The U.S. Army is refusing to release the name of one of the service members who was killed in the D.C. plane crash. 

NPR reports that, thus far, officials have only named two of the three individuals who were aboard the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with the American Airlines passenger jet.

What we know:

The two individuals who have been named are "Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O'Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Ga. and Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Md."

NPR has learned a little bit of information about the unnamed individual.

Per the outlet, 'The third crew member on the helicopter was a female pilot with 500 hours of flying experience, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation."

The big question:

It is, of course, why the third individual's name is being withheld, particularly as NPR reports, "The withholding of a name in instances like this is a highly unusual move."

Reports indicate that the Army is withholding the pilot's name at the request of the pilot's family. But, many are wondering whether there just might be more to the story.

Some have been trying to argue that the reason the pilot's name is being withheld is because the pilot was, in some way, incompetent.

Whether this argument holds any water, remains to be seen. As mentioned earlier, the pilot is said to have 500 hours of flying experience, which would seem to argue in the opposite direction.

The latest

We do not yet, at the time of this writing, have all of the answers regarding the plane crash, but we do have some. Reports suggest that there were problems in the control tower.

Fox News, for example, reports:

The responsibility of handling air traffic control for helicopters and incoming planes at Reagan National Airport were combined on Wednesday night ahead of a deadly collision, a report said. Sometime before an American Airlines flight crashed into an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River, an air traffic controller was assigned both duties by their supervisor, the New York Times reported, citing a source briefed on staffing and an internal preliminary FAA safety report.

In other words, one person was doing the job of two, and the reason seems to be because the other person was allowed to go home early.

"However, on Wednesday, an air traffic control supervisor combined those duties sometime before 9:30 p.m. and allowed one air traffic controller to leave the job early," Fox reports.

This could have certainly contributed to the crash, but whether this is the whole story remains to be seen.