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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. There's also that little issue that came up when 6 Navy SEALs' funerals were conducted by a Muslim Cleric that condemned them to Hell during the service. [7][27][28] During the battle, American forces observed a small group of Taliban trying to flee the scene. It means being informed. What are the odds? [43][45], 2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook shootdown, United States Air Force Combat Control Team, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), Tangi Valley, Wardak province, Afghanistan, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, Naval Special Warfare Development Group's, Explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technicians, United States House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, Call Sign Extortion 17: The Shoot-Down of SEAL Team Six, List of aviation accidents and incidents in the war in Afghanistan, "Elite Force Died in Bid to Save Comrades", "Taliban shot that brought down American Chinook killing 30 US commandos was 'lucky', officials believe", "Taliban shoot down US helicopter in Afghanistan; 38 killed", "Worst US loss of life in Afghan war as helicopter crash kills 38", "US military helicopter crash in Afghanistan kills 38", Executive Summary (Crash of CH-47D Aircraft in Wardak Province, Afghanistan on 6 August 2011), "Families suspect SEAL Team 6 crash was inside job on worst day in Afghanistan", "DOD Identifies Service Members Killed in CH-47 Crash", "Tragedy devastates special warfare community", "Friends remember three area soldiers killed in Afghan crash", "Chinook Crewmembers Line of Duty Deaths", "US special forces Afghan helicopter downed by Taliban", "Chopper crash kills 31 U.S. troops, 7 Afghans", "Copter Downed by Taliban Fire; Elite U.S. Unit Among Dead", "Impact on special forces of Navy Seals helicopter loss", "SEAL Team 6 Families Believe the 2011 Chinook Shootdown in Afghanistan was Planned | Navy SEALs Blog by USNavySEALs.com", "Army delayed Chinook helicopter's black box until it was too late", "Obama stonewalls SEAL Team 6 helicopter crash probe, watchdog says", "US helicopter shot down in Afghanistan was sent in after night raid went awry", "US military probes deadly Afghan helicopter crash", "What happened on night of deadly Afghanistan helicopter crash? He said, "And now, to our honor roll of American Service Personnel killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. One of the engines flew off, and the other caught fire. Thirty Americans perished in the blink of an eye, half of which comprised an entire 'troop' from SEAL Team 6's Gold Squadron. It requires the highest level of skills from the pilots because they are some of the most dangerous operations.. 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. In 2006, he was called into Afghanistan, where he turned 25. He pushed hard on the cyclic stick to tilt the helicopter forward. But at least you should care about them and appreciate what were asking of them.. The U.S. Navy SEAL task force assigned to conduct operations in Tangi Valley was well conditioned to the dangerous operating environment. Extortion 17 was the call sign of a special operations mission in Afghanistan on Aug. 6, 2011, that responded to an Army Ranger unit engaged in a firefight with the Taliban and in need of backup. The following was transcribed from the above video press conference. When the auto-complete results are available, use the up and down arrows to review and Enter to select. Oct 26, 2016 - Explore Concerned Citizen's board "EXTORTION 17", followed by 829 people on Pinterest. 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. In that incident, sixteen Navy SEALs and Army special operations troops were killed, and three more SEALs were killed in subsequent fighting on the ground. They reached the site at 04:12 and found no survivors. "[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. I had to learn how to land while browned-out, wearing NVGs, on the side of a mountain or an uneven field, Lee said. The remaining two fighters ducked into a stand of trees and disappeared from the Apaches infrared scanners. As they started their descent, Lee heard a loud popping noise. Now deep in the Tangi Valley, their night vision goggles showing the world around them in greenish hues, the IRF team members readied to hit the ground running as the pilots slowed Extortion 17 and descended toward the village. Available for both RF and RM licensing. Burn is on, they radioed. Learnt of this today, very surprising after ladens raid was covered in the media here. 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. It also became one of the most devastating death tolls of the U.S. Special Operations Forces. A body went into the ocean, but Ill bet it wasnt Bin Ladens. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine The SEALs who assaulted Osama bin Ladens compound were drawn from Naval Special Warfare Development Groups Red Squadron, according to several sources in the special operations community.. THIS COMBAT MARINE SALUTES YOU ALL WE ALL GET A NEW STATION WHEN GOD OKS OUR TRANSFER I AM QUITE CERTAIN THAT GOD LOVES WARRIORS A BIT MORE THAN WE MIGHT REALIZE, I always suspected ObamaTard had something to do with this tragedy. LZ is ice, transmitted one of the Rangers on the ground, indicating the landing zone was free of enemy activity. He would not have hesitated to fly with any of them. 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. He is the founder of Darack Research, a company that innovates unmanned systems, which grew out of his July 2014 Air & Space article Build Your Own Drone. On his right wrist, he wears a bracelet with the names of the five crew members of Extortion 17. 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. 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 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. The vast majority miss. Lees wife, Christy, hoped the news would bring a sudden end to the war. Find the perfect extortion 17 stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. I didnt want to die., He remembered the words of his old flight instructor: Never stop flying the aircraft.. 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. [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. The forward rotor system then tore off, stressed by the imbalance and the strain of carrying what would normally be a shared load. Extortion 17 was attached to a mission to capture or kill a senior Taliban leader, Qari Tahir, near Kabul, Afghanistan. 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. Early life But why? We were on goggles the whole time. 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. Are all DEVGRUs saved in a sperm bank? But one thing that doesnt fade is never forgetting what they did.. 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 . The tempo of the missions did not decrease. 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. All 38 passengers aboard Extortion 17, including 30 U.S. military personnel, eight Afghans and a U.S. military working dog, were killed after the transport helicopter was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. Hi there! 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 . The incident became known as "Extortion 17" after the helicopter . [11][24] These reports were erroneous; the CH-47D airframe does not contain flight recorders, although the MH-47 variant does have a flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. On board the Chinook CH-47D were 15 members of SEAL Team Six, 15 SEAL Team Six Support personnel, 1 Bomb Dog, 7 . 