The U.S. Army helicopter involved in Wednesday’s midair collision with American Airlines flight 5342 had been conducting a training exercise for a potential attack on the capital.

Officials have confirmed that the three soldiers, who tragically lost their lives, were rehearsing a plan to evacuate the White House when their Black Hawk collided with the passenger jet just before 9 p.m. on Wednesday.Defense sources confirmed the details of the training exercise to CBS News after internet sleuths had speculated online that it was, in fact, focused on that very scenario.

Theorists flooded social media with claims that the helicopter was carrying out an emergency evacuation route for the president as part of a Continuity of Government (COG) contingency plan, DailyMail.com reported.

A Continuity of Government mission in the U.S. refers to a series of policies and procedures designed to ensure that essential government functions continue during and after catastrophic events, such as a nuclear attack, natural disaster, cyberattack, or terrorist incident. One key component of a COG mission is the protection of critical personnel and infrastructure.

On Friday, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Eaves, the pilot in charge, and Staff Sergeant Ryan O’Hara, the crew chief, were named as the two soldiers on board the helicopter

After some delay, the Army finally identified the third soldier, Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, who “served as an aviation officer in the Army since July 2019 and had around 500 hours of flying time in the Black Hawk,” Fox News reported. Her family had initially asked the Army to keep her identity a secret following initial unsubstantiated claims that DEI was a factor in the crash.

Lobach was also a former White House social media aide during the Biden administration, reports said.

An investigation into the cause of Wednesday night’s collision between an American Eagle plane carrying 64 people and the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter is continuing

The two aircraft collided, causing a massive fireball, which was captured on dashcams of cars driving on nearby highways as well as surveillance cameras before both aircraft plunged into the river.

The black box recorder from the helicopter, which includes both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data receiver, was recovered from the wreckage on Friday. On Thursday night, salvage teams successfully retrieved both black boxes from the American Airlines flight.

On Friday, another air disaster unfolded as a medical Lear 55 jet plunged into a Philadelphia neighborhood shortly after take-off, killing all six passengers and crew, as well as another person on the ground.

Fox News reported that the aircraft was operated by Jet Rescue Air Ambulance and had just departed from a northeast Philadelphia airport shortly before it crashed. Fox also obtained chilling audio from air traffic control in the final moments before impact.

The audio, obtained by Fox News Digital, was recorded just before the plane took off. In the recording, operators can be heard urgently attempting to make contact with the plane before it crashed.

“What’s going on down there?” one air traffic controller can be heard saying.

“We have a lost aircraft. We’re not exactly sure what happened. So, we’re trying to figure it out,” replies another air traffic controller. “The field is going to be closed so no inbounds-outbounds.” The plane departed the airport around 6:55 pm EDT

All passengers and crew — two pilots, a physician, a paramedic, a pediatric passenger, and a mother– were all Mexican nationals, Fox reported.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that six people were aboard the plane, which was en route to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri.

Shai Gold, a spokesperson for Air Ambulance, told Fox News Digital that the patient on board was a Mexican national receiving life-saving medical treatment in the U.S. Upon completing her treatment, she was discharged and preparing to return home