Army pilot missed instructor’s warning seconds before crash

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The Army Black Hawk pilot involved in a mid-air collision with a plane in Washington, D.C., failed to heed her instructor’s warning 15 seconds before the deadly crash.

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There is still no answer as to why the U.S. Army Black Hawk continued flying towards an American Airlines passenger jet near Reagan National Airport, killing 67 people, just before 9 p.m. on Jan. 29.

But moments before the crash, Capt. Rebecca Lobach missed an order from co-pilot Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Eaves — an Army flight instructor who was overseeing her training mission — to change course and avoid the plane that was trying to descend, the New York Times reported.

The Times, which used dozens of records and interviews with aviation experts for its investigation, noted that it appeared several mistakes were made by the Black Hawk crew, which also included Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara.

Officials found that “some of the controller’s instructions were ‘stepped on’ — meaning that they cut out when the helicopter crew pressed a microphone to speak — and important information likely went unheard” over the radio, according to the publication.

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It was also reported that aviation experts believe the controller did not issue “clear, urgent instructions to the Black Hawk to avert the crash.”

At 8:46 p.m., Eaves requested and received approval for the helicopter’s pilots to use their own visuals instead of air-traffic control to avoid other air traffic — a move that is common practice to speed things up, but also comes with the risk of more human error.

Investigators believe that during that moment, Eaves and Lobach failed to hear that the American Airlines plane was “circling” because one of them was pressing the microphone key to speak to air traffic control when the message came through.

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Just 20 seconds before the crash occurred at 8:47:59 p.m., the air-traffic controller asked the chopper pilots spotted American Airlines flight 5342, which was coming up on Runway 33 — where the helicopter was approaching.

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“PAT two-five, do you have the CRJ in sight?” he asked, using the abbreviation for the American Airlines aircraft, in the last communication between the plane and air-traffic control.

The passenger jet, flying in from Wichita, Kansas, was preparing to land in D.C. when it collided with the military chopper, sending both aircrafts plunging into the Potomac River.

“There is no indication that (Capt. Rebecca Lobach) was suffering from health issues at the time or that a medical event affected her during those final moments aboard the Black Hawk, according to friends and people familiar with the crash investigation, which included autopsies and performance log reviews,” the Times noted.

Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, the army’s director of aviation, told the outlet that he believes investigators will find that a number of things contributed to the fatal crash.

“I think what we’ll find in the end is there were multiple things that, had any one of them changed, it could have well changed the outcome of that evening.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement to the Times that it could not discuss “any aspect” of the ongoing investigation being led by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The final report on the causes of the crash won’t be released until 2026.

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