The New York Times "investigates" the DC jet crash - and buries the truth it finds

The Times managed to blame everything for the crash. Except that the (female) pilot of the military helicopter that hit the plane was warned to change course. She didn't. And almost 70 people died.

The New York Times cannot stop mangling the truth to serve its political goals.

On Sunday, the paper exhaustively examined the collision between an Army Black Hawk and an American Airlines jet that killed 67 people over the Potomac in January.

The massive 4,000-word article claimed the crash had many causes, including an overworked air traffic controller. “Missteps, Equipment Problems and a Common but Risky Practice Led to a Fatal Crash,” the Times proclaimed.

Except that’s not really what happened. Or what the Times found.

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(The truth, even when it’s politically uncomfortable. That’s the only way I know how to write.)

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Yes, the controller was busy. Yes, the Black Hawk pilots wore night-vision goggles that can, ironically, complicate seeing in cities with lots of ambient light.

Those choices and problems raised the risks of an accident.

But despite all the words the Times devoted to explaining the crash, its root cause was simple. The Black Hawk was flying too high. It flew directly into the CRJ700 regional jet. The plane’s pilots and passengers had no chance.

That’s the reality. The second reality is that an inexperienced female Army pilot, Capt. Rebecca Lobach, 28, (CORRECTION: original article said 36) was at the controls of the Black Hawk when it hit the CRJ700, on a training and evaluation mission.

What the Times actually found, the news in the article, is that the Lobach’s copilot repeatedly warned her the helicopter needed to descend in the minutes before the accident. Just seconds before the crash, he suggested she tack left, a path that would likely have avoided the jet.

She didn’t respond.

In other words, the story here is that Lobach — who had never deployed overseas but had volunteered in the Biden White House and whose obituary prominently called her a certified advocate for “sexual harassment” victims — flew her helicopter into a passenger jet and killed 67 people, including herself.

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(One way to look at it)

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Along the way she disregarded the words of her copilot, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, who was in charge of evaluating her that January night.

As the Times explained:

[Four minutes before the accident], as the helicopter approached the Key Bridge, from which it would fly south along the [Potomac] river, Warrant Officer Eaves stated that it was at 300 feet and descending to 200 feet — necessary because the maximum height for its route closer to the airport had dropped to 200 feet.

But even as it reached that juncture, Warrant Officer Eaves evidently felt obligated to repeat his instruction: The Black Hawk was at 300 feet, he said, and needed to descend.

Captain Lobach said she would. But two and a half minutes later, the Black Hawk still was above 200 feet — a dangerously high level…

Eaves had far more experience flying than Lobach, with more than twice as many hours in the air. Theoretically, as the evaluator on the training mission, he could have taken the controls from her at any time, even though she was in the left, or command, seat.

But he didn’t.

Not even as disaster approached, as the article’s final words explain:

The Black Hawk was 15 seconds away from crossing paths with the jet. Warrant Officer Eaves… told [Lobach] he believed that air traffic control wanted them to turn left… (opening) more space between the helicopter and Flight 5342, which was heading for Runway 33 at an altitude of roughly 300 feet.

She did not turn left.

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She did not turn left.

The words carry an unconscious echo of “nevertheless, she persisted,” which became a feminist credo a few years back.

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(She sure did.)

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The most important question here is the one the Times never found the time or space to ask in its 4,000-word investigation: why Eaves didn’t act more aggressively? Did he fear annoying or angering Lobach, who outranked him?

The fact that Lobach’s errors were clearly responsible for the accident raise another set of uncomfortable questions the Times also didn’t ask: Had Lobach ever had any other problems flying? How was she chosen to be trained for this mission, involving a night flight along the Potomac in airspace crowded with civilian jets?

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The article is a perfect example of why so many people now distrust the legacy media. Nothing the Times wrote is untrue, and yet the story the paper offered is recognizably false, as false as “mostly peaceful rioting” or “cheap fake Biden videos” or “flatten the curve.”

Even after the disasters of the last few years, the Times and its peers can’t figure out how to course correct.

The good news is that the legacy media no longer controls what people read or see. When I saw that piece yesterday, I posted a 280-character critique to X.

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That simple post has now been viewed more than 6.4 million times and received more than 1,200 comments. It has also sparked a wave of similar posts and quote-posts that have been seen many millions of times more.

Collectively, the comments have no doubt drawn far more viewers than the original article. They’ve rewritten the politically palatable narrative the Times prefers in real time. And they’ve brought the world closer to the truth, painful as it might be.

When will the Times learn it can’t play these games anymore?