Black Hawk in DC plane crash was practicing top-secret ‘continuity of government mission’ in case of attack on US

The doomed military helicopter that collided with an American Airlines flight over Washington, DC, Wednesday night was conducting training to prepare for a catastrophic event or attack on the US, according to officials.

The crew aboard the UH-60 Black Hawk chopper, the 12th Aviation Battalion, is responsible for top-secret evacuation missions meant to whisk top US officials from DC to secure locations in the case of a national emergency such as a terrorist or nuclear attack.

In a press conference on Thursday night, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the soldiers “were on a routine, annual re-training of night flights on a standard corridor for a continuity of government mission.”

He said he couldn’t reveal further details on “anything that’s classified.”

“The military does dangerous things,” Hegseth added. “It does routine things on a regular basis.”

Typically, crews like the one killed on the Black Hawk transport Washington elites in and out of the heavily trafficked airspace around Reagan National Airport, one of the busiest in the nation, according to reports.

The Army has come under scrutiny for allowing pilots to train at night near a high-traffic airport, and in a chopper that was not equipped with new technology that would have alerted air traffic control to its path.

But officials, including Hegseth, have pointed to the sensitive nature of such operations.

“You need to rehearse in ways that would reflect a real-world scenario,” Hegseth said.

The chopper was traveling along a core training route but was flying nearly twice as high as aviation guidelines permit.

Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, and an unidentified female pilot were all aboard the helicopter when it collided midair with an American Airlines flight on Wednesday.

The fiery crash sent both aircraft plunging into Washington, DC’s Potomac River, also killing all 64 people aboard the passenger jet.

The last known time a continuity of operations mission was activated was on on Sept. 11, 2001, when high-ranking officials were transported to sites including Raven Rock Mountain Complex, or “Site R,” located near Camp David.

It remains one of three government backup facilities and the primary one for the Pentagon leadership.

With Post wires