On such missions, the Chinook pilots nearly always fly at night, wearing night vision goggles, or NVGs. Its crazy how many times I can think of where me or the guys I was with had to do that.. The Afghan soldiers were an essential part of the package; they were trained to move with our forces to the target. Approaching to land or having just taken off, the craft is flying slow and low, so it presents a tempting target. 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.. . Connor Mendez, courtesy of U.S. Army. On the night of 8 August 2011, an F-16 dropped four GBU-54 "Laser JDAM" bombs on the man, his accomplice and four associates in the Chak Valley, which lies to the west of the Tangi Valley. 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. Thirty-eight boarded Extortion 17 Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter pilots from the 159th General Support Aviation Battalion. 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 any moment, they could come under rocket attack. On Aug. 6, 2011, on the deadliest day in special operations history, 30 Americans, including 17 Navy SEALs, died when a Chinook helicopter crashed. The crew of Slasher 02, the AC-130 circling above, flipped the switch on their powerful light. Petty Officer 1st Class Aaron Vaughn was one of the SEAL Team 6 operators who died in the crash. 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 mission was flown by conventional pilots flying unmodified CH-47Ds. Photo by Sgt. I am so proud to be an American and I thank all of the families left behind to mourn their loss. The military has worked diligently to more tightly integrate gunship escorts with transport craft, according to Brady. It was brought down by multiple shots. The insurgents had no way of knowing the helicopter would be coming in, at the speed it was coming and at the altitude, Darack said. The following was transcribed from the above video press conference. There are no survivors. I thought I hit a tree,he said. The helicopter fell from the sky, killing all 38 on board. Directors Karl Horstmann Stephen Spivey Writer Stephen Spivey Stars Sean Hannity Raj Kala As they started their descent, Lee heard a loud popping noise. But at least you should care about them and appreciate what were asking of them.. So if there was a added black box installed on this Aircraft there should be a maintenance record? The helicopter, call sign Extortion 17, was on a mission to reinforce American and coalition special operations troops. Whether enemy fire brought down the Chinook or a tree strike would never be known for sure. Tangi valley remained under Taliban control until April 2013, when more than 1,000 Afghan security forces personnel launched an offensive in an effort to clear the area of Taliban fighters. Commanders frequently request CH-47 Chinooks to insert troops. One rocket struck a rotor blade, causing the aircraft to crash almost instantly. 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. American intelligence officials identified this individual as "OBJECTIVE GINOSA." Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. A junior, he was ready to fight, but the war would be over, he figured, before he even got out of college. [7][20][21], Fifteen of the Navy SEALs that were killed were members of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU),[5][22][20] while the other two Navy SEALs were from an unidentified West Coast-based unit. Stock photos, 360 images, vectors and videos. A hearing was set to get answers to questions surrounding the high-profile shoot-down of an American helicopter in Afghanistan and how the remains of the fallen service members were handled. The crash claimed the lives of 38 personnel, including 22 special operations forces in Afghanistan Aug. 6, 2011. The front rotor shattered, and the back pylon sheared off. Create an account. Early life As for himself, he speaks out about Extortion 17 because he wants to remember the men on that mission. Photo by Sgt. Commentdocument.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a62b75e7a99f5de39e28d378788f7ec9" );document.getElementById("c08a1a06c7").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Content on this website is free to use and share, but please provide a link back to Spec Ops Magazine as a source. The helicopter crashed into a creek bed and a flash flood shortly afterward washed away some parts of the wreckage. There are more operations than can be supported by the 160th at any given time," says Major Matthew Brady, a former 160th pilot and company commander. There was a lot of experience in that cockpit, the flight engineers and the door gunners. [43][44], American rules of engagement were tightened by Gen. Stanley McChrystal in 2009 in order to improve American counterinsurgency strategy. 2 U.S. Army personnel from the 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment, part of the Colorado Army National Guard, PO1 John Douangdara & Navy SEAL Dog Bart, Of the 22 NSW members killed, 17 were SEALs, and five were direct support personnel, according to the source in the NSW community. 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. In The Final Flight of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. The vast majority miss. 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. 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. Ranger assault helicopters had already engaged the enemy and killed six of eight Taliban fighters, causing the other two to retreat. Why did it happen? No one is planting victory gardens, and were not rationing. About a dozen of the 33 troops in the back of the helicopter suffered broken bones, heavy bruises and scrapes. 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. Lee and his friend Bryan Nichols flew their Chinook into battle several times the first night, dropping off troops at a landing zone (LZ) almost 10,000 feet above sea level. The men who serve in the American military are the finest! When tactical conditions allow, they initiate operations by calling out enemy forces. The Extortion 17 chopper was part of Operation Neptune Spear a few months earlier. 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. While the goggles are better than nothing, they turn everything green, distort depth perception and limit peripheral vision. The mission was flown by conventional pilots flying unmodified CH-47Ds. In March 2002, two MH-47s were downed by machine gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire while close to ground level. The shootdown was the single, deadliest loss of U.S. forces in the war. 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. A source from the Navys special operations community described the reaction as Shock and disbelief. Naval Special Warfare support personnel, two EOD technicians, one MWD Handler, one Cryptologic technician, and one Information systems technician. 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. There is a lot of controversy and discussion regarding the operators from the Gold Squadron who died abroad. 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. Over time, certain memories will fade, certain details will fade. