"The helicopter — also a Black Hawk — “took a scenic route around the Pentagon versus proceeding directly from the west to the heliport,” [the] FAA assistant administrator for government and industry affairs [...] wrote in an email obtained by POLITICO." (emphasis added)
The FAA official's choice of words was either meant as a sarcastic comment criticizing the flight path operated by the helicopter - or if taken literally did he intend to communicate that the helicopter crew knowingly flew a route with better visuals of the city as if sightseeing? The fact that even after the accident there still are issues like this is bad enough; if he intended to be understood literally....
And is there a factual, basis for believing this particular helicopter flight was a training mission as opposed to the VIP transport about which Sec. Duffy's remarks were pretty strident? If information about it having been a training mission was included in prior posts, I missed it.