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The shooters origin remains a mystery. I was terrified. Enterprise. 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. Lees wife, Christy, hoped the news would bring a sudden end to the war. 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 crash is referred to as Extortion 17 by the callsign of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter involved in the crash. All of them were men of courage, integrity, and honor. Don Brown, a former U.S. Navy JAG officer stationed at the Pentagon, and former Special Assistant United . "It's a math problem. 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. In 2006, he was called into Afghanistan, where he turned 25. Upon learning of Tahirs possible location, a U.S. Army Rangers and Afghan Special Forces team was deployed into the valley from the south. The forward rotor system then tore off, stressed by the imbalance and the strain of carrying what would normally be a shared load. In order to speed disembarkation, all troops were loaded on a single CH-47D helicopter for transport; the other Chinook would approach the landing zone second as a decoy. Its like taking a paper towel roll, cutting it in half and strapping it to your eye, Lee said. LZ is ice, transmitted one of the Rangers on the ground, indicating the landing zone was free of enemy activity. But even a precisely aimed shot fired from an unguided weapon by a seasoned fighter is subject to the ballistics-altering whims of atmospheric variation, subtle and undetected flaws in launcher or projectile, and uncontrollable environmental factors such as wind gusts, large temperature variations, or even particulates in the air. Classified reports, published by Wikileaks, teem with notes from pilots and crew of all types of military helicopters who saw RPG attacks throughout the war. Save up to 30% when you upgrade to an image pack. On this day 11 years ago, 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. If this was survivable, that was the right crew to have. Instead, two rigorous U. S. military investigations followed every moment of the mission to determine what went wrong on Extortion 17s final flight. And to this day, people are still debating what really happened. )/SR-71 blackbird cloud behind the chinook; saying thats safe distance! Connor Mendez, courtesy of U.S. Army. BUT the Chief Command and those who elected him will pay for there failure to seek Yahwahs guidance before going to war or to vote for a new president! The insurgents had no way of knowing the helicopter would be coming in, at the speed it was coming and at the altitude, Darack said. [9][11], Six minutes later, the Rangers concluded securing the compound, detained several people and began to move on foot toward the crash site. Seven Afghan National Army commandos and one Afghan civilian interpreter were also killed in the crash. Restrained by strict rules of engagement in force at the time, the helicopter crews could not have fired without a strong indication of hostile intent. Six minutes from their estimated landing time, Extortion 16 broke away from the lead Chinook and orbited at a location close enough to help if needed. At the pilots request, the AC-130 flashed an infrared spotlight, which could be seen only through night vision goggles, to light up the landing zone. This hearing also serves to [29], Other reports alleged that the Taliban had laid an elaborate trap for American special-operations forces, luring them in with false information. Patrick D. Hamburger, 30, of Lincoln, Neb. Warnings from her crew to turn the Chinook back or cancel their mission went unheeded. The landing zone had been examined for a previous mission but had not yet been used. Spec Ops Magazine 2023 All Rights Reserved. Air & Space/Smithsonian contributing editor Ed Darack is the author of The Warriors of Anbar; War Moments; The Final Mission of Extortion 17; Victory Point; and three other books. Six weeks later, at around 10:40 p.m., an assault team of Army Rangers and Afghan special operations forces were dropped into an LZ on a mission to capture or kill a Taliban commander named Qari Tahir, who had been responsible for a series of attacks and ambushes in the Tangi Valley, not far from Shank. The IRF commander then made a critical decision: In order to get everyone on the ground as quickly as possible and deny the Taliban time to react, he ordered the entire force to fly in Extortion 17. 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. American signals intelligence aircraft intercepted these transmissions and subsequently tracked the individual and his accomplice. [1][5][6][7][8] At 30 American military personnel killed, the shootdown of Extortion 17 represents the greatest single-incident loss of American lives in Operation Enduring Freedom Afghanistan, surpassing the 16 lost in the downing of Turbine 33, a 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) MH-47 helicopter, during Operation Red Wings on 28 June 2005.[2]. 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. You never want to use the same landing zone twice, Darack said. That night, nearly 10 years after the U.S. had gone to war in Afghanistan, Lee believed they were the best team for this dangerous mission. Nichols had deployed three times to combat zones, and Carter, with more than 4,000 hours of flight time, was one of the most experienced helicopter pilots in the U.S. military. In April 2011, American forces turned over control of Combat Outpost Tangi to Afghan government forces. You also want to come in from a different direction for the element of surprise.. The Extortion 17 chopper was part of Operation Neptune Spear a few months earlier. At 02:15, one group of three Taliban fighters took a position in a stand of trees; the remaining six or seven men entered a building located some 2km (1.2mi) from the target compound. It was brought down by multiple shots. 2 U.S. Navy SEALs from a west coast-based SEAL team. They reached the site at 04:12 and found no survivors. On August 6th, 2011, the helicopter was fired upon and shot down by a previously undetected group of Taliban fighters. Their deaths are the greatest single loss of life ever suffered by the U.S. Special Operations community in the 24-year history of the U.S. Special Operations Command.