Jonathan Koziol, a retired Army chief warrant officer with more than 30 years of flight experience, told reporters that the flight was a nighttime qualification flight with an instructor pilot evaluating an experienced pilot on the flight routes that their unit routinely flies day and night around the Potomac River.

Ryan O'Hara, 29, was the crew chief of the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with the passenger plane, according to CBS News. He leaves behind a wife and one-year-old son, his local Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program said in a social media post confirming his death.