U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that the mid-air collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter Wednesday night occurred when the helicopter was on a routine training mission, but added that “a mistake was made” during the exercise, reports UNN citing CNN.
“There are no excuses. We're going to get to the bottom of this,” the secretary said from the White House on Thursday.
The helicopter with three soldiers was involved in “routine annual training for night flights along a standard corridor to ensure continuity of the government mission,” the minister said.
“The military does dangerous things. They do everyday things on a regular basis. Unfortunately, a mistake was made last night,” Hegseth said.
“There was some ... sort of an altitude issue that we immediately began investigating at the Department of Defense and Army level,” he said.
Recall
American Eagle airplane with 64 passengers collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan Airport.
No survivors: Trump on plane crash in Washington, D.C30.01.2025, 18:38