two decades.

On Friday, a medevac plane crashed soon after takeoff in Philadelphia with a child and five others on board. All died as did a person on the ground, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said.

The U.S. Army on Saturday released the name of the third soldier who died on a Black Hawk helicopter that collided with an American Airlines passenger jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport this week, killing 67 people in all.

The soldier was identified as Captain Rebecca Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina. She was an aviation officer in the regular Army since 2019 and assigned to the 12th Aviation Battalion, Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

The Army had initially declined to identify Lobach, an unusual decision that the agency said was made at the request of the family.

But on Saturday the Army said in a statement that Lobach's family had agreed to release her name to the public.

"She was a bright star in all our lives," her family said in a statement, noting that she worked as an advocate for victims of sexual assault and planned to become a doctor after her military service. "No one dreamed bigger or worked harder to achieve her goals."

Meanwhile, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board have determined the CRJ700 airplane was at 325 feet (91 meters), plus or minus 25 feet, at the time of impact, officials said at a Saturday evening news briefing.

The information was based on data recovered from the jet's flight data recorder - the "black box" that tracks the aircraft's movements, speed and other parameters.

The new detail suggests the Army helicopter was flying above 200 feet (61 meters), the maximum altitude for the route it was using.

Preliminary data indicates the control tower's radar showed the helicopter at 200 feet at the time of the accident, though officials said the information has not been confirmed.

"That's what our job is, to figure that out," NTSB board member Todd Inman told reporters when asked what could explain the discrepancy.

Inman also said at Saturday's briefing that the helicopter's training flight would typically include the use of night-vision goggles.

"We do not know at this time if the night-vision goggles were actually being worn, nor what the setting may be," he said. "Further investigation should be able to let us know if that occurred and what factor it may play in the overall accident."

Data confirms that the air traffic controller alerted the helicopter to the presence of the CRJ700 about two minutes before the crash.

One second before impact, the crew aboard the American flight had a "verbal reaction," according to the plane's cockpit voice recorder, and flight data shows the plane's nose began to rise, officials said.

The official said an automated radio transmission alerted "traffic, traffic, traffic," was heard on the voice recorder and then sounds of the collision were heard before the recording ends.

The Army previously identified the other two soldiers killed in Wednesday's crash as Staff Sergeant Ryan Austin O'Hara, 28, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39. The names of the 60 passengers and four crew members who died on the jet have not been officially released, although many have been identified through family and social media.

Crews are preparing to remove the wreckage of the aircraft from the Potomac River starting on Sunday. Forty-two bodies have been recovered thus far, the Washington, D.C., fire department said on Saturday.

The Black Hawk helicopter that collided with a passenger jet in Washington on Wednesday was on a training flight along a route core to a seldom-discussed military mission to evacuate senior officials to safety in the event of an attack on the U.S., officials say.

The military mission, known as "continuity of government" and "continuity of operations," is meant to preserve the ability of the U.S. government to operate.

Most days, crews like the one killed on Wednesday transport VIPs around Washington, which is buzzing with helicopter traffic.

But U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed the Black Hawk crew's ties to the mission during a White House press conference on Thursday, saying they "were on a routine, annual re-training of night flights on a standard corridor for a continuity of government mission."

Still, little of such missions is publicly discussed.

The three soldiers killed in the collision were part of the 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, whose responsibilities in a national crisis include evacuating Pentagon officials. Another 64 people were killed in the passenger plane.

The Black Hawk crew, using night vision goggles, flew the training mission along the Potomac River on a path known as Route 4. As the Army comes under scrutiny for operating at night near a busy airport, officials have pointed to the battalion's sensitive operations.

"Some of their mission is to support the Department of Defense if something really bad happens in this area, and we need to move our senior leaders," said Jonathan Koziol, the chief of staff of the Army's Aviation Directorate.

SEPT. 11 EMERGENCY FLIGHTS

The most recent time the U.S. government is known to have activated a continuity of operations mission in an emergency was on Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda hijackers slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, killing almost 3,000 people.

Reuters was able to establish some of the activities of the 12th Aviation Battalion that day.

"The battalion helped transport some senior leaders out of Washington, D.C. to 'hide sites,'" Bradley Bowman, a former Army aviation officer who flew on Sept. 11 as part of the 12th Aviation Battalion.

That evening, Bowman flew a Black Hawk to pick up then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz at one of those sites and fly him back to the Pentagon.

There was just one problem -- the Pentagon's helicopter landing pad used to pick up and drop off VIPs was destroyed.

"We just repositioned and landed in the traffic circle of 395, which had been closed by that point," Bowman said, referring to I-395 highway that loops around the U.S. military's headquarters.

Wolfowitz was quoted in a 2017 book describing going to a "bizarre location that was prepared to survive nuclear war."

The book's author, Garrett Graff, said the site was called Raven Rock Mountain Complex, or "Site R," located just miles from Camp David. It remains one of three main backup facilities for the U.S. government, and the main one for the Pentagon leadership.

"It's 100 percent operational today. There's a team of maybe 100 personnel inside Raven Rock right now, ready to pick up the pieces of the U.S. government," Graff said.