This remains the greatest single loss of life to Naval Special Warfare since the Afghan War started in 2001. Every mission is potentially life-threatening. The United States military continually works to improve protection for transport helicopters and their occupants, according to Glover and Brady. [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. It was brought down by multiple shots. [40], In October 2011, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that an investigation following the shootdown concluded "that all operational decisions, linked to the incident, were deemed tactically sound." 5 U.S. The call sign for the Chinook was Extortion 17. But what really happened that night? There are a lot of bullets out there that say To whom it may concern,says Major Doug Glover, a U.S. Marine F/A-18D weapons and sensors operator who was a senior watch officer for the Marine air operations center in southern Afghanistan. Are all DEVGRUs saved in a sperm bank? And now, the government wants to make the Taliban legitamet. 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. The quick reaction force included SEAL Team 6 and other special operations personnel. [22][20] Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, confirmed that eight of the movement's fighters had been killed in the assault on the compound. Whether enemy fire brought down the Chinook or a tree strike would never be known for sure. 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. 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. The group fired 2-3 RPG rounds from a two-story building from a location some 220 meters south of the helicopter. The Museum Executive Team worked with these men. Night Stalker pilots and crew rigorously train for nighttime raids, like the one in Juy Zarin. A catastrophic crash seemed unavoidable. His account of the brave pilots, crew, and passengers of Extortion 17 and . On the Extortion 17 crash, credible journalism was produced on this subject by Ed Darack in his book, "The Final Mission of Extortion 17." The SEALs who died in the crash belonged to Gold Squadron, while the SEALs who killed bin Laden belonged to Red Squadron. At 23:30, one of the Apache support helicopters engaged in a brief skirmish with a different group of eight Taliban fighters 400m (440yd) north of the compound, killing six. Why did it happen? Caring is more than just slapping a bumper sticker on your car, he said. We didnt do fast-rope inserts, building insertions, or anything like that. Subsequent to their Iraq deployment, the unit flew the SEALs of Team 6 on practice raids around Fort Carson, Colorado, and during nighttime urban training in Denver, further cementing the 2-135ths reputation with special operations units. In mid-2011, combined with a U.S. Army aviation battalion, they had spent weeks conducting operations nearly every other night in Wardak and surrounding provinces south of Kabul to capture or kill Taliban forces, disrupt attack plots, and deny them sanctuary on this strategic approach to Kabul City. Theres no precedent for this. It is considered the worst loss of American lives in a single incident in the Afghanistan campaign, surpassing Operation Red Wings in 2005. 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. So many unsettling details are coalescing with the resurgence of Extortion 17. Sometimes the enemy succeeds in delivering one of these To whom it may concern projectiles. Enterprise. The military has worked diligently to more tightly integrate gunship escorts with transport craft, according to Brady. Commanders frequently request CH-47 Chinooks to insert troops. All three airmen were assigned to the 24th Special Tactics Squadron, Pope Field, North Carolina. [34] Kevin Sieff and Greg Jaffe of The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials confirmed the deaths, including 22 SEALs. This remains the greatest single loss of life to Naval Special Warfare since the Afghan War started in 2001. Should the Apaches, or the AC-130 overhead, have fired upon the groups of suspected Taliban that gathered in the village after the raid began? 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. The theories suggest that Afghan forces leaked information to the Taliban about the mission. The shootdown was the single, deadliest loss of U.S. forces in the war. 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. A Department of Defense official asserted that there were no leaks from the Afghans. August 12, 2022. by Samantha Franco. Connor Mendez, courtesy of U.S. Army. The mission was flown by conventional pilots flying unmodified CH-47Ds. The helicopter plunged tail first. As they made their approach, there was a line of thunderstorms nearby. It would never return. [7][27][28] During the battle, American forces observed a small group of Taliban trying to flee the scene. )/SR-71 blackbird cloud behind the chinook; saying thats safe distance! Lightboxes. A junior, he was ready to fight, but the war would be over, he figured, before he even got out of college. Sat 6 Aug 2011 19.08 EDT. He was probably in the top 1 percent of Army aviators, Lee said. 