Was the military helicopter involved in the plane crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on January 29, 2025, unmanned or remotely controlled? No, that's not true: An Army spokesperson told Lead Stories, "The Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was not unmanned or remotely controlled." Officials previously stated that the helicopter had a three-person crew at the time of the accident.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on January 29, 2025, with the caption:
Blackhawks can be remotely controlled, meaning the helo could have been used as a guided missile to take out the jet. Who was on that plane?
The post linked to a February 8, 2022, news release (archived here) from defense contractor Lockheed Martin, the helicopter's manufacturer, titled:
Safe, Reliable, and Uninhabited: First Autonomous BLACK HAWK® Helicopter Flight
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Jan 31 18:23:10 2025 UTC)
This post provided no evidence to support the assertion that the military helicopter was unmanned or remotely controlled when the accident occurred. It merely suggested it was possible.
U.S. Army
In a January 31, 2025, email, Heather Chairez, a spokesperson for the Joint Task Force-National Capitol Region/Army Military District of Washington (JTF-NCR/MDW), told Lead Stories that the claim was false. She wrote:
The Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was not unmanned or remotely controlled.
Military officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (archived here), previously said the helicopter had a crew of three at the time of the accident.
In a January 31, 2025, news release, JTF-NCR/MDW identified two of them as Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O'Hara and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves. The family of the third soldier requested that their loved one's name not be released.
Below is how the press release appeared:
(Source: Email screenshot created Fri Jan 20:52:22 2025 UTC)
Flight background
American Airlines reported (archived here) that a Bombardier CRJ700 plane (Flight 5342), flying for their regional airline American Eagle, was involved in an accident over the Potomac River on January 29, 2025, around 9 p.m. while approaching Reagan National Airport. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (archived here), the plane collided with an Army UH-60 helicopter carrying three crewmembers. There were no survivors.
Read more
More Lead Stories fact checks on claims concerning the Flight 5342 plane and helicopter crash can be found here.
