Copyright 2023 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved, the 2011 raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. Fallen Angel.. His father Billy Vaughn recounted Thursday a phone call from his son following the White House decision to credit the highly secretive military unit for the bin Laden raid. The military's public contradictions raise more questions than answers. They then repeated and emphasized a few related questions: How could this happen? Were handing rifles to 20-year-olds and asking them to shoot people. One helicopter crashes, but there are no injuries. Special forces are very selective on who they partner with, but any collaboration with Afghans opens up U.S. Saturday's deaths bring the total number of coalition troops killed in Afghanistan to 334 this year, according to the Associated Press. The Chinook was descending on a noisy battlefield where Apache helicopters and a C-130 gunship had been buzzing overhead for three hours, alerting Taliban fighters. August 6, 2011 / 6:08 PM / CBS Boston KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A military helicopter was shot down in eastern Afghanistan, killing 31 U.S. special operation troops, most of them from the. Were pleading with the judge to do something, and hes just sitting on it., In one of his motions, Mr. Klayman stated: As this Court must be aware, this is not an ordinary Freedom of Information Act case, it involves obtaining records concerning the deaths of Navy SEAL Team 6 and other special operations forces on a mission with the call sign Extortion 17. The helicopter was in great operational shape. That June, the U.S. military launched Operation Hammer Down to drive out insurgents entrenched in remote strongholds of eastern Afghanistan. I had to learn how to land while browned-out, wearing NVGs, on the side of a mountain or an uneven field, Lee 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. What the men on the Chinook didn't know was that cloaked by darkness, two fighters had emerged from the small village of Hasan Khel, on the south side of the valley. The US Navy's elite SEAL Team 6 reportedly recovered two bodies and a flight recorder from the site where a US Air Force E-11A aircraft crashed in Afghanistan on Monday. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! The police chief of Wardak said the attack occurred around 1 a.m. Saturday after an assault on a Taliban compound in the village of Jaw-e-Mekh Zareen in the Tangi Valley. As he did, he felt the craft leveling off. Just after entering the Tangi, as Extortion 17 continued to descend and decelerate toward its landing zone, the helicopter passed through the narrowest portion of the valley. Furthermore, according to the lore, due to the alleged Iran angle, the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015 was in fact a payoff to Iran for whatever role they played in the earlier conspiracy. When the shock subsided, questions arose and persisted. Special forces routinely use helicopters in raids on homes in Afghanistan. 4:05 p.m. - The first helicopter exits the compound. Aerial view of Osama bin Laden's compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, made by the CIA. Lees wife, Christy, hoped the news would bring a sudden end to the war. They loaded onto Extortion 17, and then Carter and Nichols lifted the Chinook into the night sky. Ohio Republican Secretary of State 'actively' considering Senate run against Sherrod Brown, DeSantis family spends the afternoon at Houston Rodeo ahead of governor's speech, Marianne Williamson launches campaign against Biden, vows to fight 'forces of hatred, injustice and fear', Haley blasts both Democrats and fellow Republicans, including Trump, over exploding national debt. Almost 10 years after 9/11, here's what led to the death of Osama bin Laden. Just last week the Afghans arrested an Army officer for aiding Taliban suicide bombers through checkpoints, and doing so under employ by Pakistan. But it's often foreign to those who observe combat from afar. The World is a public radio program that crosses borders and time zones to bring home the stories that matter. In fact, the conflict was heating up. The helicopter crashed into a creek bed and a flash flood shortly afterward washed away some parts of the wreckage. But at least you should care about them and appreciate what were asking of them.. The loss of a helicopter carrying more than 20 U.S. special forces and as many as 8 other U.S. military service members is an unprecedented one in this war. In the rear of the aircraft, the Chinook's passengers stood and prepared to storm out into moonless night once the wheels touched the ground. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Since filing a lawsuit, Mr. Klayman says, he has been stonewalled by the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the CIA and the National Security Agency. Whether enemy fire brought down the Chinook or a tree strike would never be known for sure. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? Additional forces were then sent to secure the crash site. Strange also blamed top military brass for sending the troops into a situation they were allegedly ill-equipped and unprepared to handle. "We've allowed politics to become more important than the lives and safety of those men and women," he says. September-11-pentagon-attack-survivors-evacuation. A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, confirmed that insurgents had been gathering at the compound, adding that eight of them had been killed in the fighting. Hes also sent more than his fair share of curious retweets, often of the accounts of conspiracy theorists and those associated with QAnon and other outlandish conspiracy frameworks. Many military experts at the time, including some of Obamas top military advisers, had questioned the White Houses public praise of SEAL Team 6 and said it put members in danger. 