2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook shootdown

2011 U.S. Boeing CH-47 Chinook shootdown
A Boeing CH-47D Chinook helicopter in Bagram, Afghanistan, similar to the one that was shot down.
Attack
Date 6 August 2011
Summary Brought down by rocket-propelled grenade attack
Site Tangi Valley, Maidan Wardak Province, Afghanistan
Aircraft
Aircraft type Boeing CH-47D Chinook
Operator United States Army[1][2][3][4][5]
Registration 84-24175
Passengers 33
Crew 5[4][5]
Fatalities 38 plus one U.S. military working dog[6][7]
Survivors 0

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 an Immediate 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.[1][2][8][9] The resulting crash killed all 38 people on board - 25 American special operations personnel, one pilot and two crewmen of the United States Army Reserve, one pilot and one crewman of the United States Army National Guard, seven members of the Afghan National Security Forces, and one Afghan interpreter, as well as a U.S. military working dog.[1][2][10][11][12][13] At 31 American military personnel killed, the shoot down of Extortion 17 represents the greatest single-incident loss of American lives in Operation Enduring Freedom - Afghanistan, surpassing the sixteen lost in the downing of Turbine 33, a 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) MH-47, during Operation Red Wings on 28 June 2005, which previously claimed that title.[2]

Prelude

In March 2009, U.S. forces (10th Mountain Division) established a base in Tangi Valley after Taliban fighters were observed exploiting the coalition forces' small presence in the area. U.S., French and Afghan National Police forces carried out a three-day sweep of the area after which the area was deemed secure. In April 2011, U.S. forces abandoned the base (Combat Outpost Tangi) and turned over control of the base to Afghan forces. However, Afghan forces never assumed control of the base, which was seized by the Taliban shortly after the departure of U.S. forces.

U.S. forces continued to carry out operations in the area (mostly via helicopter and special forces) encountering resistance from Taliban fighters on several occasions. For example, on 8 June 2011 a CH-47D was engaged from five to six locations (i.e., points of origin) which fired 14 RPG rounds at the helicopter forcing the crew to abort the mission.[14][15]

Event timeline

After US intelligence services discovered a possible location of a senior Taliban leader by the name Qari Tahir in Tangi Valley, Wardak province, Afghanistan,[16] a mission to apprehend or neutralize him was launched on the night of 5/6 August 2011 from the forward operating base in Logar Province.[16] It was led by a platoon of 47 U.S. Army Rangers with a troop of 17 U.S. Navy SEALs kept in reserve in case of need.[16][17] The Ranger platoon was transported to the area via two CH-47D transport helicopters (one of them was the accident helicopter) and supported by two AH-64 Apache helicopters and an AC-130 gunship as well as additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft (ISR).[16] The mission was deemed high risk.[16]

