[36][37], After the shootdown of Extortion 17, the insurgent responsible used a two-way radio to brag to others about the act. A chief warrant officer 5, a member of the Colorado National Guard, Carter had over 4,500 flying hours, including more than 1,000 hours during combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. This would not be the first time that an Afghan military member has been an undercover Taliban Terrorist and shot our US Military! And to this day, people are still debating what really happened. However, the Afghan government forces did not occupy the base, which was seized by the Taliban shortly after the departure of American forces. The "had Seal team 6 killed" is a likely reference to what's known as the "Extortion 17" incident, the August 2011 tragedy in which a Chinook military helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan,. The shoot-down of 'Extortion 17' constitutes the greatest loss of American life from a single battle in the history of the Afghanistan War. But over time, they became more disturbing, including one that suggested the Taliban had been tipped off by someone inside the Afghan government as revenge for bin Ladens killing. The two may have been those who escaped Apache cannon fire, or they may have split away from either of the groups that formed after the start of the raid. John W. Brown, 33, of Tallahassee, Florida, Staff Sgt. Campbell was one of 30 Americans killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, with the call sign Extortion 17, crashed in Afghanistan. But one thing that doesnt fade is never forgetting what they did.. 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. Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made. The SEAL Team 6 community was devastated. [11], Separately, ISR aircraft continued to observe the unengaged group from the compound. 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. 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.. 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. Stock photos, 360 images, vectors and videos He said that insurgents had assumed a strong tactical position without knowledge of the helicopter's flight path. The Taliban shot at the Chinooks all the time with RPGs and rifles, Darack said. 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. It was a hard landing, but it would have been worse if they had landed tail first. Buy images; Sell images; 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! On his right wrist, he wears a bracelet with the names of the five crew members of Extortion 17. 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, one Afghan interpreter, and a U.S. military working dog. Night Stalker pilots and crew rigorously train for nighttime raids, like the one in Juy Zarin. 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. . Photo by Sgt. Its almost always a miss.. Their target was a Taliban commander responsible for ambushes and other attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces. 2017 The Dallas Morning News. 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. One of the best crews in my company. Around 02:23, the two helicopters departed the forward base. Recovery of wreckage from the crash site lasted until 9 August 2011. The crash occurred in Tangi Joi Zareen, in the district of Sayd Abad in Wardak Province after it was struck by an. Why was the black box missing from the crash site? 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. 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. Winds whipped through the fir trees. The second slammed into one of the Chinooks rear rotor blades and exploded, severing 10 feet of it. The worst of the wounded was one of Lees crew members, who suffered what was later diagnosed as a severe traumatic brain injury. [11], The 30 American deaths represent the greatest loss of U.S. military lives in a single incident in the war in Afghanistan that began in 2001. One rocket struck a rotor blade, causing the aircraft to crash almost instantly. A few minutes past 2 a.m.on August 6, 2011, at a dusty forward operating base40 miles south of Kabul, Afghanistan, the rotors of two U.S. Army CH-47D Chinooks began to turn. It wasnt preventable. Touch device users can explore by touch or with swipe . The Chinook helicopter they were aboard was shot down by . What are the odds? Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. [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. Lee, now a captain, was placed in command of a Chinook helicopter unit at Forward Operating Base Shank. Photo by Jake Simkin for Coffee or Die Magazine. Naval Special Warfare support personnel, two EOD technicians, one MWD Handler, one Cryptologic technician, and one Information systems technician. As Extortion 17 moved into final approach of the target area at 0238 local time, the Rangers on the ground watched in horror as it took a direct hit from an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade). We were supporting special operations, but not to the degree of the 160th. I was terrified. [39], During the same Pentagon news conference in which he announced that the F-16 airstrike had incapacitated "less than 10" of the insurgents involved, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander in Afghanistan John R. Allen said that the military investigation would also review whether small-arms fire or other causes might have contributed to the downing. 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. Located in a remote and dangerous province in eastern Afghanistan, the base was the target of near-constant rocket attacks from Taliban insurgents. Don Brown, a former U.S. Navy JAG officer stationed at the Pentagon, and former Special Assistant United . Flying low, the pilots have to maneuver a machine weighing up to 50,000 pounds over mountains, under cover of darkness, in swirling wind and dust, wearing night vision goggles. This was preventable only if they just had not taken off that night, Lee said. Despite the risk, operations like these were taking place with such frequency in Afghanistan they only made news when they produced a spectacular success, like the bin Laden mission. They are not the same SEALs, and these two events are not connected to one another. Humm, to have all the Seal Team 6 members in one place at one time?? The group fired 2-3 RPG rounds from a two-story building from a location some 220 meters south of the helicopter. The Afghan soldiers were an essential part of the package; they were trained to move with our forces to the target. Neither did the risk he and his pilots faced every night. When asked what lessons Americans can draw from the crash of Extortion 17, Lees answer is simple: Americans should care about what happens in Afghanistan because theyve sent Americans to war there. I find it extremely suspicious that, after the alleged killing of Osama Bin Laden, there was a very suspicious burial at sea for a covered corpse that was alleged to be Bin Laden. [29], Other reports alleged that the Taliban had laid an elaborate trap for American special-operations forces, luring them in with false information. 