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. Baseless Claim That Biden Ordered 'Extortion 17' Three months after the raid that killed bin Laden, Taliban fighters shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying 30 U.S. service members, including. The 30 American Servicemen killed in action (KIA) with the downing of Extortion 17. He said, "And now, to our honor roll of American Service Personnel killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Photo: We pay Tribute Chief Petty Officer Nicholas H. Null Operation Extortion 17 August 6, 2011 You may leave a condolence for his family on our YouTube channel https://youtu.be/L2lB37qizaI Comebacks Photo Photo: We pay Tribute to Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Stephen M. Mills Operation Extortion 17 August 6, 2011 Battalion Regiment Warrant Officer 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. [11], By 16:25, all of the remains were taken from the crash site via ground convoy and transported to Combat Outpost Sayyid Abad. Today. In fact, the conflict was heating up. Pinterest. Extortion 17 and 16 werent MH-47s and their crews were not Night Stalkers. They heard a helicopter coming, they grabbed their RPGs, and they fired in quick succession, Darack said. Seconds later, with the Chinook just over 100 feet off the ground and traveling at 58 mph, two or three previously unseen fighters emerged from the tower of a two-story building roughly 220 yards south of the helicopter, shouldering RPG launchers. I didnt want to die., He remembered the words of his old flight instructor: Never stop flying the aircraft.. Located in a remote and dangerous province in eastern Afghanistan, the base was the target of near-constant rocket attacks from Taliban insurgents. 2017 The Dallas Morning News. There is a lot of controversy and discussion regarding the operators from the Gold Squadron who died abroad. 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. The guy was incredibly skilled.. One AH-64 crew, after identifying the men as enemy combatants, fired on them with their gunships 30mm cannon, killing six. The worst of the wounded was one of Lees crew members, who suffered what was later diagnosed as a severe traumatic brain injury. And to this day, people are still debating what really happened. Lee heard the call, and he knew what it meant. The second slammed into one of the Chinooks rear rotor blades and exploded, severing 10 feet of it. The helicopter fell from the sky, killing all 38 on board. The US soldiers killed in the 2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook shoot-down with the call sign Extortion 17 (Photo: XY) SGT Alexander J. Bennett SPC Spencer Duncan (youngest onboard) CWO Bryan J. Nichols In March 2009, the U.S. 10th Mountain Division established a base in Tangi Valley after increased Taliban activity in the area. 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. No one is planting victory gardens, and were not rationing. The helicopter, call sign Extortion 17, was on a mission to reinforce American and coalition special operations troops. Petty Officer 1st Class Aaron Vaughn was one of the SEAL Team 6 operators who died in the crash. [33], The New York Post reported that the Pentagon released 30 names from the crash. 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. On this day 11 years ago, 30 American military servicemen and a U.S. military dog were killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicoptercall sign Extortion 17was shot down in Afghanistan. The Chinook headed to a different landing zone than the first assault team one in the narrowest part of the Tangi Valley. As the ground assault force rushed toward Tahirs compound, Extortion 17 and 16 sped back to base, where they were refueled, and awaited word to extract the team, evacuate wounded, or race reinforcing troops to Juy Zarin. They are not the same SEALs, and these two events are not connected to one another. Landing in deserts or mountainsides, the helicopter rotors kick up clouds of sand and dust, causing brownouts that can blind a pilot. Bissonnette also said that there was one DEVGRU Operator on the mission who was not a member of Red Squadron and that he was chosen for the mission because of his linguistic abilities. August 2011 Attack on U.S. Rest in peace, gentlemen; you will not be forgotten. [11], Separately, ISR aircraft continued to observe the unengaged group from the compound. It was a hard landing, but it would have been worse if they had landed tail first. The tempo of the missions did not decrease. David Tarrant, The Dallas Morning News The Tangi Valley is a strategic terrain that connects the two primary highways that lead to Kabul. "The downing of Extortion 17 was a catastrophic and unprecedented tragedy for our nation," Reid testified. It does not fly in a straight line, and there is no way to know what exact path it will takejust a fairly good idea of its trajectory.. NFTs Simplified > Uncategorized > extortion 17 crash photos. June 5, 2022 Posted by: Category: Uncategorized; No Comments . At 10:58 p.m., they were inserted by the same CH-47D helicopters that would later conduct the mission to insert the SEAL team. Their target was a Taliban commander responsible for ambushes and other attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces. Some sources state that at the shootdown, the two AH-64 Apache helicopters were engaged in tracking another Taliban group and were thus unable to provide surveillance (of the landing zone and infiltration route) and fire support the inbound CH-47D helicopter carrying the Navy SEAL team. 