For many, the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, like the one involved in the Wednesday collision over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., is familiar for one reason: the 2001 movie "Black Hawk Down ," based on the 1993 shooting down of U.S. Black Hawk helicopters during the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.

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, consid ered the “workhorse” of Army aviation.