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. After Vice President Joe Biden revealed that SEAL Team 6 carried out the operation that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011, Strange said the members of his son's team gave startling indications to their families they were about to meet their demise. President Trump has been known, over the years, to tweet some bizarre things. (AP). The military's public c 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. The families of some of the 17 SEAL Team 6 commandos who were killed in an ambush in Afghanistan during a helicopter flight to help Army Rangers pinned down by Taliban gunmen accused the. The families of some of the 17 SEAL Team 6 commandos who were killed in an ambush in Afghanistan during a helicopter flight to help Army Rangers pinned down by Taliban gunmen accused the Obama administration of deliberately endangering their loved ones for political ends. The second RPG round had connected with one of Extortion 17's aft rotor blades, severing more than 10 feet of it when it exploded. And to this day, people are still debating what really happened. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. He was too busy. Fallen Angel: Call Sign - Extortion 17: Directed by Karl Horstmann, Stephen Spivey. U.S. Central Commands official investigation concluded that a rocket-launched grenade from a Taliban fighter standing near the landing zone clipped a rotary wing, sending the Ch-47 Chinook into a violent downward spin. Lee heard the call, and he knew what it meant. I will never forget what they did, he said. The event was organized by Freedom Watch, a conservative advocacy group, at the National Press Club. or redistributed. "Their deaths are a reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices made by the men and women of our military and their families, including all who have served in Afghanistan,'' President Obama said Saturday. Although the Taliban have claimed to have shot the helicopter down, U.S. officials have only identified the attackers as insurgents. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst. The extreme G-forces killed everyone on board within a fraction of a second, Darack said. They dont even produce under their own self-imposed deadline, Mr. Klayman told The Washington Times. Hours earlier, pilots Carter and Nichols and crewmembers Specialist Spencer Duncan, Sergeant Pat Hamburger, and Sergeant Alex Bennett, along with pilots and crew of a sister Chinook, Extortion 16, inserted a strike force in the central Tangi Valley. The military's public contradictions raise more questions than answers.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. The second shot hit the rear tail rotor assembly. He pushed hard on the cyclic stick to tilt the helicopter forward. They happened to be in the right place at the right time. A Defense Department special operations official told a House subcommittee last year that there is no indication the mission was compromised by the Afghans. The front rotor shattered, and the back pylon sheared off. After the helicopter crash on August 6, 2011. The second probe, led by Army Brigadier General Jeffrey Colt, explained in excruciating detail what all those familiar with military operations and helicopter aviation in Afghanistan already knew: chance and chance alone, took down Extortion 17. About a dozen of the 33 troops in the back of the helicopter suffered broken bones, heavy bruises and scrapes. The attack on August 6 was the most devastating day in SEAL Team Six history, as well as the single largest loss of life for U.S. forces since the war in Afghanistan began in October. Composed primarily of members of the 75th Ranger Regiment, which falls under the authority of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, the team sought to capture or kill a powerful insurgent leader, Qari Tahir, known to coalition forces by his designation "Lefty Grove." They start the movie showing George W Bush saying that after 9/11 we will hunt down those responsible. The last worst one-day U.S. casuality record in Afghanistan was on June 28, 2005 when 16 U.S. soldiers were killed in Kunar province after a helicopter was shot down by Taliban insurgents. 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. May 1 (EDT)1:25 p.m. President Obama, along with other top officials, formally approve the execution of Operation Neptune Spear.1:51 p.m. Stealth Black Hawk helicopters take off from Afghanistan, carrying a group of 25 Navy SEALs.3:30 p.m. The choppers land on the compound in Abbottabad. Doug Hamburger, whose son Patrick was killed, called the incident an ambush that could have been prevented. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon in February signed an order requiring the Obama administration to release documents on a continual basis through the spring and summer. And they sent our guys right into the middle.. ", Ed Darack's The Final Mission of Extortion 17, published by Smithsonian Books, will be available on September 19. By what name was Fallen Angel: Call Sign - Extortion 17 (2021) officially released in Canada in English? She had just given birth to their first child. The landing zone was small, and the commanders didnt want to split up the strike force. After the crash, the forces that were involved in the firefight "broke contact" with the enemy so they could go provide perimeter security for the crash site, the official said. In all, 17 members of the SEAL Team 6 counterterrorist force were on board the CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter, along with its Army National Guard aircrew, several support personnel and seven Afghan commandos. But the CH-47D has neither a flight nor voice recorder, only an engine performance data. There was a lot of experience in that cockpit, the flight engineers and the door gunners. Many of these family members are undergoing psychological care over what has become a double tragedy: the deaths of their sons and the cover-up for which these family members feel betrayed by their own government.. In combat, its mission is to transport large teams of elite assault troops, including Army Rangers and Navy SEALs, to and from the battlefield. See GlobalPost: Navy SEALs had "kill" order on Osama bin Laden, report claims. By the time the third sped away from its launcher, however, no target remained. Forces to the threat of spying. Each shouldered a rocket propelled grenade launcher, aimed at the dim silhouette of the approaching helicopter then fired. The Justice Department said at least 50 documents in the Pentagon have been identified as relevant, but only one has been turned over. The loss of a Chinook helicopter carrying members of Navy SEAL Team Six made yesterday the deadliest single day in the entire Afghan War for the U.S., The New York Times reports. And it even led Robert ONeill, the Trump-supporting Navy Seal who claims to have fired the shot that killed Bin Laden, to tweet that the conspiracy theories both about the Bin Laden double and about the Seals