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. [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. Ninty-six days after the death of Osama bin Laden by SEAL Team Six, an old Vietnam era Army Reserve helicopter, call sign "Extortion 17," was shot down in the Wardak Province, Tangi River Valley, Afghanistan on Aug 6, 2011. 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. He would eventually do two tours and become commander of a Chinook unit during his second deployment in 2011. Around 2:40 a.m., an Apache pilot flying in support came on the radio and shouted: Fallen Angel. 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. Connor Mendez, courtesy of U.S. Army. Naval Special Warfare support personnel, two EOD technicians, one MWD Handler, one Cryptologic technician, and one Information systems technician. 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. 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. In The Final Flight of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. The crash is referred to as Extortion 17 by the callsign of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter involved in the crash. Some news stories reported that investigators couldnt find the helicopters black box, referring to the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. Another tactic sometimes employed by gunships, according to Glover, is a show of force, in which pilots and crew fire into an empty field or stand of trees just before a transport helicopter prepares to land, using the sound of a gun alone to keep enemy heads down and fingers off triggers. During the Ranger insertion earlier that night, the CH-47D had approached from the south; this time, it approached from the northwest. 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. They were part of his command. The helicopter fell from the sky, killing all 38 on board. 1h 33m "A U.S. Army helicopter carrying 30 Americans, most members of the elite Navy SEAL Team 6 is shot down in Afghanistan. But Tahir and a group of his fighters escaped. When the two Chinooks had first touched down in the village, a group of eight fighters armed with AK-47 rifles and RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers bolted from the compound. Advertising Notice The Chinook smashed into the ground, the force ripping off his goggles. Their target was a Taliban commander responsible for ambushes and other attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces. To remove the risk of rocket-propelled grenades downing helicopters in Afghanistan 100 percent, youd have to remove the opposable thumbs of every fighting-age male in the objective area, and thats not how we win a counter-insurgency., Ed Darack Why did it happen? The circumstances surrounding the events of Extortion 17 are tragic. So many unsettling details are coalescing with the resurgence of Extortion 17. [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. Here, in silence, are the names and photographs of all 30 men. 2 U.S. Navy SEALs from a west coast-based SEAL team. [26], 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. In April 2011, American forces turned over control of Combat Outpost Tangi to Afghan government forces. American, French and Afghan National Police forces carried out a three-day sweep of the area, and the area was then deemed secure. The landing zone had been examined for a previous mission but had not yet been used. The RPG is not a laser. Thirty-eight boarded Extortion 17 Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter pilots from the 159th General Support Aviation Battalion. 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. 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 Then they have to stick the landing. [36][37], After the shootdown of Extortion 17, the insurgent responsible used a two-way radio to brag to others about the act. Create an account. As the operation got underway, our airborne Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms, including an MQ-9 Predator, detected a group evading the Rangers, moving towards the north. Tragically, as Extortion 17 was nearing its landing zone, Taliban fighters, hidden in a building, fired two or three rocket-propelled grenades at close range, leaving the pilot no chance to perform evasive maneuvers. 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. Around 02:23, the two helicopters departed the forward base. It was the deadliest helicopter crash in the history of U.S. special operations. Over time, certain memories will fade, certain details will fade. Aired: 08/01/21 Rating: NR The extreme G-forces killed everyone on board within a fraction of a second, Darack said. Landing in deserts or mountainsides, the helicopter rotors kick up clouds of sand and dust, causing brownouts that can blind a pilot. Gold Star father Bill Vaughn had a heartfelt message to American "leaders" while discussing a documentary that investigates the Extortion 17 helicopter crash in Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), New Century, Kansas, Spc. 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 . Conspiracy theories started almost immediately. It is considered the worst loss of American lives in a single incident in the Afghanistan campaign, surpassing Operation Red Wings in 2005. The suspicious August 6th, 2011, CH47-D Chinook helicopter crash in Wardak Province, Afghanistan which claimed the lives of 38 American military personnel. Through the goggles, the landing zone shone brilliantly. Courtesy . [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. If this was survivable, that was the right crew to have. [11] Seventeen U.S. Navy SEALs remained in reserve at the forward operating base. ], Four years after the downing of Extortion 17, there were many theories about a possible government coverup. Lee, now a captain, was placed in command of a Chinook helicopter unit at Forward Operating Base Shank. [9][11], Six minutes later, the Rangers concluded securing the compound, detained several people and began to move on foot toward the crash site. It would never return. 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. Carter and Nichols continued the descent. Lee had just flown the night before on a similar mission with one of the pilots, David Carter. 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. 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. So where did it go?? 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?? The hardest LZ Id ever been into, Lee said. 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. First, the Obama administration's Defense Department's crash report stated that there were no eyes in the sky over the Chinook . The basis of the provocative hit military documentary Fallen Angel Call Sign: Extortion 17. The Final Mission of Extortion 17: Special Ops, Helicopter Support, SEAL Team Six, and the Deadliest Day of the U.S. War in Afghanistan Hardcover - September 19, 2017 by Ed Darack (Author) 223 ratings Editors' pick Best History See all formats and editions Kindle $13.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook $0.00 Free with your Audible trial Hardcover [33], The New York Post reported that the Pentagon released 30 names from the crash. LOL, Ray Williams 509th RRCUV (Army Security Agency) Feb68-Apr71. 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. It wasnt preventable. It just wasnt.. He was probably in the top 1 percent of Army aviators, Lee said. The landing zone was small, and the commanders didnt want to split up the strike force. 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. 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.