Plane crash DCA?

[Anonymous]

Maybe Lobach was feeling uncomfortable under Eaves? Could she have had another person do the check run?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did people read the NYT article yesterday? I understand there were many things that went wrong that night, including understaffing in the tower, but why the hell was a pilot with inferior flying skills in the area that night? I was struck by the description of her lack of talent as a pilot. I’m sorry if that is hurtful to her family.

Can someone paste the relevant part, or post a link to the article?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/us/politics/dc-plane-helicopter-crash.html

....That same week, Mr. Eaves, assigned to give her the annual flight exam, told his girlfriend that he feared Captain Lobach was unprepared for the flight, according to an N.T.S.B. interview document.

Completely unrelated to the point of this article but I noticed they reference his girlfriend...but his obituaries mentioned his widow and children. So, is this just an error and they interviewed his wife? Or like...what cause the alternative is this is how his wife finds out he had an affair.

Really, man/woman? This is what you are wondering ?

Yes, that is my only concern in all of this. (I'll note that was sarcasm for you.)

I immediately said "Completely not the point of this article," implying I understand the point of the article. I am simply confused how this man's gf was interviewed by NTSB when he was married. Did the NTSB identify her as his gf incorrectly? I would hope that they are being very detail oriented in the investigation, so that wouldn't be great.

Are you suggesting that the report is a fabrication?

This is clearly going over your head, so let me be very, very explicit for you:

Misidentifying someone as a "girlfriend" when they were a wife is a mistake that may not seem like much, but to me, it indicates that the NTSB is not paying much attention to details. They interviewed this woman themselves, according to the report, so it's not like they're relying on information from a third party who got it wrong. It is concerning that in the investigation of a passenger jet crash they would get something so blatantly wrong.

It is not a misidentification. There was a wife and a (separate) girlfriend. It is in the next-of-kin interview transcripts in the NTSB docket.

There is also a suggestion that the female pilot might have had undiagnosed ADHD. Again, it is in the next-of-kin interviews.

Just read it. The wife says they were reconciling (they were separated because he'd had an affair in the past) and lived together part time, but the girlfriend says they had been together for two years and were moving to Alabama together after his assignment at Ft. Belvoir was up. Sounds like the wife was unaware of that.

Look, I know this is not the point but my god I feel bad for the wife.

So, Eaves was a scumbag and wife suffers, and both girlfriend( is this even the right term here) and wife got played?

Evidently. The wife said they were “reconciling” and had just bought a home together and the girlfriend said he was separated. I feel bad so bad for the wife. She thought things were getting better and the whole time was getting played.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s pretty clear that this entire “investigation” has been structured in such a way to put all the blame on the female pilot.

Not on the two men flying the more maneuverable jet.

Not on the man sitting next to Lobach, either.



They’re trying to put the blame on her.




So predictable.

The jet cannot move out of the way easily. The helicopter can. What are you missing? There is zero to suggest that the airline guys did anything at all wrong. The blame seems to be on her to a major degree. Just the way it is.

How do you know how maneuverable they are/aren’t? Are you a pilot? If not, then shut your mansplaining mouth.

What we DO know is the two MEN flying the jet clearly weren’t paying attention and didn’t see the chopper.


Yet NO ONE is pointing out this inconvenient fact because they’re too busy blaming THE ONLY female anywhere in the chain.

Also I love how she kept being referred to as a lesbian right after the crash and it turns out they interviewed her bf, lol. Because, you know, only lesbians join the military.

Meanwhile her damn flight instructor was cheating on his wife repeatedly and no one has questioned him one bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s pretty clear that this entire “investigation” has been structured in such a way to put all the blame on the female pilot.

Not on the two men flying the more maneuverable jet.

Not on the man sitting next to Lobach, either.

They’re trying to put the blame on her.

So predictable.

Pilot was grossly incompetent the whole day and check ride. It’s all on the black box. And wet log book.

Disgusting.