[5][22][15][23]. As for himself, he speaks out about Extortion 17 because he wants to remember the men on that mission. Afghanistan has long been a counter-insurgency campaign: The United States strategy has been to win Afghan trust through cooperation and aid. In The Final Mission of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. [11] At 22:37 (local time) on the night of 5 August, a platoon of 47 U.S. Army Rangers left a forward operating base in Logar Province via two CH-47D transport helicopters, one of which would later be involved in the accident. Troops in Afghanistan Defense Department officials and military leaders testified at a hearing on the investigation of the August 20111 death of 30 U.S. servicemen in. Extortion 17 BRIAN BILL FOUNDATION 31 MILE RUCK FOR THE 31 HEROES OF EXTORTION 17 IN WASHINGTON, DC AUGUST 3, 2019 On 6 August 2011, a U.S. Boeing CH-47 Chinook military helicopter was shot down while transporting a quick reaction force attempting to reinforce an engaged unit of Army Rangers in Wardak province, west of Kabul, Afghanistan. "Over two years after Extortion 17 was shot down, the families still have these unanswered questions," said Klayman. [45] McChrystal cited a previous "overreliance on firepower and force protection" and the need to reduce civilian casualties and win the cooperation of the local population. This is the Group Burial for unidentified remains of casualties of the Chinook helicopter (CH-47D 89-00175) which crashed in Afghanistan on August 6, 2011. Cookie Policy It just wasnt.. So the whole team went in one Chinook helicopter Extortion 17. Available for both RF and RM licensing. [11] Going forward, the two AH-64 Apache helicopters would be engaged in tracking those two groups of Taliban, and hence unable to provide surveillance or fire support to the inbound helicopter carrying the SEAL team. Extortion 17 and 16 werent MH-47s and their crews were not Night Stalkers. Around 2:40 a.m., an Apache pilot flying in support came on the radio and shouted: Fallen Angel. Please take a moment and pause to honor and remember these heroes. 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. When the Boeing CH-47D Chinook helicopter was hit, all 38 onboard were instantly killed. The immediate reaction force Extortion 17 carried should have been flown in two helicopters: Senior JSOC and aviation planners both agreed that the best course of action was to put the entire . Nearby, there were two enemy fighters with rocket-propelled grenade launchers. August 12, 2022. by Samantha Franco. For helicopter crews in Afghanistan, the most dangerous times are landing and taking off. It wasnt preventable. 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. Sometimes the enemy succeeds in delivering one of these To whom it may concern projectiles. Air Force C-17 Crashes Just After Takeoff in Alaska | Dangerous Aerobatics (With Real Video) TheFlightChannel 2.1M views 1 year ago Feature History - Chinese Civil War Feature History 1.9M views. "The downing of Extortion 17 was a catastrophic and unprecedented tragedy for our nation," Reid testified. Extortion 17 August 6, 2022 marks 11 years since Extortion 17. The Chinook smashed into the ground, the force ripping off his goggles. 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. One of the best crews in my company. But the CH-47D has neither a flight nor voice recorder, only an engine performance data recorder for maintenance. That's the only route, so they took positions on either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. Andrew W. Harvell, 26, of Long Beach, California, Tech. Alexander J. Bennett, 24, of Tacoma, Wash. He grew up in Tyler, went to Texas A&M;, joined the Corps of Cadets and stared in shock at the news that two planes slammed into the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. That June, the U.S. military launched Operation Hammer Down to drive out insurgents entrenched in remote strongholds of eastern Afghanistan. Whether enemy fire brought down the Chinook or a tree strike would never be known for sure. This tactic was highly successful; hundreds of operations were conducted without firing a shot for years. The 30 American Servicemen killed in action (KIA) with the downing of Extortion 17. The helicopters are capacious and fast, and they can perform well in Afghanistans performance-degrading high altitudes and heat. That same day he obtained a medical waiver he needed to pursue an Army commission to serve an eight-year hitch before going to law school. The sheer amount of experience with our pilots, flight engineers and back-seaters and mechanics offered a wealth of knowledge, he said. 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. On 6 August 2011, a U.S. CH-47D Chinook military helicopter operating with the call sign Extortion 17 (pronounced "one-seven") was shot down while transporting a Quick Reaction Force attempting to reinforce a Joint Special Operations Command unit of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the Tangi Valley in Maidan Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, Should the Apache pilots have fired into the stand of trees after the two fighters ducked out of sight? At 2:36 a.m., Extortion 17 requested an infrared spotlight, visible only through night vision goggles, to illuminate the landing zone. The incident became known as "Extortion 17" after the helicopter . Play FALLEN ANGEL Call Sign: Extortion 17. I am so proud to be an American and I thank all of the families left behind to mourn their loss. 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. Stock photos, 360 images, vectors and videos A catastrophic crash seemed unavoidable. A body went into the ocean, but Ill bet it wasnt Bin Ladens. With a keen understanding of the propaganda value of downing Coalition helicopters, the Taliban single them out as targets. 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. [36][37], After the shootdown of Extortion 17, the insurgent responsible used a two-way radio to brag to others about the act. On Aug. 6, 2011, on the deadliest day in special operations history, 30 Americans, including 17 Navy SEALs, died when a Chinook helicopter crashed. 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.