Jo Ellis, a helicopter pilot in the Virginia Army National Guard, was falsely identified as the captain of the crashed Black Hawk helicopter in thousands of social media posts this week. The flurry of falsehoods were so extreme that Ms. Ellis, who is transgender, posted a “proof of life” video to Facebook clarifying that she is alive and had not flown the crashed chopper.
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. 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,” Ms. Ellis said in a video posted to her Facebook account. “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.”
Ms. Ellis is a Black Hawk pilot who has served for 15 years in the Virginia Army National Guard, according to a blog post she published Tuesday on Smerconish, an independent news website, which detailed her transition while in the armed forces. Ms. Ellis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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.
By Friday afternoon, many of the posts shared Ms. Ellis’s video and emphasized that she was not involved in the crash.
Mr. Trump has made attacking diversity programs a key part of his administration, signing executive orders seeking to outlaw them and vowing to halt funding to government groups that support such programs.
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