The U.S. Army on Friday released the names of two of the soldiers killed when the military Black Hawk in which they were flying collided with a passenger jet, but said, in an unusual decision, that they were not releasing the third name at the request of the family.

The Army identified two of the soldiers killed in Wednesday's crash in Washington as Staff Sergeant Ryan Austin O'Hara, 28, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, but did not provide details about the third.

The Army released the name of the third crew member of the Black Hawk helicopter that slammed into an American Airlines-affiliated flight above the Potomac River this week, killing 67 people.

Captain Rebecca Lobach was 28 years old and a native of Durham, N.C. She was a distinguished military graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and commissioned in 2019 as an active-duty aviation officer.

The midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter over the nation’s capital was preceded by months of harrowing near misses at airports across America, as well as increasingly shrill warnings that the nation’s air traffic control and safety system is stretched to the limit.

An American Airlines passenger jet with 64 people on board has crashed midair into a military helicopter while attempting to land at Reagan National Airport in Washington.

Emergency services in the city are searching the nearby Potomac River after the jet plummeted into the water just before 9pm on Wednesday night.

Officials have not said how many people died in the accident but have suggested that there may be no survivors. It is the first major commercial air crash in the US in 16 years.

Last year, the US Commission on National Defense Strategy published its final report, creating intense buzz in Washington. “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945,” the report warned. To meet the challenge, “the US government needs to harness all elements of national power,” starting with a 5% boost to the Pentagon budget, currently at $886 billion.

The remains of former President Jimmy Carter are scheduled to arrive on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., where he will be honored with a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol before lying in state through Thursday morning.

The casket carrying the 39th president will leave the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta, where thousands of mourners paid their respects over the weekend, and will travel to Dobbins Air Reserve Base before boarding Special Air Mission 39 to Joint Base Andrews.