extortion 17 crash photos extortion 17 crash photos

(Photo Credit: Senior Airman Anthony Nin Leclerec / U.S. Air Force / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain) There were a total of 38 individuals onboard Extortion 17. One AH-64 crew, after identifying the men as enemy combatants, fired on them with their gunships 30mm cannon, killing six. U.S. Special Operations Command possesses its own specialized ChinooksMH-47sflown by the ultra-secretive 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the Night Stalkers. The MH-47s modifications include inflight refueling probes, additional and upgraded sensors, more powerful engines, and more powerful defensive weapons than their conventional counterparts. He pushed hard on the cyclic stick to tilt the helicopter forward. The men who serve in the American military are the finest! Andrew W. Harvell, 26, of Long Beach, California, Tech. She had just given birth to their first child. The first round sailed past the helicopter. Its crazy how many times I can think of where me or the guys I was with had to do that.. The helicopter fell from the sky, killing all 38 on board. Senior Chief Robert James Reeves was one of those Americans. Hi there! August 6, 2017 marks six years since 30 American military servicemen and a U.S. military dog were killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter call sign Extortion 17 was shot down in Afghanistan. It wasnt preventable. [22][20] Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, confirmed that eight of the movement's fighters had been killed in the assault on the compound. The helicopter, call sign Extortion 17, was on a mission to reinforce American and coalition special operations troops. The group fired 2-3 RPG rounds from a two-story building from a location some 220 meters south of the helicopter. Lee, now a captain, was placed in command of a Chinook helicopter unit at Forward Operating Base Shank. The Chinook is often used to assist in disaster relief, delivering food and water after earthquakes and floods. According to one Army report, in the three months prior to the Juy Zarin raid, as many as 17 RPGs were fired at helicopters over Wardak and Logar provinces, a relatively small part of the country. The SEAL Team 6 community was devastated. Please take a moment and pause to honor and remember these heroes. [33], The New York Post reported that the Pentagon released 30 names from the crash. When the two Chinooks had first touched down in the village, a group of eight fighters armed with AK-47 rifles and RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers bolted from the compound. Over time, certain memories will fade, certain details will fade. The incident became known as "Extortion 17" after the helicopter . For the last two years, hes been an attorney with the law firm Jackson Walker. The crash occurred in Tangi Joi Zareen, in the district of Sayd Abad in Wardak Province after it was struck by an. Though both noted that airborne sensor coverage and closer AH-64 gunship escort should be considered in future operations, nothing could have kept the shooters from firing their RPGs that night. Those killed ranked among the worlds most highly trained and experienced commandos, including 15 men from Gold Squadron of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, popularly called SEAL Team 6. [9][10], After American intelligence services discovered in 2011 that senior Taliban leader Qari Tahir was possibly in Tangi Valley, Wardak province, Afghanistan, local American forces launched a mission to apprehend or kill him. The IRF also included two SEALs from another team, five Navy special operations support personnel, three Air Force special tactics airmen, seven Afghan National Army commandos, a translator, and a combat assault dog. Instead, two rigorous U. S. military investigations followed every moment of the mission to determine what went wrong on Extortion 17s final flight. August 12, 2022. by Samantha Franco. The shootdown was the single, deadliest loss of U.S. forces in the war. Editor's Note: On August 6, 2021, 30 American military servicemen and a U.S. military dog were killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter - call sign Extortion 17 - was shot down in Afghanistan. On Aug. 6, 2011, insurgent forces in Afghanistan shot down an American aircraft. [39], Following the withdrawal of U.S. forces in April 2011, Tangi valley became a major staging area for attacks on Kabul (located just 60 miles away). In The Final Flight of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. Thirty members of the American special forces have been killed in Afghanistan in the deadliest day of the 10-year war for US military personnel when the Taliban shot down . American forces continued to carry out operations in the area (mostly via helicopter and using special forces), encountering resistance from Taliban fighters on several occasions. Spencer C. Duncan, 21, of Olathe, Kan. Why was the black box missing from the crash site? Photo by Sgt. [12][13], Six minutes prior to reaching the landing zone, the empty CH-47D left the formation as planned. Early media reports suggested that the Army had been tardy to recover flight recorders from the downed Chinook, and, as a consequence, the recorders had been swept away by the flood. The RPG is not a