The U.S. Army has identified Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, as one of three soldiers killed when a Black Hawk military helicopter collided in midair with an American Airlines jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Jan. 29.
“We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca,“ Lobach’s family said in a statement included in the Army’s Feb. 1 statement. “She was a bright star in all our lives. She was kind, generous, brilliant, funny, ambitious and strong. No one dreamed bigger or worked harder to achieve her goals.”
Lobach is the last of the three soldiers aboard the helicopter to be identified. The Army had identified the other two soldiers on Jan. 31 as Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara and Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Lloyd Eaves.
O'Hara was a crew chief and Lloyd Eaves was a pilot.
The three soldiers were assigned to the 12th Aviation Battalion out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
Efforts to recover and identify the bodies of others killed in the collision are ongoing.
Sixty passengers and four airline crew members were on board the airliner when it collided with the military helicopter. Authorities have concluded that all of the people aboard both aircraft were killed.
The Army did not specify exactly why there was a delay in identifying Lobach as the third soldier involved in the midair collision.
Questions about the collision have focused on the height of the helicopter during the incident.
The National Transportation Safety Board has recovered the black boxes from the crashed military helicopter and commercial airliner and are reviewing the final flight data recorded on the devices to better determine what led to the collision.
Lobach had more than 450 hours of flight time and was certified as a pilot-in-command “after extensive testing by the most senior and experienced pilots in her battalion,” according to the statement from her family, who also said she was a distinguished military graduate in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at the University of North Carolina and among the top 20 percent of cadets nationwide.
In addition to her aviation duties, Lobach had also served as a White House military social aide and volunteered in support of past White House events, according to her family. Lobach also worked as a certified sexual harassment/assault response and prevention victim advocate in the Army and hoped to become a physician after concluding her Army service.
