Reads like someone trying to cover his ass.
No cheap GPS? No backup radio? No idea where Washington DC is? No
idea what a Blackhawk helicopter trying to communicate with them
might mean?

I do know that as a student, I performed every aspect of pre-flight
and flight planning. My instructor would make a cursory inspection of
the plane and my plan, but usually no more. If the narrative is
accurate, the student did nothing but fly the plane. Exactly how was
this student learning to do anything but point the plane in the
general direction he wanted to go?

This doesn't appear to have been originally intended as a training flight.
Sadly, it was in more ways than one