laser. Create an account. The group fired two or three RPG rounds from a two-story building, the second striking one of the helicopter's three aft rotor blades. The previous highest U.S. death toll from a single incident in the war came from a rocket attack on a Chinook helicopter carrying Navy SEALs during Operation Red Wings on June 28, 2005. "[5], Subsequent reports stated that on the night during which the helicopter had been delivering reinforcements to personnel of the 75th Ranger Regiment, another special operations unit engaged in a night raid on a compound to kill or capture a senior Taliban leader. Connor Mendez, courtesy of U.S. Army. The night before he left to go to Fort Hood, where he would board a plane to Afghanistan, the biggest event of the 10-year war occurred: Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan during a raid by Navy SEALs. Just three months earlier, members of a counterpart SEAL Team 6 squadron successfully raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and killed Osama bin Laden. Director Franois Garcia Writer Sandeep Panesar Stars Robert O'Neill (archive footage) Patricia Economo Enrique Garcia The U.S. Navy SEAL task force assigned to conduct operations in Tangi Valley was well conditioned to the dangerous operating environment. Near the site of the Extortion 17 crash stands a memorial to Taliban fighters killed in the August 2011 battle during which Extortion 17 was shot down. 3 U.S. Army Reserve personnel from the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment. Lee had just flown the night before on a similar mission with one of the pilots, David Carter. Cookie Settings, 5,000-Year-Old Tavern With Food Still Inside Discovered in Iraq, Archaeologists Discover Wooden Spikes Described by Julius Caesar, The Surprisingly Scientific Roots of Monkey Bars, Kids Start Forgetting Early Childhood Around Age 7, Artificial Sweetener Tied to Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke, Study Finds. When the shock subsided, questions arose and persisted. The crash killed all 38 people on board including 25 American special operations personnel, five United States Army National Guard and Army Reserve crewmen, seven Afghan commandos, and one Afghan interpreter as well as a U.S. military working dog. Another tactic sometimes employed by gunships, according to Glover, is a show of force, in which pilots and crew fire into an empty field or stand of trees just before a transport helicopter prepares to land, using the sound of a gun alone to keep enemy heads down and fingers off triggers. Missions like this one to insert or remove an assault force are the military equivalent of a perfect 10 in the Olympics equal parts skill, experience and daring. His account of the brave pilots, crew, and passengers of Extortion 17 . We were on goggles the whole time. [11], The mission was deemed high risk; two AH-64 Apache helicopters, an AC-130 gunship, and other additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft supported the troop transports on their approach and remained with the ground forces afterwards. Commentdocument.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a62b75e7a99f5de39e28d378788f7ec9" );document.getElementById("c08a1a06c7").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Content on this website is free to use and share, but please provide a link back to Spec Ops Magazine as a source. Are all DEVGRUs saved in a sperm bank? But U.S. forces didnt know about every fighter during the raid, and they lost track of at least twoone of whom fired the deadly shot. A junior, he was ready to fight, but the war would be over, he figured, before he even got out of college. "All of this raises the distinct possibility of a cover-up as to . )/SR-71 blackbird cloud behind the chinook; saying thats safe distance! The following was extracted from The Navy Times: If one is to believe the account of Matt Bissonnette, the only possibility of a participant of the bin Laden raid perishing on Extortion 17 is if the one SEAL specifically noted not to be a member of Red Squadron was a member of Gold Squadron and a passenger aboard the ill-fated Chinook. In March 2009, the U.S. 10th Mountain Division established a base in Tangi Valley after increased Taliban activity in the area. Nearby, there were two enemy fighters with rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The mission had begun about four hours prior to the shootdown, when the two helicopters touched down side by side in Juy Zarin, a village in the bare rock-walled Tangi Valley of Wardak Province. He was also an instructor at the High Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site (see Triple Threat: High, Hot, and Heavy, Aug. 2014), where many U.S. and foreign helicopter pilots train for mountainous and high-altitude flying, often before deployment to Afghanistan. [9][11], Six minutes later, the Rangers concluded securing the compound, detained several people and began to move on foot toward the crash site. He said, "And now, to our honor roll of American Service Personnel killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. There remained many mysteries about the Extortion 17 shoot down. It was the deadliest helicopter crash in the history of U.S. special operations. Lightboxes. His father Billy Vaughn recounted Thursday a phone call from his son