  • 22:37 local time, 18:07 UTC/GMT/Zulu time[18] the two CH-47D helicopters carrying the U.S. Army Ranger platoon departed the forward operating base.[14][15]
  • 22:58 5 August 2011 (Afghanistan Local time), 18:28 UTC/GMT/Zulu time[18] the two CH-47D helicopters successfully landed and disembarked the Rangers at the designated location near the compound where it was believed Qari Tahir was located.[16] The helicopters then successfully exfiltrated and returned to base.[16] As the Rangers approached the target compound ISR aircraft observed several people leaving the compound.[16]
  • 23:30 one of the two AH-64 Apache helicopters observed and engaged a group of eight Taliban fighters some 400 meters northwest of the target compound killing six.[16] A second group was observed by ISR aircraft as well but was not engaged.[16]
  • 01:00 6 August 2011 a group of Taliban fighters (who fled the compound shortly before the Rangers arrived) which initially consisted of just 2 people had by now increased in size to 9–10 fighters. The group then split into two groups, three Taliban fighters took a position in a stand of trees while the remaining 6–7 men entered a building located some 2 kilometers from the target compound. Believing that Qari Tahir may be in the group the special operations task force commander and the Immediate Reaction Force commander decided to employ reserve forces (U.S. Navy SEALs) in order to engage this group as well.[16]
  • 01:50 the Aviation Brigade Commander approved a new landing zone which would be used to infiltrate a 17-man Navy SEAL team (the landing zone had been examined for a previous mission but never used).
  • 02:00 special operations task force commander and the Immediate Reaction Force commander determined that the Navy SEAL team should be supported with additional elements increasing the size of the team to 33. It was decided to use both CH-47D helicopters but the entire team would be transported in a single CH-47 with the second remaining empty in an effort to mitigate the risk of a second helicopter approaching the landing zone.[16]
  • 02:22[16] – 02:24[14] 6 August, local time, 21:54 UTC/GMT/Zulu time, 5 August,[18] the two CH-47D helicopters (one of them carrying the SEAL team) took-off from the forward operating base[14][16]
  • six minutes prior to reaching the landing zone the empty CH-47D left formation (as planned) and the CH-47D carrying the SEALs proceeded to the landing zone alone. The helicopter entered the valley from the northwest unlike earlier that night (during the U.S. Army Ranger platoon insertion) when it entered from the south.[16] The helicopter flew without external lighting and made its last radio transmission stating it was one minute away from the landing zone. The helicopter then descended to an altitude below 150 feet (>50 meters)[19] and slowed to a speed of 50 knots (58 mph, ~90 km/h) as it approached the landing zone.[16][20]
  • 02:38 – 02:39 August 6 local time, 22:09 August 5 UTC/GMT/Zulu time[14][16][18] the helicopter was fired upon and shot down by a previously undetected group of Taliban fighters. The group fired 2–3 RPG rounds from a two-story building from a location some 220 meters south of the helicopter. The second round struck one of the three aft rotor blades of the helicopter destroying the aft rotor assembly.[16] The helicopter crashed less than 5 seconds later, killing all 38 people on board.[16] Some 30 seconds later one of the AH-64 Apache helicopters in the area reported: "Fallen Angel".[14] Some sources state that at the time of 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) as well as fire support to the inbound CH-47D helicopter carrying the Navy SEAL team.[17][21]
  • 02:45 the Rangers secured the initial compound and detained several people and then began to move (on foot) towards the crash site[16]
  • 04:12 U.S. Army Rangers reached the crash site but found no survivors. Several minutes later a 20-man Pathfinder team (specialised in downed aircraft rescue and recovery) arrived at the site as well.[16]
  • by 16:25 all of the remains were taken from the crash site via ground convoy and transported to Combat Outpost Sayyid Abad
  • in the afternoon of 6 August a flash flood swept through the area washing away parts of the wreckage. The CH-47D airframe does not contain "black boxes" (allegedly only the MH-47 variant is equipped with a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder),[22] though they are often erroneously discussed/referenced in the media.[16][23]
  • the recovery of wreckage from the crash site lasted until 9 August 2011[16]

Initial accounts

The U.S. military helicopter carrying special operations forces to a night-raid in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province, was most likely brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade, according to military officials.[13][24]

General Abdul Qayum, the police chief of Wardak, said the military helicopter was shot down around 1 am Saturday after a U.S. night assault on a house in the village of Jaw-e-Mekh Zareen in the Tangi Valley that had lasted at least two hours.[13] Local witnesses reported that at least two helicopters had taken part in the U.S. special forces attack on the compound, killing eight Afghan insurgents, but that just after the helicopter had taken off again it was fired upon from a separate position. Shahidullah Shahid, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said: "The US chopper that crashed last night was shot down by the Taliban as it was taking off. A rocket fired by the insurgents hit it and completely destroyed it."[11][24]

A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, confirmed that eight of the movement's fighters had been killed in the assault on the compound. He said: "They wanted to attack our Mujahideen who were in a house, but our Mujahideen resisted and destroyed a helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade."[11]

Later accounts

Subsequent reports stated that on the night the U.S. military 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.[6][25][26][27] During the battle US forces observed a small group of Taliban trying to flee the scene. The group probably contained the commander and a few of his bodyguards while the remaining Taliban fighters offered resistance in an effort to buy the group enough time to escape. In order to prevent this US forces called in for support.[28]

Other reports alleged that the Taliban had laid an elaborate trap for U.S. special operations forces, luring them in with false information. A senior Afghan government official, speaking anonymously, said that Taliban commander Qari Tahir had fed U.S. 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. That's the only route, so they took position on either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. It was brought down by multiple shots."[29]

Deaths

The deaths included:[30]

The 30 American deaths represent the greatest loss of U.S. military lives in a single incident in the, by then, decade-long war in Afghanistan that began in 2001.[6][24][33]

