A three-person Army Black Hawk helicopter crew may not have received accurate altitude readings in their cockpit or an important transmission from air traffic control before the deadly crash with a passenger aircraft over Washington, D.C., late last month, according to investigators.
During a press conference Friday afternoon, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters the Black Hawk helicopter, which was on a training qualification flight, was at approximately 278 feet altitude at the time of the crash, but added that there’s a possibility that the crew’s instruments may have shown something different.
“We are looking at the possibility that there may be bad data. … Were they seeing something different in the cockpit that differs from the [flight data record] data?” Homendy said. “It’s possible, but we have a lot of work to do until we get to that.”
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The details are some of the first to be revealed by the National Transportation Safety Board since the crash between American Eagle Flight 5342, a Bombardier CRJ, and the Black Hawk helicopter from Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion, out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, on Jan. 29, which killed the three soldiers and all 64 aboard the airplane.
Capt. Rebecca Lobach, 28, of Durham, North Carolina; Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland; and Staff Sgt. Ryan O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia, were all killed in the crash.
News about technical issues the flight crew may have encountered also stands in stark contrast to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump’s comments that the government’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies were potentially connected to the crash — which set off conspiracy theories online and led Lobach’s family to delay releasing their child’s name publicly amid fears of feeding the misinformation frenzy, Military.com previously reported.
“After privately grieving, the family recognized that waiting to release her name was feeding narratives that distracted from the incredible person and pilot that Rebecca was,” a person familiar with the family’s decision told Military.com following the crash.
Homendy told reporters about cockpit voice recorder data that detailed the potential discrepancies the pilots were experiencing.
“The pilot flying indicated they were at 300 feet. The instructor pilot indicated they were at 400 feet; neither pilot made a comment discussing an altitude discrepancy,” Homendy said. “At this time, we don’t know why there was a discrepancy between the two. That’s something that the investigative team is analyzing.”
Sean Payne, the branch chief of the NTSB’s vehicle recorder division, told reporters the group was working to figure out what the Black Hawk helicopter’s internal gauges read. which includes reaching out to the Army as well as Sikorsky Aircraft and Collins Aviation — companies that build and manufacture components for the chopper.
“We are working to determine if this bad data for pressure altitude only affected the [flight data record], or if it was more pervasive throughout the helicopter’s other systems. We will have an answer to what altitude the pilots saw in their gauges as they were flying,” Payne said.
In addition to the potential issue with the gauges, the NTSB officials also detailed that a transmission from the air traffic control flight tower may not have been received by the crew just 17 seconds before the crash.
“A Radio transmission from the tower was audible on both [cockpit voice recorders] directing the Black Hawk to pass behind the CRJ,” Homendy said. “[Cockpit Voice Recorder] data from the Black Hawk indicated that the portion of the transmission that stated ‘pass behind the’ may not have been received by the Black Hawk crew.”
Homendy explained that the part of the transmission “was stepped on” by an eighth of a second mic key from the Black Hawk responding back to the tower.
The NTSB officials also told reporters that the crew was likely wearing night-vision goggles as part of the pilot’s flight assessment. If the crew planned to remove them, they would have needed to discuss the decision, a conversation that was not heard on voice recording data.
“Had they been removed, the crew was required to have a discussion about going unaided. There is no evidence on the cockpit voice recorder, or CVR, of such a discussion,” Homendy added.
A preliminary report into the crash by the NTSB is expected later this month, and a final, more exhaustive report could take anywhere from one to two years, according to the board’s website.
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