If the pilot was that incompetent then he never should’ve been trusted to be giving Lobach the check ride in the first place.

Eaves allegedly told his GF/APartner he didn't think Lobach was ready. There is no record of him saying so, who knows. Whoever is above Eaves would know if Eaves was ready that day to give the check ride to Lobach.

In his and lobach’s defense, he said he didn’t think she was ready and that she wasn’t grasping things she should have grasped by then.

There’s a big difference between “not fully grasping every concept” and “probably gonna kill me and almost 200 other people.” When I say someone who works for me hasn’t grasped things they need to grasp by now I mean there’s room for improvement not that they have no future in our industry and are a danger to themselves and others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe Lobach was feeling uncomfortable under Eaves? Could she have had another person do the check run?

There are lots of studies about pilots who are unable to disagree with their command of their lead captain were in this case, a training partner.

There’s also a study about pilots from polite countries have a problem landing in New York because the air traffic controllers seemed them to be very aggressive and they had to learn how to talk back to them.

When she said OK with a very long, oh… you can see she hasn’t been trained to talk back to men.

This is why I encourage my kids to learn to talk back to authorities, cause they’re not always right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe Lobach was feeling uncomfortable under Eaves? Could she have had another person do the check run?

She was his superior, actually. He called her ma’am in the transcripts because she was a higher rank

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe Lobach was feeling uncomfortable under Eaves? Could she have had another person do the check run?

She was his superior, actually. He called her ma’am in the transcripts because she was a higher rank

Do you think that matters to him? He probably gets off on the idea of hooking up with someone who outranked him.

And I don’t understand what qualifies him to be her instructor since she’s a higher rank. It should be the other way around.


Oh I know - because he’s a MAN.

[Anonymous]

Lobach was the pilot. She was annoyed a man was telling her what to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe Lobach was feeling uncomfortable under Eaves? Could she have had another person do the check run?

She was his superior, actually. He called her ma’am in the transcripts because she was a higher rank

Did not follow their stories. Why was he giving the test run and not someone above her if she was higher ranked?

[Anonymous]

What did they find from the jet? Those pilots?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did people read the NYT article yesterday? I understand there were many things that went wrong that night, including understaffing in the tower, but why the hell was a pilot with inferior flying skills in the area that night? I was struck by the description of her lack of talent as a pilot. I’m sorry if that is hurtful to her family.

Can someone paste the relevant part, or post a link to the article?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/us/politics/dc-plane-helicopter-crash.html

....That same week, Mr. Eaves, assigned to give her the annual flight exam, told his girlfriend that he feared Captain Lobach was unprepared for the flight, according to an N.T.S.B. interview document.
Captain Lobach, recalled the girlfriend, was described by Mr. Eaves as “not where she should be,” according to the document. It was the girlfriend’s impression, investigators said in the document, that Mr. Eaves “thought the other pilot was not grasping things they should have understood by that point in her flying career.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Eaves was professional and even jovial during the Jan. 29 flight, according to a transcript of the cockpit voice recorder.....

....He appeared to try to soothe Captain Lobach’s embarrassment over a directional mistake by joking that he was “all game” to blow by a town at low altitude but that they would have to make a “blood pact” not to discuss it with anyone later.
She appeared to have recognized the tongue-in-cheek suggestion, replying, “Nope, right.”
But the exam did not go smoothly.
More than an hour before the crash, during a portion of the flight with choppy winds, Mr. Eaves took the flight controls from her, according to the transcript.
At another point, when they were evidently practicing landing and other maneuvers on a rural airfield, she was forced to “go around” one landing area on short notice — a tactic that is often used when an aircraft cannot land safely, aviators told The Times. When Mr. Eaves asked her about the mistake, she blamed the height of her chair, according to the transcript.
She also erroneously turned left when she should have gone right to avoid winds, and turned northward toward Great Falls, Va., when she should have been heading south to return to the Army base, prompting Mr. Eaves to ask her where they were going, according to the transcript.
At one point, the transcript says, she described herself as “dizzy,” but quickly added that it was “not too bad.”

