After looking at the circumstances I as a former US Army helicopter pilot and Air traffic controller I believe that the Blackhawk and Airliner collision should not have happened: There is NO reason CPT Rebecca Lobach, with 450 hours, should've been flying that route, at night for an NVG recert there is a strong argument she never should've been in the 12th BN at all! For a normal unit, doing a NVG recert, on a simple, non-congested route, 450 hours is fine to be a Pilot in Command (PC). I guarantee no pilot in 12th Battalion/VIP transport is under 1000 hours, especially flying that route.  They can transport the Vice President on down, so they are HEAVILY scrutinized.   You aren't even considered an experienced pilot in the Army until you hit 1000 hours.  You'd be hard pressed to find a single Army pilot, current or former, that would agree she should've been on that route.  12th Battalion/VIP transport minimum hour qualifications are second only to 160th SOAR.  At one time, minimum hours for consideration to 12th BN was 2000 hours. So, how did she get there?  Well, she was a White House Aide for the past 2 years and used that connection to get a top-down placement in the unit. She was a non-rated pilot (i.e. Staff Officer), and placed in that unit as the XO and SHARP/EO rep.  The commander that put her as PC, on that route, at night, is losing their job!  That assumes she was even supposed to be on that route at all.  I would assume that commander was under immense pressure because of her placement in the unit, the fact she was a female AND the EO/SHARP representative. She was flying at over 300' when that route has a 200' maximum ceiling.  The impact was above 300 feet.  This is likely because her inexperience caused her to set the improper barometer pressure in the radar altimeter.  The UH-60M requires the PC and Co-pilot to input data into the flight controls independently.  The UH-60 DOES NOT indicate to either if the PC/Co-pilot data input is different, nor wrong. She was not hugging the eastern bank/flying inland as she was supposed to be doing.  She was WAY too far west on the river. She was flying at 120 knots, which is WAY too fast for that route, at night, in congested airspace, ESPECIALLY at her experience level. The flight path, and 200' altitude are the methods of deconflicting airspace.  At 200', hugging the eastern bank, airline traffic is at ~350 feet, so it is impossible for them to hit.  Helos fly under commercial aviation on that route all the time. AA 5342 requested a runway change from runway 1, landing south to north, to runway 33, a diagonal runway to land southeast northwest.  This took AA5342 of ILS landing to fully pilot controlled landing.  Some pilots prefer this over ILS. She called off ATC for visual deconfliction at 5 nautical miles AT NIGHT, which is impossible.  The ATC should've realized this and intervened.  Hindsight is 20/20, but this is basic common sense as we know they saw the wrong plane. They saw a flight taking off, not AA5342 coming in for a landing. However, her saying that technically relieved ATC of any further help. However, for 47 seconds, she never slowed down, she never turned, she just flew straight into the airliner.  AA5342, did the same, but assumed there was a competent PC flying the UH-60, so 99.999% of the time, AA5342 had nothing to worry about with a helicopter on that route. The ATC should've intervened when he saw no slow down, no turn, saw her altitude was over 300', but didn't.  Even though he was waived off, guaranteed, he is going to lose his job. Trump said DEI was involved.  The real DEI link is the 2011 Obama administration’s decision to reject 1000 qualified, high scoring ATCs because the FAA was "too white".  This killed recruiting.  The staffing shortages are directly ties to this event.  There are not people beating down the door to be ATCs, who would if after 4 years of training, the federal government rejects your employment due to race? People were confused by Trump's press conference, when he read the FAA's hiring guidance from their website. There are NOT blind, psychological & intelligence challenged people on ATC screens.  However, those people are the ATCs' managers.  Case in point, the manager sent the ATC managing helos home, and assigned the ATC that should've solely been directing AA5342, both jobs. These incompetent people in management create a toxic workplace environment, which causes already deficient ATC employees even lower. So, the DEI link is understaffing, driven by DEI decisions, which was a major contributing factor to this collision.  The other major factor was, an inexperienced female pilot, put in a position she was not qualified for, because of a previous job she held.  That is more nepotism than DEI, but regardless of the definition, it cost 67 lives!