Social media users have misidentified the pilot of the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with a regional commercial airplane near Ronald Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night. None of the passengers on either craft survived.
“The pilot of the Black Hawk has been identified as Chief Warrant Officer 2 (CW2) Jo Ellis, a transgender woman,” one X user tweeted in a since-deleted post. “Jo Ellis served in the Virginia National Guard for 15 years and transitioned while serving as a pilot. Jo has been making radicalized anti-Trump statements on socials.” That X user later deleted the post, explaining the source of his claim “appears to have ended up not being correct.” He added that Grok—X’s built-in AI chat tool—incorrectly confirmed to him that Jo Ellis was the helicopter’s copilot. But other versions of that post, either copying the text or using screenshots of the tweet, have also appeared in posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
“The Last Interview of Blackhawk Pilot Joe Ellis—Was This Crash Intentional?” tweeted another X account, “Project Constitution.” “Air traffic control confirmed Ellis had visual confirmation of the passenger jet—and took responsibility for safe navigation,” the account added. “The weather was clear. Visibility was perfect.”
These claims are false. Jo Ellis herself posted a video message to Facebook on Friday morning to debunk the rumors.
“This is Jo Ellis. I am a Black Hawk pilot with Virginia Army National Guard,” Ellis said. “I understand some people have associated me with a—the crash in D.C., and that is false. It is insulting to the families to try to tie this to some sort of political agenda; they don’t deserve that, I don’t deserve this, and I hope that you all know I am alive and well, and this should be sufficient for you all to end all the rumors.”
Ellis added, “I also have a statement: The Department of Defense is responsible for casualty notifications. There were no Virginia National Guard personnel on that Black Hawk that collided with the jet liner Wednesday evening.”
The U.S. Army on Friday identified two of the three Black Hawk casualties as 28-year-old Staff Sgt. Ryan O’Hara and 39-year-old Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Eaves. The name of the third helicopter casualty, identified only as a female pilot, has not been publicly released at the request of her family. The deceased soldiers were all in the 12th Aviation Battalion of the U.S. Army stationed out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia. However, the Virginia Army National Guard—in which Ellis serves—is not part of the U.S. Army. Although the force does have some personnel stationed at Fort Belvoir, there is no indication any National Guard troops were involved in Wednesday’s fatal in-air collision.
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