extortion 17 crash photos

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. As the Chinook CH-47 transport helicopter (call sign: Extortion 17) carrying 30 U.S. troops, seven Afghan commandos, an Afghan civilian interpreter and a U.S. military dog approached, the. The co-pilot, Bryan Nichols, was one of Lees closest friends in the Chinook company. See more ideas about extortion, navy seals, seal team 6. The downing of the Seal Team Six chinook with all of those team members who participated in the Bin Laden raid and the subsequent request by President Obama to destroy the images that were released only adds to the suspicion around the events. Why did it happen? In this week in military history, we explore the aerial attack on a U.S. Army helicopter with the call sign "Extortion 17" in Afghanistan on August 6, 2011. "All of this raises the distinct possibility of a cover-up as to . "It's a math problem. 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. At the time of the Juy Zarin raid, the battalion had been flying in Afghanistan for about two weeks. The crash is referred to as Extortion 17 by the callsign of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter involved in the crash. An Afghan official, speaking anonymously a few days after the attack, speculated that the Taliban had laid a trap, that they had purposely put out false information about a meeting involving the Taliban commander. Of those 38 lost, 22 were members of Navy SEAL Team 6, the Naval Special Warfare unit responsible for the killing of notorious 9/11 mastermind Osama On August 6th, 2011, the helicopter was fired upon and shot down by a previously undetected group of Taliban fighters. [11][12], As the Rangers approached the target compound, ISR aircraft observed several people leaving the compound. [33], The New York Post reported that the Pentagon released 30 names from the crash. He was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment(General Support Aviation Battalion), New Century, Kansas, Staff Sgt. Instead, two rigorous U. S. military investigations followed every moment of the mission to determine what went wrong on Extortion 17s final flight. In light of that raids success, the shootdown of Extortion 17 incited a flurry of conspiracy theories: The Taliban were tipped off; it was a trap; it was retribution for the killing. There are no survivors. | 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. 1h 33m "A U.S. Army helicopter carrying 30 Americans, most members of the elite Navy SEAL Team 6 is shot down in Afghanistan. About a dozen of the 33 troops in the back of the helicopter suffered broken bones, heavy bruises and scrapes. Less than five seconds after the RPG round hit, the helicopter spun uncontrollably, plummeting into a dry creek bed and erupting in a ball of fire that killed all on board. Alexander J. Bennett, 24, of Tacoma, Wash. In March 2002, two MH-47s were downed by machine gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire while close to ground level. The missions commanders decided to insert another team to go after Tahir while the Rangers held the compound. 2 U.S. Navy SEALs from a west coast-based SEAL team. But one thing that doesnt fade is never forgetting what they did.. The helicopter fell from the sky, killing all 38 on board. The SEAL commander assembled his force: 17 Navy SEALs, five Navy combat support specialists, three U.S. Air Force Special Tactics Airmen, seven Afghan Special Forces operators, an Afghan interpreter, and a military working dog. 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. 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. Rest in peace, gentlemen; you will not be forgotten. [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. Its almost always a miss.. 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. The incident became known as "Extortion 17" after the helicopter . 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. Director Franois Garcia Writer Sandeep Panesar Stars Robert O'Neill (archive footage) Patricia Economo Enrique Garcia There was a lot of experience in that cockpit, the flight engineers and the door gunners. The two military investigations, one conducted by United States Central Command and one by the multi-service Joint Combat Assessment Team, pored over the details of the crash with excruciating focus and concluded that no planners or participants bore any fault regarding the circumstances leading to the shootdown of Extortion 17. Troops", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2011_Afghanistan_Boeing_Chinook_shootdown&oldid=1142506992, 2 U.S. Navy SEALs from Naval Special Warfare Group 1, 4 U.S. [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. Copyright 2023 | National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum, The Museum is a 501(c)(3) organization. We were on goggles the whole time. 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. This would not be the first time that an Afghan military member has been an undercover Taliban Terrorist and shot our US Military! What we saw is that if the enemy knew where you were going to attack, they would back some guys with RPGs off 500 meters or so, to shoot during an ingress, Glover explains. One AH-64 crew, after identifying the men as enemy combatants, fired on them with their gunships 30mm cannon, killing six. But the CH-47D has neither a flight nor voice recorder, only an engine performance data recorder for maintenance. Upon learning of Tahirs possible location, a U.S. Army Rangers and Afghan Special Forces team was deployed into the valley from the south. Lee is 36 now, a civil attorney in Dallas, a world away from Afghanistan. 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. The extreme G-forces killed everyone on board within a fraction of a second, Darack said. 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. 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. Winds whipped through the fir trees. It was reported that the Taliban fighters had no information of the helicopter's flight path and that they had been in the right place at the right time. American signals intelligence aircraft intercepted these transmissions and subsequently tracked the individual and his accomplice. A source from the Navys special operations community described the reaction as Shock and disbelief. [11], Separately, ISR aircraft continued to observe the unengaged group from the compound. The call sign for the Chinook was Extortion 17. 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. The vast majority miss. The SEAL task force was monitoring this activity, and they were soon called upon to deploy quickly into the northern end of the valley to intercept Tahir and capture him and those moving with him. The Chinook helicopter they were aboard was shot down by . A junior, he was ready to fight, but the war would be over, he figured, before he even got out of college. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), Grand Island, Nebraska, Sgt. There is still a tremendous level of chance for a tragedy of such huge magnitude.. And why was the fire control officer of the AC-130 Gunship flying above denied permission . The basis of the provocative hit military documentary Fallen Angel Call Sign: Extortion 17. 