Given the variety and flexibility of the Black Hawk, dozens of nations have imported one variant or another for their own armed forces.

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.

A 3-D model created by The Times visualizes the helicopter pilots’ field of view minutes before a fatal crash with a jet in Washington.