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine In order to speed disembarkation, all troops were loaded on a single CH-47D helicopter for transport; the other Chinook would approach the landing zone second as a decoy. A typical combat mission in Afghanistan leaves little margin for error, requiring Chinook pilots to land on tiny, makeshift sites on mountain slopes where any tree, bush or rock could be hiding an enemy fighter with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. His father Billy Vaughn recounted Thursday a phone call from his son following the White House . 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. August 2011 Attack on U.S. While Benghazi resulted in four American deaths, Extortion 17 resulted in 38 deaths, including nearly two dozen Navy SEALs. 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. Just as ridiculous as saying [President George W.] Bush was responsible for 9/11, Lee said. 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. So many unsettling details are coalescing with the resurgence of Extortion 17. Daniel L. Zerbe, 28, of York, Pennsylvania. The second round struck one of the three aft rotor blades of the helicopter, destroying the aft rotor assembly. That same day he obtained a medical waiver he needed to pursue an Army commission to serve an eight-year hitch before going to law school. He said that insurgents had assumed a strong tactical position without knowledge of the helicopter's flight path. See more ideas about extortion, navy seals, seal team 6. All rights reserved. Sgt. The Tangi Valley is a strategic terrain that connects the two primary highways that lead to Kabul. 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. 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. One AH-64 crew, after identifying the men as enemy combatants, fired on them with their gunships 30mm cannon, killing six. Learnt of this today, very surprising after ladens raid was covered in the media here. Faced with the possibility of confronting nine or 10 Taliban fighters, planners increased the reinforcement team from 17 to 32 men, formed around the 15-man SEAL group. When the auto-complete results are available, use the up and down arrows to review and Enter to select. [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 helicopter fell from the sky, killing all 38 on board. 2017 The Dallas Morning News. On August 6, 2011, the final flight of Extortion 17 resulted in the single deadliest incident for the US military during the War in Afghanistan. Please take a moment and pause to honor and remember these heroes. Today. American signals intelligence aircraft intercepted these transmissions and subsequently tracked the individual and his accomplice. He taught helicopter pilots how to fly in high altitudes at an aviation training site in Colorado. [22][20] Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, confirmed that eight of the movement's fighters had been killed in the assault on the compound. But we are still sending people to another country to fight, and we need to understand why were doing that, he said. [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. [33], The New York Post reported that the Pentagon released 30 names from the crash. Spec Ops Magazine 2023 All Rights Reserved. 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. Here, in silence, are the names and photographs of all 30 men. Explore. 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. She had just given birth to their first child. Its almost always a miss.. The RPG that struck Extortion 17 threw the helicopter into an uncontrollable spin. The guy was incredibly skilled.. 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. 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. The helicopter crashed less than 5 seconds later, killing all 38 people on board. 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. 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. Photo by Jake Simkin for Coffee or Die Magazine. The missions commanders decided to insert another team to go after Tahir while the Rangers held the compound. 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.. No evidence has emerged to support any of these claims. )/SR-71 blackbird cloud behind the chinook; saying thats safe distance! 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. [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. "Over two years after Extortion 17 was shot down, the families still have these unanswered questions," said Klayman. 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. The official statement from U.S. Central Command stated that a Taliban fighter scored a lucky shot with a rocket-propelled grenade. Play 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 Planners then chose a new landing zone for the IRF, but it was large enough to accommodate only one Chinook. Regarding the downing of Extortion 17, all of the DEVGRU Operators aboard were members of the Gold Squadron. [11], Separately, ISR aircraft continued to observe the unengaged group from the compound. The squadron that this SEAL belonged to was never mentioned. 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. 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. 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. Rest in peace, gentlemen; you will not be forgotten. All of them were men of courage, integrity, and honor. [11], By 16:25, all of the remains were taken from the crash site via ground convoy and transported to Combat Outpost Sayyid Abad. "The downing of Extortion 17 was a catastrophic and unprecedented tragedy for our nation," Reid testified. 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. Lee is 36 now, a civil attorney in Dallas, a world away from Afghanistan. "It's a math problem. 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 . And why was the fire control officer of the AC-130 Gunship flying above denied permission . [11], The mission was deemed high risk; two AH-64 Apache helicopters, an AC-130 gunship, and other additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft supported the troop transports on their approach and remained with the ground forces afterwards. When the shock subsided, questions arose and persisted. 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. His account of the brave pilots, crew, and passengers of Extortion 17 and . Why did it happen? As they made their approach, there was a line of thunderstorms nearby. [9][11], Almost an hour later (01:50), the aviation brigade commander approved a new landing zone for infiltration of the SEAL team. Lightboxes. 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. We were told at that time we were the first unit to make it through a rotation without having anyone killed.. The military's public contradictions raise more questions than answers. At 2:36 a.m., Extortion 17 requested an infrared spotlight, visible only through night vision goggles, to illuminate the landing zone. 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?? As he did, he felt the craft leveling off. 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.