Trans Helicopter Pilot Speaks Out after False Reports Claimed Her Responsible for Potomac Crash

In a bizarre twist on the horrific Potomac air disaster that killed 67 people on Wednesday night, Jo Ellis, a trans helicopter pilot with the Virginia National Guard, says she wasn't piloting the Black Hawk that collided with a commercial jet near Reagan National Airport.

"The falsehoods, which tried to tie Ms. Ellis's transgender identity to the tragedy, spread online shortly after President Trump and his allies attempted to tie the crash in Washington, D.C., to so-called 'D.E.I. programs,' an array of initiatives meant to boost diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace," reports the New York Times. "There is no evidence that such programs played any role in the crash."

"I understand some people have associated me with the crash in D.C., and that is false," Ellis said in a Facebook video. "It is insulting to the families to try to tie this to some sort of political agenda. They don't deserve that. I don't deserve this. And I hope that you all know that I am alive and well, and this should be sufficient for you all to end all the rumors."

"There were no Virginia National Guard personnel on board the Black Hawk that collided with the jetliner Wednesday evening,' reported a Virginia National Guard spokesperson

Earlier in the day Ellis shared a photo on her FB account of a post at X in which someone had shared two images of her and made the false suggestion that she was the Black Hawk pilot involved in the deadly crash, reports NBC News.

Ellis did not immediately return a request for additional comment.

Ellis is a Chief Warrant Officer 2 and Black Hawk helicopter pilot who has served in the Virginia National Guard for 15 years, according to the news outlet Smerconish.com. She served in combat zones in Iraq, along with other operations overseas.

Posts and reposts about Ms. Ellis surged Friday morning as thousands of accounts on X shared her photos and details online. The posts earned hundreds of thousands of views on the platform, according to a review by The New York Times and data from Tweet Binder, a company that collects data on the social network. "Jo Ellis" was the No. 2 most-trending topic in the United States on X late Friday morning with more than 90,000 posts, according to Trends24, a website that tracks trending topics.