Fifteen of the Navy SEALs that were killed were members of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU),[11][13][24][34] while the other two Navy SEALs killed in the helicopter shootdown were from an unidentified West Coast-based SEAL unit. The five other Navy casualties were NSW (Naval Special Warfare) support personnel; in addition to these, three AFSOC operators, one Combat Controller and two Pararescuemen, all members of the 24th Special Tactics Squadron, died in the crash. 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.[31][35]

[11][13]

Subsequent events

After the shoot down of Extortion 17, the insurgent responsible used a two-way radio to brag to others about the act. American signals Intelligence aircraft intercepted these transmissions, and subsequently tracked the individual and his accomplice. American intelligence officials identified this individual as "OBJECTIVE GINOSA." On the night of 8 August 2011, an F-16 dropped four GBU-54 "Laser JDAM" bombs on OBJECTIVE GINOSA, his accomplice, and four associates in the Chak Valley, which lies to the west of the Tangi Valley. Monitored and controlled by a Joint Terminal Attack Controller at Forward Operating Base Shank via a General Atomics MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, all six were killed and positively confirmed killed by the bomb strike and subsequent attacks by a Lockheed AC-130 gunship and two Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships.[2][36]

On 10 August 2011, the U.S. military claimed that the insurgent who fired the rocket-propelled grenade had been killed only two days afterward in a F-16 airstrike, saying only that intelligence gained on the ground provided "a high degree of confidence" that the person was among those killed in the airstrike from two days earlier, but providing no other details.[37]

During the same Pentagon news conference in which he announced that the F-16 airstrike had taken out "less than 10" of the insurgents involved, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander in Afghanistan John R. Allen said the military investigation into the helicopter downing would also review whether small-arms fire or other causes might have contributed to the downing.[37]

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). Tangi valley remained under Taliban control until April 2013, when over 1000 Afghan security forces personnel launched an offensive in an effort to clear the area of Taliban fighters.[38]

In October 2011, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that an investigation carried out following the shootdown concluded "that all operational decisions, linked to the incident, were deemed tactically sound". The article states that the helicopter crashed after a RPG round impacted the aft rotor assembly.[16]

In 2013, Jason Chaffetz said he would hold an investigation of the United States House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security into the matter.[39] At the subsequent hearing in February 2014, Pentagon representative Garry Reid defended the decision to undertake the mission, and denied that the Taliban had any advance knowledge of it; rather, he said that militants had occupied a strong tactical position without knowledge of the helicopter's flight path.[40]

In 2017, Air Force Captain Joni Marquez, the firing officer on an AC-130 gunship which accompanied Extortion 17 on the final flight, made a similar claim. Ranger assault helicopters had already engaged the enemy and killed six of eight insurgents, causing the other two to retreat. “I had the sensor operators immediately shift to the eight insurgents the helicopters had taken out,” Marquez told Circa, in her first interview about the incident. “Two were still alive.” 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. Warnings from her crew to turn the Chinook back or cancel their mission went unheeded.[41][42]