following the White House . Touch device users can explore by touch or with swipe . The sheer amount of experience with our pilots, flight engineers and back-seaters and mechanics offered a wealth of knowledge, he said. Justin Buddy Lee will never forget that night six years ago. The forward rotor system then tore off, stressed by the imbalance and the strain of carrying what would normally be a shared load. Some 30 seconds later, one of the AH-64 Apache helicopters in the area reported: Fallen Angel.. The image released and purported to be Bin Laden was a blended image of an old Bin Laden pic and an image of a different terrorist that was killed in battle. Originally just two people, the group eventually swelled to a total of nine or ten fighters, and the special operations task force commander and the Immediate Reaction Force commander became concerned that it might include Tahir. The crash killed all 38 people on board including 25 American special operations personnel, five United States Army National Guard and Army Reserve crewmen, seven Afghan commandos, and one Afghan interpreter as well as a U.S. military working dog. Call Sign Extortion 17: The Shoot-Down of SEAL Team Six is a 2015 non-fiction expose, written by best-selling author and former U.S. Navy JAG Officer Don Brown, about the 2011 Chinook shootdown in Afghanistan of a United States Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter. AC-130 gunships orbiting overhead directed two AH-64 Apache attack helicopters to fire on and kill five enemy fighters. It was a hard landing, but it would have been worse if they had landed tail first. So much of the war is fought in areas where these helicopters have to fly at high altitudes, where the thin air can strain the performance of the engines and rotor blades, said Ed Darack, author of the recently published book, The Final Mission of Extortion 17: Special Ops, Helicopter Support, SEAL Team Six and the Deadliest Day of the U.S. War in Afghanistan. Extortion 17 August 6, 2022 marks 11 years since Extortion 17. (Smithsonian Books, September 2017). Captain Marquez claims that had the AC-130 been allowed to fire on the remaining enemy insurgents, Extortion 17 would not have been shot down. Around 02:23, the two helicopters departed the forward base. Rest in peace, gentlemen; you will not be forgotten. 1h 33m "A U.S. Army helicopter carrying 30 Americans, most members of the elite Navy SEAL Team 6 is shot down in Afghanistan. [25][original research? (U.S. Army photo by Rachel Larue/Arlington National Cemetery/released). Following a scorched earth tactic may have killed the two shootersand possibly a greater number of innocentsprior to Extortion 17s return that night, but counterinsurgency doctrine dictates that such tactics lead to potentially far worse long-term consequences. The downing of Extortion 17 spurred a number of conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the shootdown was revenge for bin Laden's death. Soldiers killed in Chinook shot down on Saturday came from 24 U.S. states First full list of names, ages and hometowns revealed - 17 were Navy SEALs Eye witnesses to the crash describe seeing. Theres no precedent for this. Extortion 17 and 16 werent MH-47s and their crews were not Night Stalkers. About a dozen of the 33 troops in the back of the helicopter suffered broken bones, heavy bruises and scrapes. Warnings from her crew to turn the Chinook back or cancel their mission went unheeded. We were supporting special operations, but not to the degree of the 160th. With a keen understanding of the propaganda value of downing Coalition helicopters, the Taliban single them out as targets. But at least you should care about them and appreciate what were asking of them.. He said that insurgents had assumed a strong tactical position without knowledge of the helicopter's flight path. An official investigation found no evidence of a pre-planned ambush, though it did suggest that other helicopter activity in the area could have tipped off Taliban fighters that more helicopters could be approaching, according to the report. I had to learn how to land while browned-out, wearing NVGs, on the side of a mountain or an uneven field, Lee said. Winds whipped through the fir trees. Hs unit called itself Extortion Company. One of his Chinooks, flying under the call sign Extortion 17 (one-seven), was tasked with the special operations mission the night of Aug. 6. To reach the crash site, one must wind slowly through the ancient, narrow streets of the villages of Logar to reach the Tangi Valley in Wardak. Directors Karl Horstmann Stephen Spivey Writer Stephen Spivey Stars Sean Hannity Raj Kala U.S. Navy Seals At 2:38 a.m. on August 6, 2011, a U.S. Army Chinook helicopter, call sign Extortion 17, entered the western opening of Afghanistan's restive Tangi Valley, flying alone. A Taliban fighter shot the helicopter out of the sky with a rocket-propelled grenade and all aboard were killedthe single greatest loss of American life in the Afghan war. Campbell was one of 30. The quick reaction force included SEAL Team 6 and other special operations personnel. The helicopter made its last radio transmission stating that it was one minute away from the landing zone, then descended to an altitude of 100150ft (3046m) and slowed to a speed of 50kn (58mph; 93km/h) as it approached