Little missteps might be relatively forgivable on a deserted airfield or at thousands of feet in elevation, where there is less traffic. But once the Black Hawk entered the Washington area’s airspace — known as Class B, the busiest grade — there was very little margin for error when problems emerged.

So it's the supervisor's fault because at that point, he should have taken over the controls.

Perhaps..it seems like Lobach was unwell, had directional dyslexia and Eaves was trying not to be/sound sexist. Still Eaves should not have allowed Lobach near DC airspace. Makes you wonder how many pilots fly under personal "unwell" conditions. With a big gulp asking did they rule out suicide/murder in this case?

“Directional dyslexia” would be a pilot DQ thing.
If you can’t fly based on NAVs and gauges only, get out of the cockpit.

Unbelievable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s pretty clear that this entire “investigation” has been structured in such a way to put all the blame on the female pilot.

Not on the two men flying the more maneuverable jet.

Not on the man sitting next to Lobach, either.

They’re trying to put the blame on her.

So predictable.

Pilot was grossly incompetent the whole day and check ride. It’s all on the black box. And wet log book.

Disgusting.

If the pilot was that incompetent then he never should’ve been trusted to be giving Lobach the check ride in the first place.

Eaves allegedly told his GF/APartner he didn't think Lobach was ready. There is no record of him saying so, who knows. Whoever is above Eaves would know if Eaves was ready that day to give the check ride to Lobach.

In his and lobach’s defense, he said he didn’t think she was ready and that she wasn’t grasping things she should have grasped by then.

There’s a big difference between “not fully grasping every concept” and “probably gonna kill me and almost 200 other people.” When I say someone who works for me hasn’t grasped things they need to grasp by now I mean there’s room for improvement not that they have no future in our industry and are a danger to themselves and others.

Have you ever seen a 500-700 page flight manual book on a jet or helo? Memorized it and taken the oral test on it?

It’s not a job for dummies.

She should have been weeded out before this check ride. Why wasn’t she?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did people read the NYT article yesterday? I understand there were many things that went wrong that night, including understaffing in the tower, but why the hell was a pilot with inferior flying skills in the area that night? I was struck by the description of her lack of talent as a pilot. I’m sorry if that is hurtful to her family.

Can someone paste the relevant part, or post a link to the article?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/us/politics/dc-plane-helicopter-crash.html

....That same week, Mr. Eaves, assigned to give her the annual flight exam, told his girlfriend that he feared Captain Lobach was unprepared for the flight, according to an N.T.S.B. interview document.

Completely unrelated to the point of this article but I noticed they reference his girlfriend...but his obituaries mentioned his widow and children. So, is this just an error and they interviewed his wife? Or like...what cause the alternative is this is how his wife finds out he had an affair.

Really, man/woman? This is what you are wondering ?

Yes, that is my only concern in all of this. (I'll note that was sarcasm for you.)

I immediately said "Completely not the point of this article," implying I understand the point of the article. I am simply confused how this man's gf was interviewed by NTSB when he was married. Did the NTSB identify her as his gf incorrectly? I would hope that they are being very detail oriented in the investigation, so that wouldn't be great.

Are you suggesting that the report is a fabrication?

This is clearly going over your head, so let me be very, very explicit for you:

Misidentifying someone as a "girlfriend" when they were a wife is a mistake that may not seem like much, but to me, it indicates that the NTSB is not paying much attention to details. They interviewed this woman themselves, according to the report, so it's not like they're relying on information from a third party who got it wrong. It is concerning that in the investigation of a passenger jet crash they would get something so blatantly wrong.

It is not a misidentification. There was a wife and a (separate) girlfriend. It is in the next-of-kin interview transcripts in the NTSB docket.

There is also a suggestion that the female pilot might have had undiagnosed ADHD. Again, it is in the next-of-kin interviews.

