Speculation mounts as the US Army refuses to release the name of one of the soldiers that was aboard a Black Hawk helicopter when it collided with a passenger plane.
Pilot in charge Chief Warrant Office 2 Andrew Eaves and crew chief Staff Sergeant Ryan O’Hara were named on Friday as those on board the helicopter.
The third person onboard, a female co-pilot, has remained anonymous as the Army has refused to identify them at the request of the family.
‘At the request of the family, the name of the third soldier will not be released at this time,’ the US Army said.
O’Hara and the co-pilot’s bodies have been recovered but Eaves is still in the water along with several of the airline passengers.
Relatives are entitled to do this although it is extremely unusual, with the New York Times branding the decision to withhold the name an ‘extraordinary step’.
Why the co-pilot’s family requested her name be withheld, and why the US Army acquiesced, is unclear.
Military personnel killed in accidents or combat are usually made public 24 hours after their families are notified, making withholding her name very unusual.
She had about 500 hours of flying of experience, which is considered a ‘normal’ amount, and her ‘very experienced’ colleagues had about 1,000 hours.
Maj. Gen. Trevor J. Bredenkamp paid tribute to the trio, saying: ‘Our deepest condolences go out to all the families and friends impacted during this tragedy, and we will support them through this difficult time.
‘Our top priority is to assist in the recovery efforts, while fully cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and other investigative agencies to determine the cause of this tragic incident.’
Eaves’ devastated wife, Carrie, said: ‘I am sure by now all of you have heard the news of the tragedy that has occurred in DC.
‘My husband was one of the pilots in the Blackhawk. We ask that you pray for our family and friends and for all the other families that are suffering today. We ask for peace while we grieve.’
She has shared several photos of Eaves, one of which he was in uniform, and asked her friends to share any pictures they may have of him in his memory.
O’Hara, a father-of-one from Georgia, left behind a wife and a one-year-old son, and was remembered fondly by his his school as a beloved member of the rifle team.
His father, Gary, was watching television on the couch at his Midway, Georgia, home on Wednesday when he saw the news on the collision.
He told the Washington Post: ‘I just had a gut feeling when I saw the story breaking.’
‘His mother and I and his sister are just absolutely devastated to think we were talking to him just yesterday and we’ll never have the opportunity to talk with him again.’
Officials have confirmed that the three soldiers had been rehearsing a plan that involves the evacuation of the White House when their Black Hawk collided with the passenger jet.
It has also emerged that the helicopter involved in the collision might have also deviated from its approved flight path.
The New York Times spoke with insiders that said the Sikorsky H-60 helicopter was not on its approved route and flying higher than it should have been.
Approval had been given for the helicopter to fly no higher than 200 feet along the east side of the Potomac River, where it would have avoided the passenger jet.
The pilot of the helicopter confirmed sight of the American Airlines flight and was told to stick to their predetermined route and go behind the plane.
Sources said the pilot did not stick to the path however and was a half-mile off course as well as being at an altitude above 300 feet.
A senior Army official told The Times that the pilot of the Black Hawk had flown the route before and was well aware of the tight altitude restrictions and routes.
An investigation into what caused Wednesday night’s collision with an American Eagle plane carrying 64 people is ongoing.
The two aircraft had collided in a huge fireball that was visible on dashcams of cars driving on highways near the airport before it plunged into the river.
The black box recorder from the helicopter, which contains both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data receiver, was found amidst the wreckage on Friday.
On Thursday night, salvage teams had managed to retrieve both of the black boxes from the American Airlines flight.
Both aircraft plunged into the Potomac River below, with all 64 people on the plane and three on the chopper dying as a result.
Following the horrifying scenes on Wednesday night, it has since emerged that there was staffing issues inside the control tower of Ronald Reagan National Airport.
The FAA have found in their preliminary report that it was ‘not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic’.
On Wednesday, an air traffic controller was left to handle both helicopter traffic and manage planes – which should have been a divided duty – according to The New York Times.
Those tasks are usually handled between two people from 10am until 9:30pm, according to the report.
After 9:30pm the duties are typically combined and left to one person as the airport sees less traffic later in the night.
A supervisor reportedly decided to combine those duties before the scheduled cutoff time however, and allowed one air traffic controller to leave work early.
Reagan National has been understaffed for many years, with just 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023 – well below the target of 30 – according to the most recent Air Traffic Controller Workforce Plan submitted to Congress.
The situation appeared to have improved since then, as a source told CNN the Reagan National control tower was 85 percent staffed with 24 of 28 positions filled.
Chronic understaffing at air traffic control towers is nothing new, with well-known causes including high turnover and budget cuts.
In order to fill the gaps, controllers are frequently asked to work 10-hour days, six days a week.
DailyMail.com has also spoken with an air traffic control veteran who said the audio from the incident with instructions to the helicopter were ‘very ambiguous’.
In the nearly minute-and-a-half recording, ATC operators can be heard asking the helicopter if the commercial flight is in sight.
Through muffled audio, more commands and confirmations are made between ATC operators.
One air traffic controller said to the helicopter pilot: ‘PAT 2-5, do you have the CRJ in sight?’
Seconds later, the controller spoke again, requesting: ‘Pat 2-5 pass behind the CRJ.’
The veteran air traffic controller, who has worked in six different airports throughout the country, said that if those commands were the Black Hawk’s first reference to the plane, the instructions were unclear.
‘It would have been very ambiguous as far as, “Okay, what plane? Well, where am I looking?”‘ he said.
‘Whenever you give directions to people, we use the 12 points on a clock. Let’s say 12 o’clock is north. If I say, “Look to your nine o’clock” that would mean look to your left or to the west.
‘So, if I had a helicopter that was coming into my airspace and I wanted him to see an airplane, I would say, “PAT 2-5 traffic, nine o’clock, three miles regional jet inbound to the airport.”‘
He noted that air traffic controllers have a massive responsibility to give accurate and detailed information to pilots.
In an situation eerily similar to what happened on Wednesday night, a Republic Airways flight had to abort landing at the airport on Tuesday after a helicopter appeared near its flight path.
Flightradar data for the flight shows the plane had been travelling from Windsor Locks in Connecticut to the city and had to dramatically gain altitude shortly after descending on Reagan National Airport. It eventually landed safely.