That long night after the 9 p.m. collision and explosion of the American Airlines jet and the Black Hawk helicopter over the dark and freezing Potomac River was a very sad and long wait not just for the families of the 67 victims but for all of America and the world glued to cable TV and YouTube who waited along, praying for survivors, then for the recovery of bodies, and of the black boxes, wanting needing to know what went wrong, what brought on that horrible collision.  Impossible not to feel for, care about, the dead and the bereaved, even from far away.

The three soldiers killed in the collision were part of the 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, whose responsibilities in a national crisis include evacuating Pentagon officials….

“Some of their mission is to support the Department of Defense if something really bad happens in this area, and we need to move our senior leaders,” said Jonathan Koziol, the chief of staff of the Army’s Aviation Directorate. https://www.reuters.com/world/

President Donald Trump was quick to weigh in via social media.

Taking to Truth Social, President Trump questioned how such an incident could have occurred, posting: “The airplane was on a perfect and routine line of approach to the airport. The helicopter was going straight at the airplane for an extended period of time. It is a CLEAR NIGHT, the lights on the plane were blazing. Why didn’t the helicopter go up or down, or turn? Why didn’t the control tower tell the helicopter what to do instead of asking if they saw the plane? This is a bad situation that looks like it should have been prevented. NOT GOOD.” https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/

“The Blackhawk helicopter was flying too high, by a lot. It was far above the 200 foot limit. That’s not really too complicated to understand, is it???” Trump said in a Truth Social post.  https://www.reuters.com/

At the Thursday morning presscon, he asserted that the pilots had failed.

“You had a pilot problem from the standpoint of the helicopter,” he said. “I mean, because it was visual. It was a very clear night.” The helicopter, he said, “had the ability to stop. 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.” https://www.nytimes.com/

Everything’s still under investigation, of course, but Trump’s also sure it has to do with DiversityEquityInclusion policies that may have led to the hiring of not-white and therefore not-too-bright personnel, or something to that effect, which had me wondering if the Hawk’s pilot and/or co-pilot and/or crew-of-one was black or brown or other hyphenated American or female or queer or differently-abled.

Another day later we learn that all three were white — one woman (co-pilot https://edition.cnn.com/ and two men (pilot and crew) — and quite able. But also, that both the Hawk and air traffic control were understaffed.

Speaking to MSNBC, retired Army Lt. Col. Darin Gaub said video of the collision appeared to show that the helicopter did not appear to change course, speed or altitude before the crash, indicating the crew may not have known the passenger jet was in its path.

He added that the training mission had fewer crew chiefs than normal to scan the sky for potential dangers. While such missions typically have three, he said, Wednesday’s had one.

“That’s a fact,” he said. “It may have bearing in the future. It may not. But it does reduce ability of crew to identify an aircraft in flight at night.” https://www.nbcnews.com/

There was reportedly only one air traffic controller responsible for coordinating helicopter and plane traffic, The Associated Press and others reported Thursday. The work at Reagan National airport, which was coordinating the flights, is usually assigned to two people and the configuration was “not normal.” https://news3lv.com/news/

Moving on from Trump’s DEI spin, America’s back to the question of why the Hawk was flying higher than protocols allowed. Human error? Mechanical failure? https://www.yahoo.com/news/

I got to thinking that maybe we should could just be glad that there’s no hint of terrorism, or there’s no first rush to rule it out — unintentional, though deadly, violence is much easier for hearts and minds to deal with. But then a little more browsing led me to this:  “Was American Airlines plane crash a terrorist act? Trump fuels conspiracy frenzy with ‘CLEAR NIGHT’ remark”. 

Conspiracy Theories Take Flight

Trump’s comments helped ignite a storm of speculation online. Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman contributed to the theories, writing in a now-deleted post on X (formerly Twitter), “How does an incredibly manoeuvrable military helicopter fly into a regional aircraft by accident with all of the sensors and warning devices designed to prevent an accident like this one? It sounds more like terrorism than an accident.”

Ackman later deleted the comment but left up a repost of an air traffic control video that allegedly showed a collision alert warning for over 30 seconds before the crash.

Meanwhile, Reddit users questioned whether the helicopter had been transporting a VIP passenger, pointing out that it had a gold top—a marker often associated with aircraft used for high-ranking officials. However, a U.S. Department of Defense official confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that no senior U.S. officials were on board.

Similarly, ex-soccer player Taylor Twellman attempted to dissect the crash scene on Instagram. Uploading a clip of the tragedy, he captioned the post: “You can’t tell me this isn’t suspicious. My heart aches for those on that plane. Literally everyone’s worst nightmare.” He, too, ultimately was left with no choice but to delete the post as other social media users criticised him for fuelling conspiracy theories at a fragile time. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

A fragile time, indeed. On all fronts.