Does an image in a social media post show one of the Black Hawk helicopter pilots killed in the January 2025 Washington, D.C., aircraft collision as she worked on the White House staff for two years "instead of flying"? No, that's not true: The person singled out in the image is not Rebecca Lobach, one of the soldiers participating in the training exercise that resulted in the midair collision. The photo is of a press assistant who worked in the administration of former President Joe Biden.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on Threads on February 2, 2025. The post included an image of Biden with what appeared to be a group of White House employees, one of them with a red circle drawn around her. The caption read:
BLACK HAWK PILOT: She spent the last two years at the White House instead of flying? Why?
This is what the post looked like on Threads at the time of writing:
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Mon Feb 3 20:47:17 2025 UTC)
Photo does not show Rebecca Lobach
Lead Stories did a reverse image search of the photo on TinEye (archived here). The result from the search led to the unedited version of the photo, which appeared on Fox News' website (archived here). The Fox News article explains that the image was posted by Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary for the Biden administration, and published on X on January 3, 2025 (archived here). Jean-Pierre also posted the image on Instagram on January 2, 2025. In the post made on Instagram, Jean-Pierre said:
Here's to the best team in the business. I couldn't do it without you. Final 18 days, let's run through the tape. Thanks for the capture @cameronsmithphoto
#thewestwing #potus #whitehouse
A screenshot of the post is included below:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Mon Feb 3 19:06:26 2025 UTC)
Jean-Pierre did not name the people shown in the image, but she did tag their Instagram accounts. Lead Stories identified the woman in the photo, who the Threads post claimed to be a Black Hawk helicopter pilot, as Chloe Kellison (archived here), a former press assistant in the Biden administration. We contacted Kellison for comment on the claim and will update this story with any relevant response.
Lobach was an Army aviation officer
In a press release (archived here) published by the U.S. Army Public Affairs on February 1, 2025, Lobach was identified as one of the three soldiers who died in the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport aircraft collision on January 29, 2025. The press release noted that Lobach was "an aviation officer (15A) in the regular Army from July 2019 to January 2025." A screenshot of the image of Lobach included in the press release is shown below:
(Screenshot: U.S. Army screenshot taken on Mon Feb 3 22:35:31 2025 UTC)
The Associated Press published an article on February 2, 2025 (archived here), showing images of Lobach attending the Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony held on January 4, 2025. She escorted fashion designer and medal recipient Ralph Lauren (archived here) during the event in her role as a White House military social aide (archived here). Biden was also seen in the background of the images but was not shown directly interacting with Lobach.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims related to the D.C. plane crash can be found here.