American rules of engagement were tightened by Gen. Stanley McChrystal in 2009, in order to improve American counterinsurgency strategy.[43] 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.[41][43]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Ed Darack. "The Final Flight of Extortion 17". Air & Space / Smithsonian. Retrieved 17 July 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Ed Darack (2017). "The Final Mission of Extortion 17: Special Ops, Helicopter Support, SEAL Team Six, and the Deadliest Day of the U.S. War in Afghanistan". Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute. ISBN 978-1588345899.
  3. ↑ NBC's Courtney Kube and Mark Murray. "Taliban shoots down U.S. helicopter, killing dozens of U.S. soldiers". Firstread.msnbc.msn.com. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 Kavanaugh, Lee Hill (8 August 2011), "Friends remember three area soldiers killed in Afghan crash", The Kansas City Star, Kansas City, MO, retrieved 8 August 2011
  5. 1 2 3 "Chinook Crewmembers Line of Duty Deaths", ARMY AIR CREWS, retrieved 8 August 2011
  6. 1 2 3 Jon Boone in Kabul (7 August 2011). "Worst US loss of life in Afghan war as helicopter crash kills 38". The Guardian. UK. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  7. ↑ David Batty and agencies (6 August 2011). "US military helicopter crash in Afghanistan kills 38". The Guardian. UK. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  8. ↑ Dion Nissenbaum, Julian Barnes and Habib Totakhil (8 August 2011). "Elite Force Died in Bid to Save Comrades". Wall Street Journal.
  9. ↑ Carlo Munoz. "Would the Taliban Have Hit an Osprey?". AOL Defense. Archived from the original on 28 March 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2011.
  10. ↑ Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs). "DOD Identifies Service Members Killed In CH-47 Crash". Department of Defense.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Farmer, Ben (7 August 2011). "Taliban shot that brought down American Chinook killing 30 US commandos was 'lucky', officials believe". The Daily Telegraph. UK. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  12. ↑ Sarwar, Nadeem. "Taliban shoot down US helicopter in Afghanistan; 38 killed". News.bostonherald.com. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Rivera, Ray; Rubin, Alissa J.; Shanker, Thom (6 August 2011). "Copter Downed by Taliban Fire; Elite U.S. Unit Among Dead". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "iPage" (PDF). Retrieved 27 May 2015.
  15. 1 2 "Deletion notice". Archived from the original on 14 September 2014. Retrieved 8 September 2017. Text " Scribd " ignored (help)
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/wardak_executive_summary.pdf
  17. 1 2 "Families suspect SEAL Team 6 crash was inside job on worst day in Afghanistan". Washington Times. 2013-10-20. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
  18. 1 2 3 4 "The World Clock – Time Zones". Timeanddate.com. Retrieved 2014-02-23.
  19. ↑ Time. "Feet to Meters conversion – ft to m". Metric-conversions.org. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
  20. ↑ "Miles per hour to Kilometers per hour table". Metric-conversions.org. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
  21. ↑ "Full story of SEAL mission in question". Washington Times. 2011-10-24. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
  22. ↑ "Army delayed Chinook helicopter's black box until it was too late – Washington Times". The Washingtion Times. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
  23. ↑ "SEAL Team 6 Families Believe the 2011 Chinook Shootdown in Afghanistan was Planned | Navy SEALs Blog by USNavySEALs.com". Blog.usnavyseals.com. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
  24. 1 2 3 4 "US special forces Afghan helicopter downed by Taliban". BBC News. 7 August 2011. Retrieved 6 August 2011.
  25. ↑ Jon Boone in Kabul (8 August 2011). "US helicopter shot down in Afghanistan was sent in after night raid went awry". The Guardian. UK. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  26. ↑ "Special forces helicopter shot down in Afghanistan was on a mission to rescue fellow Navy SEALs | Mail Online". Daily Mail. UK. 10 August 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  27. ↑ "US military probes deadly Afghan helicopter crash". News.yahoo.com. 20 April 2011. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  28. ↑ "What happened on night of deadly Afghanistan helicopter crash?". Reuters. 10 August 2011.
  29. ↑ "Taliban laid trap for Chinook: official". GlobalPost. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  30. ↑ "DOD Identifies Service Members Killed In CH-47 Crash" (Press release). Department of Defense. 11 August 2011. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
  31. 1 2 3 4 Naylor, Sean D. (7 August 2011). "Tragedy devastates special warfare community". USA Today.
  32. ↑ Cole, Kevin (8 August 2011). "Lincoln native on downed copter". Omaha World-Herald. Archived from the original on 17 September 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2011.
  33. ↑ King, Laura (6 August 2011). "Chopper crash kills 31 U.S. troops, 7 Afghans". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
  34. ↑ Faiez, Rahim. "News from The Associated Press". Hosted.ap.org. Retrieved 7 August 2011.
  35. ↑ "Impact on special forces of Navy Seals helicopter loss". BBC. 3 August 2011. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  36. ↑ "The OBJECTIVE GINOSA strike – Payback for the shootdown of Extortion 17". SOFREP.com. 5 January 2018. Retrieved 17 July 2018.
  37. 1 2 "Military killed Taliban who downed US helicopter". News.yahoo.com. 20 April 2011. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  38. ↑ "Afghan soldiers enter a Taliban nest — without U.S. troops by their side". The Washington Post. 2011-05-26. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
  39. ↑ Ruyle, Megan (24 July 2013). "Congress to probe lethal crash that killed SEAL Team 6 members". TheHill.com. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  40. ↑ "Pentagon defends deadly Afghan mission". The Hill. February 27, 2014. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  41. 1 2 Carter, Sara A. (18 April 2017). "A retired Air Force captain says Pentagon covered up real cause of deadly chopper crash". Circa.com. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  42. ↑ "A Retired Air Force Captain Says Pentagon Covered Up Real Cause of Deadly Chopper Crash". FoxNews.com. 19 April 2017. Archived from the original on 19 May 2017. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  43. 1 2 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121330893

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.