Rebecca Loach

Female helicopter pilot responsible for the death of 70 people.

It was a regular training flight.

Rebecca Loach was a co-pilot undergoing her annual evaluation for night flying.

Runway 33 is where Air Traffic Control told the passenger jet (CRJ) to land.

The Black Hawk appeared to confuse the passenger jet with another plane landing at Runway 1 — which is why the pilot-in-command confirmed seeing the CRJ and requesting “visual separation,” or essentially saying he would avoid it.

The CRJ was circling to land and making a left turn at the time. The Black Hawk was in its blind spot.

The instructor pilot had just under 1,000 flying hours. He was former Navy. The co-pilot had around 500 hours, and the crew chief — who served on multiple combat tours — around 1,000 hours. They had flown these same routes for at least three years.

It was not unusual to have three crew members on a Black Hawk. There’s only four for certain mission sets. Whether the crew chief saw the CRJ would have depended on which side he was sitting on.

It was a dark night, with no moon.

Air Traffic Control could have told the Black Hawk to hold north, or diverted it.