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At one point during an annual flight evaluation for Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach on Jan. 29, her Army helicopter instructor paused their conversation to emphasize an aviation fundamental.
“The whole point” of emergency procedure checklists, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves said as they flew their Black Hawk near Washington, D.C., “is ’cause we end up killing ourselves because we do something without confirming and verifying.”
His words, later revealed in a recovered cockpit voice recorder, were meant to be instructive. They turned out to be hauntingly predictive.
Less than an hour later, the helicopter crashed headlong into an American Airlines flight carrying 64 people on its way to Ronald Reagan National Airport, killing the two pilots, a fellow soldier who was riding in the back seat of the Black Hawk and everyone aboard the passenger jet.
As the two aircraft exploded into flames, an air traffic controller who had tried to guide the helicopter safely through the airspace soon saw he had failed. All the others’ lives had ended and his had changed forever.
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