In the wake of a string of deadly military aviation accidents over the past several years, the U.S. Army is launching a major overhaul of how it trains new pilots that focuses on getting back to the basics.

The overhaul includes rethinking the type of aircraft used for training, along with a likely shift to a contractor-owned-and-operated schoolhouse.

“I think I have one sacred responsibility and that is to deliver competent aviators to the government,” Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, commander of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence Command, said at an Army aviation conference in Nashville, Tennessee, last month. “I’m not sure that I’m doing that in spades right now.”

The fatal Jan. 29 collision of a U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet near Reagan N

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