SKY NEWS
The Black Hawk helicopter which collided with a passenger plane above Washington DC was training for a hypothetical evacuation of US leaders at the time, according to US officials.
Three soldiers inside the military aircraft were killed as well as 64 people aboard the American Airlines jet.
The scenario involved practising the evacuation of high-ranking US officials, Reuters reported.
An investigation into the cause of the catastrophe is ongoing.
It has emerged that the helicopter had been on a training flight along a route core to a seldom-discussed military mission – to evacuate senior officials to safety in the event of an attack on the US, officials say.
The mission is known as “continuity of government” and “continuity of operations” and is meant to preserve the ability of the government to operate in a disaster scenario.
New US defence secretary Pete Hegseth revealed the Black Hawk crew’s training mission on Thursday, saying they “were on a routine, annual re-training of night flights on a standard corridor for a continuity of government mission…
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