The Black Hawk helicopter that collided with a passenger jet in Washington on Wednesday was on a training flight along a route core to a seldom-discussed military mission to evacuate senior officials to safety in the event of an attack on the U.

The military helicopter that collided with a regional jet near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, in a crash that killed all 67 people aboard both aircraft, was a UH-60 Black Hawk, considered the “workhorse” of U.