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. Strange, 25, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL/Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist) Jon T. Tumilson, 35, of Rockford, Iowa, Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL)Aaron C. Vaughn, 30, of Stuart, Florida, Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL)Jason R. Workman, 32, of Blanding, Utah, Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL)Jesse D. Pittman, 27, of Ukiah, California, Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 2nd Class (SEAL)Nicholas P. Spehar, 24, of Saint Paul, Minnesota, Chief Warrant Officer David R. Carter, 47, of Centennial, Colo. 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?? 2023 Smithsonian Magazine A body went into the ocean, but Ill bet it wasnt Bin Ladens. On his right wrist, he wears a bracelet with the names of the five crew members of Extortion 17. 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. Thirty Americans perished in the blink of an eye, half of which comprised an entire 'troop' from SEAL Team 6's Gold Squadron. 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. 2017 The Dallas Morning News. Early life [9][11], Meanwhile, the group of Taliban fighters split in two. Extortion 17 and 16 weren't MH-47s and their crews were not Night Stalkers. Intelligence on August 6th indicated Qari Tahir was in Tangi Valley, just a short helicopter flight from the SEAL base camp. Why did it happen? The following was transcribed from the above video press conference. The first round sailed past the helicopter. 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. Austin Williams visits the gravesite of U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Christopher C. Campbell in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, May 30, 2016. 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. [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. In The Final Mission of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. The helicopter crashed less than 5 seconds later, killing all 38 people on board. 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. God sees you, You do see that A-12(1963! 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. 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. [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. 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. The pilots and crew of Extortion 17, however, had ideal experience and abilities for the mission that night. "[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. 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 . 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. We had guys who had flown in Desert Storm, guys who had just come off active duty, Lee said. As for himself, he speaks out about Extortion 17 because he wants to remember the men on that mission. On Aug. 6, 2011, insurgent forces in Afghanistan shot down an American aircraft. He was too busy. 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. One of the engines flew off, and the other caught fire. The Taliban shot at the Chinooks all the time with RPGs and rifles, Darack said. There is a lot of controversy and discussion regarding the operators from the Gold Squadron who died abroad. At 2:36 a.m., Extortion 17 requested an infrared spotlight, visible only through night vision goggles, to illuminate the landing zone. 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. The theories suggest that Afghan forces leaked information to the Taliban about the mission. The next night, the pair had orders to drop off more troops in the same spot. It means being informed. At the flight controls were David R. Carter of the Colorado Army National Guard and copilot Bryan J. Nichols, a Kansas-based Army reservist. Six weeks into his deployment, Lee experienced his worst day as a helicopter pilot to that point. So where did it go?? Stock photos, 360 images, vectors and videos. However, the Afghan government forces did not occupy the base, which was seized by the Taliban shortly after the departure of American forces. 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. God bless all of them- the bravest of the brave. I will never forget what they did, he said. Sgt. [1][2][3][4], The resulting crash killed all 38 people on board including 17 US Navy SEALs, two United States Air Force Pararescue, one United States Air Force Combat Control Team member, 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. 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]. Were handing rifles to 20-year-olds and asking them to shoot people. On his first deployment, he felt fortunate to be surrounded by veteran pilots he could learn from. 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. Today. No one is planting victory gardens, and were not rationing. Neither did the risk he and his pilots faced every night. [35] The Seattle Times and The New York Times also reported this information. Stock photos, 360 images, vectors and videos But what really happened that night? Ranger assault helicopters had already engaged the enemy and killed six of eight Taliban fighters, causing the other two to retreat. Find the perfect extortion 17 stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. And now, the government wants to make the Taliban legitamet. Lees second deployment started in May of 2011. The helicopter crashed into a creek bed and a flash flood shortly afterward washed away some parts of the wreckage. Conspiracy theories started almost immediately. He would not have hesitated to fly with any of them. The tempo of the missions did not decrease. 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. 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). August 2011 Attack on U.S. Lieutenant Commander (SEAL) Jonas B. Kelsall, 32, of Shreveport, Louisiana, Special Warfare Operator Master Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Louis J. Langlais, 44, of Santa Barbara, California, Special Warfare Operator Senior Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Thomas A. Ratzlaff, 34, of Green Forest, Arkansas, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician Senior Chief Petty Officer (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist/Freefall Parachutist) Kraig M. Vickers 36, of Kokomo, Hawaii, Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Brian R. Bill, 31, of Stamford, Connecticut, Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) John W. Faas, 31, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Kevin A. Houston, 35, of West Hyannisport, Massachusetts, Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Matthew D. Mason, 37, of Kansas City, Missouri, Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Stephen M. Mills, 35, of Fort Worth, Texas, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician Chief Petty Officer(Expeditionary Warfare Specialist/Freefall Parachutist/Diver) Nicholas H. Null, 30, of Washington, West Virginia, Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Robert J. Reeves, 32, of Shreveport, Louisiana, Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Heath M. Robinson, 34, of Detroit, Michigan, Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL) Darrik C. Benson, 28, of Angwin, California, Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class (SEAL/Parachutist) Christopher G. Campbell, 36, of Jacksonville, North Carolina, Information Systems Technician Petty Officer 1st Class (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist/Freefall Parachutist) Jared W. Day, 28, of Taylorsville, Utah, Master-at-Arms Petty Officer 1st Class (Expeditionary Warfare Specialist) John Douangdara, 26, of South Sioux City, Nebraska, Cryptologist Technician(Collection)Petty Officer 1st Class(Expeditionary Warfare Specialist) Michael J.

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