Did the Black Hawk helicopter involved in the fatal plane crash at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on January 29, 2025, have a senior military official on board? No, that's not true: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that the helicopter involved in the collision over the Potomac River was conducting annual retraining for a "Continuity of Government" mission that would be set into action in the event of a national emergency. If this had been an actual Continuity of Government mission, not a training flight, there would have been a high-ranking military official in the helicopter.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on January 29, 2025. The post's caption began:
🚨#BREAKING! The Blackhawk did NOT have its transponder on apparently, and was designated as a 'PAT' (Priority Air Transport)
That means that there was a very high ranking Military Official on board the helicopter!
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Thu Jan 30 16:14:24 2025 UTC)
This post provided no evidence to support the assertion that the helicopter involved in the fatal plane crash had a senior military official on the flight.
Secretary of Defense
At a January 30, 2025, news conference (archived here), Hegseth said there was no high-ranking military official on board:
[They were] on a routine annual retraining of night flights on a standard corridor for a Continuity of Government mission. The military does dangerous things; it does routine things on the regular basis.
Continuity of Government is the plan to keep the government functioning if there's a big disaster or attack on Washington, D.C., the White House website (archived here) says. As part of this plan, every federal government agency must have a strategy for moving people out of the D.C. area and keeping things running smoothly.
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
Lead Stories previously debunked a claim that the helicopter was "flying dark" by not using an ADS-B transponder. That story is here.
More Lead Stories fact checks on claims concerning the Flight 5342 plane and helicopter crash can be found here.