from the raid having been killed arent true. That is why, they say, a fighter just happened to be stationed in a turret within 150 yards of a landing zone that had never been used before. Does Donald Trump believe that Joe Biden played a part in murdering those Navy Seals? "The downing of Extortion 17 was a catastrophic and unprecedented tragedy for our nation," Reid testified. The first of the unguided projectiles missed, as the vast majority of rocket propelled grenades shot at helicopters did over the course of the war in Afghanistan. This incident could be a sign of things to come: The crash happened in Tanji, where the U.S. closed a combat outpost in April. Nigerians await election results in competitive race. The helicopter plunged tail first. . But the CH-47D has neither a flight nor voice recorder, only an engine performance data recorder for maintenance. In the immediate wake of the tragedy, the military initiated two investigations. The navigator on the AC-130 gunship said there was simply too much gun and engine noise to think that the Chinook could make an undetected entrance. Some Arab countries and leaders condemned the actions of the United States. Misinformation regarding the skills of the pilots and crew, and nonsensical conspiracy theoriesoften politically motivatedfollowed, much of which unfortunately continues to this day. Extortion 17, however, would never reach that landing zone. Image:U.S. PresidentDonaldTrumpholds a campaign rally at John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, U.S. October 13, 2020. because seals have a habit of writing books once they retire. A silhouette of a flight engineer manning an M240 machine gun on the ramp of a CH-47D Chinook in eastern Afghanistan. I am afraid that with this FOIA case that the government is purposely delaying turning over documents because they need the time to redact and to delete things they do not want the American public to become aware of.. While the goggles are better than nothing, they turn everything green, distort depth perception and limit peripheral vision. Not all will end as well as bin Laden's takedown, as PM noted in July. Seven Afghan commandos were also reportedly killed. The immediate reaction force (IRF) was assembled hastily for insertion into Tangi Valley to help Army Rangers capture fleeing Taliban. To minimize the danger as much as possible, pilots will land Chinooks out of range of any weapons they know they enemy to have, and an Apache or a UAV will fly overhead to check for threats before the Chinooks drop off any soldiers. Hamburger said. The Obama administration is violating a judge's order to turn over documents in the Aug. 6, 2011, shootdown of a U.S. helicopter call sign Extortion 17 that killed members of SEAL Team 6 . With Sean Hannity, Raj Kala, Justin Torrence, Vee Bhakta. Some news stories reported that investigators couldnt find the helicopters black box, referring to the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. The Obama administration is violating a judges order to turn over documents in the Aug. 6, 2011, shootdown of a U.S. helicopter call sign Extortion 17 that killed members of SEAL Team 6 in Afghanistan, a watchdog group is charging. This misinformation persists in part because those unfamiliar with the battlefield aren't taking into account a fundamental part of war: chance. KABUL, Afghanistan -- A helicopter crash in Afghanistan's eastern Wardak province has killed 30 U.S. special operation troops and seven Afghan soldiers, the country's president said on. But this might just take the cake. Justin Buddy Lee will never forget that night six years ago. Three months after bin Ladens death, members of the SEAL Team 6 force -- though apparently not the same ones who carried out the bin Laden raid -- were on board the CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter, along with its Army National Guard aircrew, several support personnel and seven Afghan commandos. Stephen M. Mills, 35, of Fort Worth, was one of the U.S. Navy SEALS killed in the helicopter crash. Extortion 17's pilots and crew ranked among the very best military helicopter pilots in the world (Carter had amassed more than 4,000 hours of cockpit time), and the helicopter, a CH-47D, the fastest and one of the most powerful and nimble in the U.S. military, had been maintained to the highest standards. So, to do an infil on the X or Y, you know, having that element of surprise in the beginning of an operation is good, but by the time weve been there for three hours, and the partys up, bringing in another aircraft like that, you know, may not be the most tactically sound decision.. The sheer amount of experience with our pilots, flight engineers and back-seaters and mechanics offered a wealth of knowledge, he said. It is not uncommon for commandos to fly some of their missions aboard such aircraft in the war zone, however. 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. While the vast majority of attempts to down helicopters failed, the lucky shot that took down Extortion 17 had a precedent. The fighting lasted at least two hours, he said, the New York Times reported. Over time, certain memories will fade, certain details will fade. So the whole team went in one Chinook helicopter -- Extortion 17. Virginia-based Navy SEALs in a training exercise. "We simply didn't know those guys with those RPGs were there," he said. Caring is more than just slapping a bumper sticker on your car, he said. But Tahir and a group of his fighters escaped. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Charlie Strange, whose Navy cryptologist son, Michael, was on Extortion 17, told The Times last year that it was too much of a coincidence for Taliban to be standing so near the landing zone. But why? At that time, this marked deadliest moment in the war in Afghanistan. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! The team was responding to an Army Ranger unit that was engaged in a firefight with the Taliban and needed backup. ", Tags: Navy SEALs, Navy, Afghanistan, Allen West, Michele Bachmann. No family members were allowed to testify. The CH-47D that embarked on the mission that day had been built in the 1960s, she said, and last retrofitted in the 1985. One by one, fathers and mothers of the victims of the crash spoke about what they see as gaping holes or inconsistencies in the review of what U.S. Special Operations considers its most deadly incident.
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