Jonathan Koziol, a retired Army chief warrant officer with more than 30 years of flight experience, told reporters that the flight was a nighttime qualification flight with an instructor pilot evaluating an experienced pilot on the flight routes that their unit routinely flies day and night around the Potomac River.

The pilots on the American Airlines plane that collided with an Army Helicopter late Wednesday have been identified as Jonathan Campos, 34, and Sam Lilley, 28.