the landing zone. [citation needed] Doubts about this story were raised by families and other concerned citizens despite the fact that the Navy SEAL team aboard Extortion 17 was a different squadron than that which had killed Osama bin Laden three months earlier. Among the 38 occupants inside the Chinook were some of the most highly trained and battle-seasoned fighters in the U.S. military, including 15 commandos from the Navys SEAL Team 6, the unit that three months earlier had killed Osama bin Laden. In less than five seconds, the helicopter crashed, killing all occupants, and approximately 30 seconds later, one of the AH-64 Apache helicopters radioed in the crash. There are more operations than can be supported by the 160th at any given time, says Major Matthew Brady, a former 160th pilot and company commander. Intelligence had revealed Tahir to be the senior Taliban chief of the Tangi Valley region, with probable ties to upper-echelon Taliban leadership in Pakistan. His account of the brave pilots, crew, and passengers of Extortion 17 and . The United States military continually works to improve protection for transport helicopters and their occupants, according to Glover and Brady. And to this day, people are still debating what really happened. The second slammed into one of the Chinooks rear rotor blades and exploded, severing 10 feet of it. Save up to 30% when you upgrade to an image pack. A body went into the ocean, but Ill bet it wasnt Bin Ladens. "The downing of Extortion 17 was a catastrophic and unprecedented tragedy for our nation," Reid testified. Operating with no lights save for the faint green glow of night vision goggles and cockpit instrument panels, the two helicopters, call signs Extortion 17 (one-seven) and Extortion 16, lifted into the darkness and accelerated toward a destination less than 20 miles west. Through sensors on manned and unmanned aircraft, U.S. forces observing the mud walls and terraces of the village saw new groups of fighters gathering and maneuvering. Editors note: This story originally appeared in October 2017. When tactical conditions allow, they initiate operations by calling out enemy forces. Since the shootdown of Extortion 17, the military has continued to gain vital experience and equipment to enable an ever greater understanding of an enemy force, aiming to know every combatant and potential combatant and his weapon system before a raid. It would never return. In June 2005, a rocket-propelled grenade connected with the rear transmission of a 160th MH-47E Chinook as it attempted to come to a hover, downing it; all 16 on board were killed. However, the Afghan government forces did not occupy the base, which was seized by the Taliban shortly after the departure of American forces. [11], At 02:00, the special operations task force commander and the Immediate Reaction Force commander decided to add additional (non-SEAL) reinforcements, increasing the size of the team to 33. A typical combat mission in Afghanistan leaves little margin for error, requiring Chinook pilots to land on tiny, makeshift sites on mountain slopes where any tree, bush or rock could be hiding an enemy fighter with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Afghanistan has long been a counter-insurgency campaign: The United States strategy has been to win Afghan trust through cooperation and aid. [43][45], 2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook shootdown, United States Air Force Combat Control Team, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), Tangi Valley, Wardak province, Afghanistan, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, Naval Special Warfare Development Group's, Explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technicians, United States House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, Call Sign Extortion 17: The Shoot-Down of SEAL Team Six, List of aviation accidents and incidents in the war in Afghanistan, "Elite Force Died in Bid to Save Comrades", "Taliban shot that brought down American Chinook killing 30 US commandos was 'lucky', officials believe", "Taliban shoot down US helicopter in Afghanistan; 38 killed", "Worst US loss of life in Afghan war as helicopter crash kills 38", "US military helicopter crash in Afghanistan kills 38", Executive Summary (Crash of CH-47D Aircraft in Wardak Province, Afghanistan on 6 August 2011), "Families suspect SEAL Team 6 crash was inside job on worst day in Afghanistan", "DOD Identifies Service Members Killed in CH-47 Crash", "Tragedy devastates special warfare community", "Friends remember three area soldiers killed in Afghan crash", "Chinook Crewmembers Line of Duty Deaths", "US special forces Afghan helicopter downed by Taliban", "Chopper crash kills 31 U.S. troops, 7 Afghans", "Copter Downed by Taliban Fire; Elite U.S. Unit Among Dead", "Impact on special forces of Navy Seals helicopter loss", "SEAL Team 6 Families Believe the 2011 Chinook Shootdown in Afghanistan was Planned | Navy SEALs Blog by USNavySEALs.com", "Army delayed Chinook helicopter's black box until it was too late", "Obama stonewalls SEAL Team 6 helicopter crash probe, watchdog says", "US helicopter shot down in Afghanistan was sent in after night raid went awry", "US military probes deadly Afghan helicopter crash", "What happened on night of deadly Afghanistan helicopter crash?