Final Black Hawk helicopter crew member identified in deadly DCA crash : NPR

Capt. Rebecca Lobach smiles in the cockpit of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, Feb. 28, 2024. 

Samantha Brown

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Samantha Brown

The Army released the name of the third crew member of the Black Hawk helicopter that slammed into an American Airlines-affiliated flight above the Potomac River this week, killing 67 people.

Captain Rebecca Lobach was 28 years old and a native of Durham, N.C. She was a distinguished military graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and commissioned in 2019 as an active-duty aviation officer.

She died along with fellow pilot Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Md. and crew member Staff Sergeant Ryan O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Ga.

Initially, her family asked the Army to withhold her name asking for privacy. Such a move is unusual in such accidents or combat deaths.

Lobach had 500 hours of flight time, considered normal, while Eaves had 1,000 hours, deemed experienced.

Lobach’s best friend, First Lieutenant Samantha Brown, an active-duty field artillery soldier, described her as brilliant, dedicated and a fierce competitor.

Brown said she would march 12 miles with a 45 pound pack, at a pace faster than the standard for infantry soldiers. Lobach hoped to fly her Black Hawk at some point on a combat deployment and dreamed of one day becoming a doctor.

All three soldiers were on a training flight out of Fort Belvoir, Va., just south of Washington, at the time of the accident.

In a prepared statement, the Lobach family said, “We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. She was a bright star in all our lives. She was kind, generous, brilliant, funny, ambitious and strong. No one dreamed bigger or worked harder to achieve her goals.”

Reduced margin for error

“Initial indications suggest this may have been a checkride, or periodic evaluation by an experienced instructor pilot of a less experienced pilot,” said Brad Bowman, a military analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Black Hawk pilot who after the 9/11 attacks flew out of Fort Belvoir on the same routes

“A checkride, as opposed to a normal training flight, creates some unique dynamics in the cockpit. In a checkride, the less experienced pilot can be nervous and eager to not make mistakes, while the instructor pilot is watching to see how the other pilot responds to different developments,” Bowman explained. “Sometimes an instructor pilot will test the less experienced aviator to see how they respond, but such a technique would have been unusual and inadvisable in that location given the reduced margin for error.”

The aircraft is supposed to maintain a height of 200 feet, but officials who were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation told NPR that the Black Hawk may have been more than 100 feet higher.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has acknowledged that there may have been an elevation issue with the Black Hawk.

Officials said the tower at Reagan National Airport alerted the Black Hawk to the presence of American Eagle Flight 5342 on two occasions: once two minutes before the crash, the second one just 12 seconds before impact.

Investigators have recovered the black boxes from both aircraft and are still recovering the bodies.

The FAA has restricted all helicopter traffic along the route to Medevacs and VIP flights.

Diversity disinformation

The Black Hawk crash ushered in a wave of disinformation from social media focusing on diversity, inclusion and equity, or DEI. The Trump administration, including Hegseth, has pledged to wipe out diversity efforts across the government.

There were claims the female pilot was a transgender pilot from the Virginia National Guard named Jo Ellis. Ellis has posted a “proof of life” video on Facebook, denouncing the rumors and offering condolences to those killed in the crash.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., herself a decorated former Black Hawk pilot, told NPR she understood why the family initially declined to make their loved one’s name public.

“ We should be respecting the family’s wishes at a time when they have suffered an unbelievable loss,” Duckworth said. “I think it is a perfectly legitimate request the family would make. And I’m glad that the Army is honoring that request.”

Duckworth condemned the online speculation about the third member of the crew and especially President Trump’s musings that the Army crew was to blame. Speaking at the White House briefing room on Thursday, the President said, “I have helicopters. You can stop a helicopter very quickly. It had the ability to go up or down. It had the ability to turn, and the turn it made was not the correct turn, obviously.”

“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,” Duckworth said of Trump’s comments. “And I am just sick to my stomach that we would have a president who would say such things about the heroic men and women who serve every single day.” 

Editor’s Note: Brad Bowman is of no relation to NPR’s Tom Bowman.