Emergency response units assess airplane wreckage in the Potomac River near Ronald Reagan Washington Airport on January 30, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. An American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas collided with a helicopter while approaching Ronald Reagan National Airport. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — In the wake of last night’s tragic accident involving a civilian aircraft and US Army helicopter that has left dozens dead, service secretary nominee Daniel Driscoll kicked off his confirmation hearing vowing to focus on aviation.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to all involved in last night’s tragedy, which occurred a few miles away from this hearing room. If confirmed [I’ll work to ensure] this never happens again,” Driscoll told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during his opening statement.
The committee met hours after American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army UH-60 Black Hawk collided in the air near Washington National Airport, on the outskirts of the nation’s capital. The commercial aircraft — inbound from Wichita, Kan. — was carrying 64 people, while the helicopter was flying a training mission with three soldiers from the 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir, Va. There are no presumed survivors and the National Transportation Safety Board is slated to lead the investigation.
“It’s an accident that seems to be preventable, for what we can tell [right now], that should not happen. I think of focus from the top down, on a culture of safety, there are appropriate times to take risk and there are inappropriate times to take risk,” Driscoll said in response to questions from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH. “I don’t know the details around this one, but [if] confirmed, and working with this committee to figure out the facts, I think we might need to look at where is an appropriate time to take training risk, and it may not be near an airport like Reagan.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed the accident this morning in a pre-taped video release, noting that the soldiers were conducting an annual proficiency training flight.
“It was a fairly experienced crew, and that was doing a required annual night evaluation. They did have night vision goggles,” Hegseth said. “The 12th aviation battalion, as of now, is granted a 48 hour operational pause on contingency missions as what happened is reviewed and a senior level Aviation team, an investigative team from our aviation safety center was deployed last night.”
While last night’s accident didn’t take center stage at the start of today’s confirmation hearing, Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., kicked it off with a moment of silence.
History of Army Aviation Accidents
Last night’s deadly crash comes in the wake of several years of intense scrutiny over Army aviation.
In April 2023, the Army leaders announced a service-wide aviation stand down following a pair of deadly helicopter accidents that claimed the lives of a dozen soldiers.
That stand down grounded all Army aviators, except those participating in “critical missions.”
“The safety of our aviators is our top priority, and this stand down is an important step to make certain we are doing everything possible to prevent accidents and protect our personnel,” then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said in a release. “During this stand down, we will focus on safety and training protocols to ensure our pilots and crews have the knowledge, training and awareness to safely complete their assigned mission.”
But the accidents kept coming, as did the scrutiny.
According to an online Army newsletter [PDF] about aviation mishaps that was released this month, things got worse in fiscal 2024.
“FY24 will be a year that Army aviation looks back on in hopes of never repeating,” the newsletter begins. “After years of a steady decline in mishap rates per 100,000 hours beginning in 2006, FY23 saw a twofold increase in mishap rates from FY22’s record low 0.50 Class A mishaps per 100,000 hours. Then FY24 produced a Class A flight mishap rate almost four times greater than FY22, with a rate of 1.90.”
More specifically, it notes that last year was the “most” Class A flight mishaps since FY14 and the “worst” Class A flight mishap rate per 100,000 hours since FY07.
“The most obvious trend in the FY24 mishaps was the AH-64 [Apache] fleet being overrepresented with nine of the 15 Class A flight mishaps,” the Army newsletter continues. “Eight of the AH-64 mishaps were attributed to human error, with two of those being attributed to maintenance errors. The final AH-64 mishap was a bird strike.”
In FY24, there were also three UH-72 Lakota Class A mishaps, and one-off mishaps with the fleet of UH-60 Black Hawks, the CH-47 Chinooks and the Beechcraft C-12 Huron. There was also a Class A environmental event that damaged over 40 aircraft and a C-12 Class A aircraft ground mishap during maintenance operations.
In April 2024, before the fiscal year ended, the Army announced an Aviation Safety Stand-Up with no pause in operations.
“During this stand up, aviation units will execute targeted training that we’ve really been deliberate about crafting while continuing to fly missions,” said Brig Gen Walter Rugen, then the director of Army aviation. “Again, for our overarching goal to build enduring readiness and proficiency in our force.
“We assess that the recent accident increase would be better mitigated by focusing more on specific training topics to better get at targeted areas that are contributing to many of our safety issues,” he later added. “So, more training, more focused training.”
Bipartisan support
While President Donald Trump’s pick to be 26th Army secretary is relatively unknown, with a limited social media presence, he seemingly has support from both sides of the aisle.
Driscoll, who previously served as an advisor to now-Vice President JD Vance, is a graduate of Yale Law School, former Army soldier, and has spent time working in the private equity arena.
In a rarity for Washington, he arrived at the committee with a bipartisan show of support: Sens Markwayne Mullen, R- Okla., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Ct., introduced Driscoll at the start of the hearing.
“I spoke to Dan a number of times in the course of his preparing for his appearance here today, and those conversations convinced me that he is willing to work on the basis of collegiality, to be transparent and open with this panel with the Congress and our colleagues,” Blumenthal said during his introduction.
The top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Jack Reed, D-RI., also seemingly threw his support behind the nominee to lead the Army saying he brings “integrity, intelligence and the experience of the young officer leading soldiers.”