Just read it. The wife says they were reconciling (they were separated because he'd had an affair in the past) and lived together part time, but the girlfriend says they had been together for two years and were moving to Alabama together after his assignment at Ft. Belvoir was up. Sounds like the wife was unaware of that.

Look, I know this is not the point but my god I feel bad for the wife.

So, Eaves was a scumbag and wife suffers, and both girlfriend( is this even the right term here) and wife got played?

Evidently. The wife said they were “reconciling” and had just bought a home together and the girlfriend said he was separated. I feel bad so bad for the wife. She thought things were getting better and the whole time was getting played.

Or the girlfriend was being played. Eaves didn't need to decide anything for two years (when his tdy in Fort Belvoir was done) and the girlfriend was in California.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe Lobach was feeling uncomfortable under Eaves? Could she have had another person do the check run?

She was his superior, actually. He called her ma’am in the transcripts because she was a higher rank

Do you think that matters to him? He probably gets off on the idea of hooking up with someone who outranked him.

And I don’t understand what qualifies him to be her instructor since she’s a higher rank. It should be the other way around.


Oh I know - because he’s a MAN.

We know you don’t understand military rank structure and protocol and it’s not worth trying to explain it to you. You have your mind set on some imaginary misogyny and refuse to learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did people read the NYT article yesterday? I understand there were many things that went wrong that night, including understaffing in the tower, but why the hell was a pilot with inferior flying skills in the area that night? I was struck by the description of her lack of talent as a pilot. I’m sorry if that is hurtful to her family.

Can someone paste the relevant part, or post a link to the article?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/us/politics/dc-plane-helicopter-crash.html

....That same week, Mr. Eaves, assigned to give her the annual flight exam, told his girlfriend that he feared Captain Lobach was unprepared for the flight, according to an N.T.S.B. interview document.

Completely unrelated to the point of this article but I noticed they reference his girlfriend...but his obituaries mentioned his widow and children. So, is this just an error and they interviewed his wife? Or like...what cause the alternative is this is how his wife finds out he had an affair.

Really, man/woman? This is what you are wondering ?

Yes, that is my only concern in all of this. (I'll note that was sarcasm for you.)

I immediately said "Completely not the point of this article," implying I understand the point of the article. I am simply confused how this man's gf was interviewed by NTSB when he was married. Did the NTSB identify her as his gf incorrectly? I would hope that they are being very detail oriented in the investigation, so that wouldn't be great.

Are you suggesting that the report is a fabrication?

This is clearly going over your head, so let me be very, very explicit for you:

Misidentifying someone as a "girlfriend" when they were a wife is a mistake that may not seem like much, but to me, it indicates that the NTSB is not paying much attention to details. They interviewed this woman themselves, according to the report, so it's not like they're relying on information from a third party who got it wrong. It is concerning that in the investigation of a passenger jet crash they would get something so blatantly wrong.

It is not a misidentification. There was a wife and a (separate) girlfriend. It is in the next-of-kin interview transcripts in the NTSB docket.

There is also a suggestion that the female pilot might have had undiagnosed ADHD. Again, it is in the next-of-kin interviews.

Just read it. The wife says they were reconciling (they were separated because he'd had an affair in the past) and lived together part time, but the girlfriend says they had been together for two years and were moving to Alabama together after his assignment at Ft. Belvoir was up. Sounds like the wife was unaware of that.

Look, I know this is not the point but my god I feel bad for the wife.

So, Eaves was a scumbag and wife suffers, and both girlfriend( is this even the right term here) and wife got played?

Evidently. The wife said they were “reconciling” and had just bought a home together and the girlfriend said he was separated. I feel bad so bad for the wife. She thought things were getting better and the whole time was getting played.

Or the girlfriend was being played. Eaves didn't need to decide anything for two years (when his tdy in Fort Belvoir was done) and the girlfriend was in California.

I mean, I think the wife was being played too if she just bought a house with him and meanwhile he was promising some skank in California they could run off to Alabama together.