The Black Hawk helicopter that collided with a Washington passenger plane last Wednesday (29) was on a training flight along a route to a rarely discussed military mission-the transport of important authorities to a place Insurance for an attack on the United States – authorities said.
The military mission, known as “continuity of government” and “continuity of operations”, aims to preserve the US government’s operating capacity.
Most days, teams like the one who was killed on Wednesday carry VIPs through Washington, full of helicopter traffic.
But US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, revealed the Black Hawk crew bonds with the mission during a press conference last Thursday (30), saying that they “were in an annual retreatment routine of night flights to a standard corridor for a government continuity mission. ”
Still, little of these missions is discussed publicly.
The three soldiers killed in the collision were part of the 12th Fort Belvoir Aviation Battalion in Virginia, whose responsibilities in a national crisis include the withdrawal of Pentagon’s authorities. Another 64 people died on the passenger plane.
The Black Hawk crew, which wore night vision glasses, performed the training flight along the Potomac River in a path known as Route 4. As the army is investigated by operating at night near a busy airport, authorities They have pointed to the Battalion sensitive operations.
“Part of your mission is to support the Defense Department if something really bad happens in this area and we have to move our senior leaders,” said Jonathan Kozol, chief of staff of the Army Aviation Board.
September 11 Emergency Flights
The last time it is known that the US government has activated a mission to continue operations in an emergency was on September 11, 2001, when al Qaeda kidnappers played planes against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, killing almost 3,000 people.
Reuters was able to establish some of the activities of the 12th Aviation Battalion that day.
“The Battalion helped transport some senior leaders out of Washington, DC, to ‘hiding places,” Bradley Bowman, former army aviation officer, told September 11 as part of the 12th Aviation Battalion.
That night Bowman flew on a Black Hawk to catch then-defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz in one of these places and take him back to the Pentagon.
This content was originally published in the US: helicopter that hit plane trained for survival mission on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
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