The three soldiers who died in a mid-air collision over Washington, D.C. this week were experienced Army flyers, with over 1,500 flight hours between the two pilots and a crew chief who had earned Senior Aviator status.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland, and Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia were identified Friday by the Army as two of the three crew members of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that collided Wednesday night with an American Airlines passenger jet over the Potomac River.
The family of the third soldier, the crew’s junior pilot, requested that their name not be released by the Pentagon. A Pentagon official confirmed to Task & Purpose that the second pilot was a woman.
Eaves, who served in the Navy for a decade before joining the Army, was the flight’s senior pilot. O’Hara was the helicopter’s crew chief.
All three soldiers were assigned to the Army Military District of Washington’s 12th Aviation Battalion, which is tasked with transporting senior government officials around the Washington, D.C. area, known as the National Capital Region.
Authorities searching the river in which both aircraft crashed said they had recovered remains they believed were Eaves and were still searching for O’Hara and the second pilot.
Eaves served in the Navy for 10 years, switching to the Army to fly UH-60s in September 2017, the Pentagon said in a biographical sketch released Friday. He had over 1,000 flight hours on his record, according to Pentagon officials. His awards included both Army and Navy Commendation Medal, Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, and other awards typical for senior soldiers of his rank and time in service.
O’Hara joined the Army in 2014 as a UH-60 helicopter repairer, earning the Senior Aviation Badge, which requires non-pilot aircrew to amass seven years of flying experience and over 500 flight hours. Crew chiefs on Army helicopters securing cargo and passengers, fix mechanical issues, and act as the “eyes” of the pilots out for the sides and rear of the helicopter. According to the Pentagon, O’Hara deployed to Afghanistan from March 2017 to August 2017 and his awards include the Army Commendation Medal w/C Device, the Army Commendation Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal with campaign star, and the Senior Aviation Badge.
Uptick in Army crashes and mishaps
A slew of military and civilian investigators will spend the next several months determining why the Black Hawk and American Airlines Flight 5342 collided Wednesday night. Sixty-four people aboard the airliner were also killed in the deadliest crash on U.S. soil since November 2001.
Wednesday’s crash comes just after the Army had its highest number of annual serious aviation mishaps in a decade.
The crash was the first Class A aviation mishap for the Army in Fiscal Year 2025, which began in October, according to the Army Combat Readiness Center.
The military classifies any flying mishap as ‘Class A’ if it involves the loss of life or $2.5 million or more in damage.
The Army tracked 15 Class A mishaps in Fiscal Year 2024 – the highest in 10 years – compared with nine such mishaps in Fiscal Year 2023, four in Fiscal Year 2022, and seven in Fiscal Year 2021, according to the readiness center.
A ‘very experienced’ crew
All three Black Hawk crew members killed in Wednesday’s collision were “very experienced,” retired Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jonathan Koziol, the Army Aviation Directorate’s chief of staff, told reporters on Thursday.
“Even the crew chief in the back, has been in the unit for a very long time, very familiar with the area, very familiar with the routing structure,” Koziol said during a media roundtable. “So, we don’t see that at all as being any impact on what happened today or last night.”
Koziol, noted that Eaves, the pilot in command during the mission, had 1,000 flying hours, and the second pilot’s 500 flying hours made them an experienced crew.
“The 1,000-hour instructor pilots, that’s a lot of iterations of flying when the helicopter flies about two hours of flight,” Koziol said. “So, lots of flying time for that. And then, the pilot in command, the 500 hours, I can confirm that’s what we are tracking, is an experienced pilot in command and should—that’s normal. That’s a normal pilot, they’re experienced. I see no problem with that as a former standardization instructor pilot for the Army.”
Koziol explained that as the instructor pilot, Eaves would have been responsible for responding to emergency situations during the flight. He also said that both pilots had been with their unit for a while, so flying over the National Capital Region was not a new experience for them.
“That is part of their progression training that we call any pilot that comes to a new unit has to memorize the routes and be familiar with the area that they’re flying in,” Koziol said
In addition to transporting government officials, the 12th Aviation Battalion’s mission also includes supporting the Defense Department “if something really bad happens in this area, and we need to move our senior leaders,” Koziol said.
That’s why the unit’s aircrews need to understand the National Capital Region’s environment, the air traffic, and the specific routes they need to fly, he said.
“These are our top pilots doing this mission in the National Capital Region,” Koziol said.
When asked why the Army conducted Wednesday’s training mission before Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport had ceased operations for the night, Koziol said that “training happens 24 hours a day” and the 12th Aviation Battalion crews have to be ready to fly missions at all hours.
“So, they have to be comfortable dealing with air traffic control and understanding the environment,” Koziol said. “There are good control measures in place. Obviously, something didn’t go right for this incident. And obviously, everyone will learn from this.”
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