A transgender Black Hawk pilot has been wrongly named as one of the three US Army personnel flying the helicopter that collided with a plane in Washington DC.
Jo Ellis, 34, was misidentified as the female co-pilot of the doomed chopper on Thursday.
A shaken-sounding Ellis picked up the phone when called by DailyMail.com Friday morning, confirming that she was not killed.
Ellis added: ‘I am very much alive.’
She said the false rumors had ‘shocked,’ her with the Pentagon said to be preparing a statement in a bid to debunk the online lies.
Ellis, who previously worked for CNN star Michael Smerconish, said the slurs are ‘disrespectful to the families’ of the 67 people killed in Wednesday night’s disaster.
On Friday, it emerged the co-pilot of the US Army Black Hawk Sikorsky UH-60 was female servicemember on a training sortie.
She has not been identified.
Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves and Ryan O’Hara from Georgia were the other two service personnel on board.
The helicopter is said to have flown at a higher than normal altitude when it collided with American Eagle flight 5342 as it came into land at Reagan National Airport in Washington DC shortly before 9pm ET Wednesday night.
Horrifying video footage showed the two aircraft collide in a fireball before plunging into the icy Potomac River just east of Reagan’s runways.
The three soldiers aboard the Black Hawk were all killed, as were the 60 passengers and four crew aboard the Bombardier CRJ-700 aircraft.
Investigators are still working to establish what caused the crash, with recovery efforts ongoing Friday as 14 bodies remain in the water.
On Thursday night it emerged an air traffic controller at Reagan airport had been sent home from their shift early, meaning on person was in charge of both plane and helicopter traffic.
Footage of the Black Hawk crashing into the side of the plane has also sparked speculation the chopper was to blame.
Robert Isoms, CEO of American Eagle’s parent company American Airlines, questioned why the chopper had crossed the path of the airliner.
President Trump suggested diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies were to blame, with some online ‘sleuths’ subsequently singling out Jo Ellis.
A blog written by Ellis said she had spent her childhood homeschooled for most of her education, and had struggled with gender dysmorphia since the age of five.
She joined the military in 2009 as a 15G helicopter mechanic in the Virginia National Guard, and went on to deploy to Iraq with Operation New Dawn two years later.
After earning the Air Medal for her valor in the Middle East, she also served in Guatemala and Kuwait in subsequent years.
While saying she worked through gender dysmorphia by trying to become ‘more successful and more manly’, she got married, adopted a dog and raised a stepdaughter, as ‘all the things I thought a good man should do.’
Ellis wrote that in 2020, she was ‘accepted into the Army’s Warrant Officer Flight Training program. I completed Warrant Officer Candidate School, SERE School (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape), and the UH60 Black Hawk helicopter course.’
She said that the pandemic and the rigors of flight school led her to confront her gender dysphoria and decide, with the support of her spouse, to transition.
She said when she told her military commanders in 2023, she was met with immediate support.
The day before the tragic collision over Reagan International Airport, Ellis had given an interview with Sirius XM DJ and CNN host Michael Smerconish, whose Smerconish.com website she once managed.
Ellis spoke of her pride in serving 15 years in the military and struggle with gender dysmorphia before coming out.
She said in the interview she currently serves in the National Guard as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot, as well as working a private sector IT job.
