Downed Black Hawk Was Practicing Secretive Evacuation Plans
There was a civilian airliner flying over the Potomac River on Wednesday evening.
The unit of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, the 12th Aviation Battalion, has a special task - rapidly relocating high-ranking US officials to secure locations like one in Pennsylvania in case of an emergency or an attack on the US government.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated in a Fox News interview on Friday that the helicopter was engaging in a "continuity of government" drill, allowing the pilots to "practice in ways that would mirror a real-world scenario." He chose not to provide further information, explaining that he didn't want to discuss "anything classified."
The government doesn't reveal details about its emergency evacuation plans for top officials, but they probably involve the use of Raven Rock Mountain, a Pennsylvania facility that's been utilized since the 1950s as a backup command center in case of a nuclear war.
The plans for maintaining government operations in case of a crisis are among the US Department of Defense's most closely guarded secrets," said Mark Cancian, a defense analyst who monitors Pentagon operations with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "These plans outline who would be evacuated, how it would be done, and where they would relocate to.
The person in charge of the mission, President Donald Trump, seemed to be caught off guard by its purpose. At a press conference on Wednesday, he was asked to clarify comments made by Hegseth about the plans for maintaining government operations.
He's not sure what that refers to,
The significance of the 12th's mission is why the Pentagon has continued flying practices in the busy skies around Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, even as flights going into and out of the airport have increased in recent years.
The Government Accountability Office reported in 2021 that there had been more than 88,000 helicopter flights in the area from 2017 to 2019. Of those, about 37 percent were military flights. The report was requested by local lawmakers due to numerous complaints about the noise from the flights.
The accident, which claimed the lives of 64 people on the American Airlines plane and the three members of the helicopter's crew, will likely face intense scrutiny of all air traffic. On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily suspended flights, potentially halting one of the unit's operations – VIP flights for high-ranking government officials.
Hegseth stated at a White House briefing on Thursday that the crew was "on a routine annual re-training of night flights on a standard corridor for a continuity of government mission." The helicopter was based at Davison Army Airfield in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
"Our mission includes supporting the Department of Defense in case of a serious emergency in this region, allowing us to swiftly move our top leaders," Jonathan Koziol, the chief of staff for the Army's aviation directorate, explained to reporters on Thursday.
The initial funding initially supported nighttime flights of 10 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Later in the year, the Army noted that "the facilities are currently undergoing renovation," with the goal of an "enduring mission."
Lawmakers Request
Several state legislators from Virginia and Maryland, and the District of Columbia's representative, sent a letter to Hegseth asking him to "keep the current operational pause in place," or to move the unit away from the airport area, until a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board is released.
After reviewing the National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary report, the representatives asked the Army to reassess its methods, according to the report, "to permanently relocate such helicopter training out of the National Capital Region's airspace, or, at the very least," to reroute training flights with specified exceptions.
With assistance from Courtney McBride.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last year instructed states and businesses to assist in ceasing spurious reviews, specifically focusing on Amazon, Google, Yelp and Facebook.
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