2 U.S. Navy SEALs from a west coast-based SEAL team. 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. But we are still sending people to another country to fight, and we need to understand why were doing that, he said. Two of the SEALs were from a West Coast SEAL unit, but the others were from the Gold Squadron of Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU, sometimes known as SEAL Team 6, said the NSW source.. He said, "And now, to our honor roll of American Service Personnel killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. May God give them the strength to carry on without them. According to his book, No Easy Day (detailing his participation in Operation Neptune Spear), Mark Owen (the pen name of former SEAL Operator Matt Bissonnette) stated that nearly all of the Operators on that mission were handpicked from Red Squadron. 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. 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. [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." [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. Available for both RF and RM licensing. Intelligence on August 6th indicated Qari Tahir was in Tangi Valley, just a short helicopter flight from the SEAL base camp. The helicopter crashed into a creek bed and a flash flood shortly afterward washed away some parts of the wreckage. Andrew W. Harvell, 26, of Long Beach, California, Tech. [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. The 30 Navy SEALs and other Special Forces personnel, along with the Helicopter flight crew because American Military and Political leaders threw these men under the bus the enemy was driving and then covered it all up with lies and deceit. You also want to come in from a different direction for the element of surprise.. On such missions, the Chinook pilots nearly always fly at night, wearing night vision goggles, or NVGs. [11][12], As the Rangers approached the target compound, ISR aircraft observed several people leaving the compound. 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. [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). 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. Fallen Angel.. He finished his contract with the Army shortly afterward, and that September enrolled in Southern Methodist Universitys Dedman School of Law. Three hours after disembarking from the Chinooks, the assault force had secured the compound and detained a number of Tahirs men, but they hadnt found Tahir himself. When the auto-complete results are available, use the up and down arrows to review and Enter to select. Because unarmed villagers, unaffiliated with the Taliban, could also have been in those trees and among the groups milling about the village, the gunships could not have fired. Burn is on, they radioed. Just three months earlier, members of a counterpart SEAL Team 6 squadron successfully raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and killed Osama bin Laden. While Benghazi resulted in four American deaths, Extortion 17 resulted in 38 deaths, including nearly two dozen Navy SEALs. It was a good crew, it really was. That assault team captured Tahirs compound and some of his men. With 38 people killed on board, it was the largest single-day loss of life in naval special warfare history and the largest single-day loss of life during the war in Afghanistan. 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. The hardest LZ Id ever been into, Lee said. So if there was a added black box installed on this Aircraft there should be a maintenance record? The helicopter fell from the sky, killing all 38 on board. Extortion 17 August 6, 2022 marks 11 years since Extortion 17. The United States military continually works to improve protection for transport helicopters and their occupants, according to Glover and Brady. While the goggles are better than nothing, they turn everything green, distort depth perception and limit peripheral vision. Not feelin it! 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. Please take a moment and pause to honor and remember these heroes. Several minutes later, a 20-man Pathfinder team (specializing in downed-aircraft rescue and recovery) arrived at the site. Photo by Sgt. 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. 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. Lee had just flown the night before on a similar mission with one of the pilots, David Carter. 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. Senior Chief Robert James Reeves was one of those Americans. This remains the greatest single loss of life to Naval Special Warfare since the Afghan War started in 2001. In a new book The Final Mission of Extortion 17 published by Smithsonian Books, journalist and photographer Ed Darack revisits the shootdown of Extortion 17, a Chinook bearing U.S. and . He taught helicopter pilots how to fly in high altitudes at an aviation training site in Colorado. Lee heard the call, and he knew what it meant. As he did, he felt the craft leveling off. This group grew in number over the course of the night, but American forces were at first too preoccupied to engage. by FighterSweep Staff Apr 25, 2017 Retired Air Force Captain Joni Marquez is claiming the Pentagon hid the truth and lied about the circumstances that led to a Chinook helicopter crash that. The theories suggest that Afghan forces leaked information to the Taliban about the mission. The team boarded Extortion 17 with Dave Carter and Bryan Nichols at the controls. During a previous deployment to Iraq, Carters unit flew dozens of similar raids, which he often planned and led, and gained a reputation for working well with special operations troops. Extortion 16 flew empty. 