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. Advertising Notice On his first deployment, he felt fortunate to be surrounded by veteran pilots he could learn from. | Also very suspicious that the only member of Seal Team Six that is still alive and in the public sphere happened to be the guy that killed Bin Laden?? Naval Special Warfare support personnel: Two, 3 U.S. Army Reserve personnel (Aircrew) from the, This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 20:01. We were on goggles the whole time. [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]. LZ is ice, transmitted one of the Rangers on the ground, indicating the landing zone was free of enemy activity. 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 . Mission commanders, believing that Tahir was likely among one of the groups, deployed an Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) to interdict them while the Rangers held the compound. In The Final Flight of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. 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, Afghanistan. Explore. Qari Tahir, the man our forces were attempting to capture or kill on August 5, 2011, isone of many Taliban leaders who dedicate their lives to a corrupt agenda that seeks to eliminate freedom, equality, and prosperity in exchange for a medieval society built on violent extremism and wanton destruction. Also if an Afghan soldier member of this team opened fire on this seal team then way was all the bodies Cremated and evidence destroyed?? A senior Afghan government official, speaking anonymously, said that Taliban commander Qari Tahir had fed American forces false information about a meeting of insurgent leaders and fighters waited for the helicopter from both sides of a steep valley: "The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take. The first round sailed past the helicopter. Our area of operation was the entire country of Iraq, and every mission was at night, says David Pat Gates, a pilot with Carters unit , the 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment (2-135th), a Colorado Army National Guard unit based in Aurora, Colorado. While classification veils the specifics of these tactics, particularly for special operations raids, manned gunships can detect potential threats through a range of sensors and immediately attack if needed. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. But we are still sending people to another country to fight, and we need to understand why were doing that, he said. We continue our work at the Museum so that theirservice and sacrifice will never be forgotten. 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. Just as ridiculous as saying [President George W.] Bush was responsible for 9/11, Lee said. At 2:36 a.m., Extortion 17 requested an infrared spotlight, visible only through night vision goggles, to illuminate the landing zone. We were supporting special operations, but not to the degree of the 160th. Neither did the risk he and his pilots faced every night. Photo by Sgt. August 6, 2017 marks the 6 year anniversary of the downing of Extortion 17, a bigger scandal than Benghazi in large part due to the fact that America lost 30 of its military personnel, including 17 Navy SEALs, the largest loss of life in the Afghan war. The Joint Combat Assessment Team report further noted that despite a robust deck of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, none identified the location from which the shooters fired prior to the helicopter downing. Learnt of this today, very surprising after ladens raid was covered in the media here. 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. Editors note: This story originally appeared in October 2017. 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. But Tahir and a group of his fighters escaped. Save up to 30% when you upgrade to an image pack. Their target: an Afghan named Qari Tahir and his group of fighters. [9][10][11] After a 20-minute flight (around 23:00), the two Chinook helicopters landed near the compound ostensibly containing Tahir, offloaded the Ranger platoon and returned to base. I was terrified. | Extortion 16 flew empty. Extortion 17 sped alone toward the landing zone. Two were still alive." Its the worst day in our history by a mile.. Instead, two rigorous U. S. military investigations followed every moment of the mission to determine what went wrong on Extortion 17s final flight. Ranger assault helicopters had already engaged the enemy and killed six of eight Taliban fighters, causing the other two to retreat.