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. Privacy Statement Then they have to stick the landing. NFTs Simplified > Uncategorized > extortion 17 crash photos. "Over two years after Extortion 17 was shot down, the families still have these unanswered questions," said Klayman. In order to prevent this, American forces called in for support. The mission was flown by conventional pilots flying unmodified CH-47Ds. As is routine on such missions, two Apache attack helicopters provided extra cover and security for Extortion 17, while circling above was an AC-130 aircraft, a gunship that also provides surveillance. Yesterday, the Pentagon released the names of the 30 troops-- Navy SEALs, soldiers, and airmen, killed in the helicopter downed by Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan last weekend. The following passage, published in The Navy Times, seems to support that assertion. We continue our work at the Museum so that theirservice and sacrifice will never be forgotten. One of the things I vowed, I will never forget. "[30], On 12 August 2011, Jim Lehrer of the PBS NewsHour announced that he would report the Honor Roll at the end of the program with names and photographs of all 30 men. In March 2002, two MH-47s were downed by machine gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire while close to ground level. That June, the U.S. military launched Operation Hammer Down to drive out insurgents entrenched in remote strongholds of eastern Afghanistan. They heard a helicopter coming, they grabbed their RPGs, and they fired in quick succession, Darack said. I will never forget what they did, he said. Copyright 2023 | National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum, The Museum is a 501(c)(3) organization. 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. To address some unanswered questions, the committee received briefings, classified and unclassified, on the operational component leading up to the loss of the 30 servicemen and eight Afghan nationals and the postmortem handling of the 30 American servicemen on Extortion 17. For helicopter crews in Afghanistan, the most dangerous times are landing and taking off. 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. One of the engines flew off, and the other caught fire. On board the Chinook CH-47D were 15 members of SEAL Team Six, 15 SEAL Team Six Support personnel, 1 Bomb Dog, 7 . 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. 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. Terms of Use You never want to use the same landing zone twice, Darack said. The helicopter crashed less than 5 seconds later, killing all 38 people on board. Instead, two rigorous U. S. military investigations followed every moment of the mission to determine what went wrong on Extortion 17s final flight. According to officials, the team included 17 SEALs, five Navy special operations troops who support the SEALs, three Air Force airmen, a five-member Army air crew and a military dog, along with. The crash is referred to as Extortion 17 by the callsign of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter involved in the crash. Were handing rifles to 20-year-olds and asking them to shoot people. 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. 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. 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. One of the most significant tactical evolutions of the Afghanistan conflict is the ever-heavier use of unmanned aerial systems and other airborne intelligence-gathering systems. By The crash is referred to as Extortion 17 by the callsign of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter involved in the crash. "One. 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?? Cart. August 2011 Attack on U.S. At that moment, Extortion 17 slowed to 58 mph, at no more than 150 feet, approaching a spot framed by trees and mud-brick huts, and "sparkled" by the infrared designator on an AC-130 gunship. 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. )/SR-71 blackbird cloud behind the chinook; saying thats safe distance! On the anniversary of the Extortion 17 tragedy, we remember the heroic men who were felled rushing into battle, as they had done hundreds of times . Director Franois Garcia Writer Sandeep Panesar Stars Robert O'Neill (archive footage) Patricia Economo Enrique Garcia The aircraft jerked. It would never return. (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. | Two fired at roughly the same time. 29 Photos Documentary On a moonless night, an Army helicopter carrying 17 members of the elite Navy SEAL Team 6, the unit that killed Osama Bin Laden, is shot down in Afghanistan. Cookie Policy [42], In 2017, Air Force captain Joni Marquez, the firing officer on an AC-130 gunship that had accompanied Extortion 17 on the final flight, made a similar claim. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), Aurora, Colorado, Chief Warrant Officer Bryan J. Nichols, 31, of Hays, Kan. "All of this raises the distinct possibility of a cover-up as to . At the flight controls were David R. Carter of the Colorado Army National Guard and copilot Bryan J. Nichols, a Kansas-based Army reservist. [9][11], Around 02:38, the helicopter was fired upon and shot down by a previously undetected group of Taliban fighters approximately 220m (240yd) south of the helicopter. extortion 17 crash photos. In The Final Flight of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. 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. The first grenade missed Extortion 17. The events that unfolded that night are commonly referred to as Extortion 17, the call sign for the helicopter transporting the special operations personnel. On a moonless night, an Army Chinook helicopter swept low over the Tangi Valley, a strip of forbidding terrain in eastern Afghanistan teeming with Taliban and located just 35 miles south of Kabul. 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. Im a 25 year veteran involved in many support missions and I find this downing of Ext 17 very suspect indeed! 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. Directors Karl Horstmann Stephen Spivey Writer Stephen Spivey Stars Sean Hannity Raj Kala 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.