REMEMBERING EXTORTION 17 - Survive the News The men who serve in the American military are the finest! 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. 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). I thought I hit a tree,he said. But at least you should care about them and appreciate what were asking of them.. Lee had just flown the night before on a similar mission with one of the pilots, David Carter. Missions like this one to insert or remove an assault force are the military equivalent of a perfect 10 in the Olympics equal parts skill, experience and daring. 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. This remains the greatest single loss of life to Naval Special Warfare since the Afghan War started in 2001. Monitored and controlled by a Joint Terminal Attack Controller at Forward Operating Base Shank via a General Atomics MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, all six were positively confirmed killed by the bomb strike and subsequent attacks by a Lockheed AC-130 gunship and two Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships. They are not the same SEALs, and these two events are not connected to one another. After some time, another group of about 10 Taliban fighters was spotted that we suspected could be Qari Tahir himself fleeing the scene. The crew of Slasher 02, the AC-130 circling above, flipped the switch on their powerful light. It was brought down by multiple shots. 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. 5 U.S. The crash is referred to as Extortion 17 by the callsign of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter involved in the crash. The crash is referred to as Extortion 17 by the callsign of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter involved in the crash. Warnings from her crew to turn the Chinook back or cancel their mission went unheeded. Your Privacy Rights Instead, two rigorous U. S. military investigations followed every moment of the mission to determine what went wrong on Extortion 17s final flight. The following passage, published in The Navy Times, seems to support that assertion. Its a math problem. [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. 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. The Final Mission of Extortion 17: Special Ops, Helicop [9][11], Almost an hour later (01:50), the aviation brigade commander approved a new landing zone for infiltration of the SEAL team. But why? [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. | READ MORE. There is still a tremendous level of chance for a tragedy of such huge magnitude.. [34] Kevin Sieff and Greg Jaffe of The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials confirmed the deaths, including 22 SEALs. In The Final Mission of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. At 31 U.S. military personnel killed, the shoot down of Extortion 17 represents the greatest single-incident loss of U.S. lives in Operation Enduring Freedom - Afghanistan, surpassing the 16. I will never forget what they did, he said. On August 6, 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. Stock photos, 360 images, vectors and videos 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. The shooters origin remains a mystery. No one is planting victory gardens, and were not rationing. [1][5][6][7][8] At 30 American military personnel killed, the shootdown of Extortion 17 represents the greatest single-incident loss of American lives in Operation Enduring Freedom Afghanistan, surpassing the 16 lost in the downing of Turbine 33, a 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) MH-47 helicopter, during Operation Red Wings on 28 June 2005.[2]. 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. Fallen Angel.. He was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment (General Support Aviation Battalion), New Century, Kansas, Spc. 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. 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. In mid-2011, combined with a U.S. Army aviation battalion, they had spent weeks conducting operations nearly every other night in Wardak and surrounding provinces south of Kabul to capture or kill Taliban forces, disrupt attack plots, and deny them sanctuary on this strategic approach to Kabul City. The following was transcribed from the above video press conference. Why was the black box missing from the crash site? 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. [2][38], On 10 August 2011, the U.S. military stated that the insurgent who fired the rocket-propelled grenade had been killed only two days afterward in an F-16 airstrike, saying only that intelligence gained on the ground provided "a high degree of confidence" that the person was among those killed in the airstrike from two days earlier, but providing no other details. 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 . There are no survivors. Touch device users can explore by touch or with swipe . "Before Benghazi there was Extortion 17.. Saturday August 6 th 2011 was a day that changed the lives of my family forever. Extortion 17 hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy Photo by Sgt. Alexander J. Bennett, 24, of Tacoma, Wash. 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. May God give them the strength to carry on without them. [9][11], Meanwhile, the group of Taliban fighters split in two. Baseless Claim That Biden Ordered 'Extortion 17' Three months after the raid that killed bin Laden, Taliban fighters shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying 30 U.S. service members, including. Call Sign Extortion 17 : The Shoot-Down of SEAL Team Six [43][44], American rules of engagement were tightened by Gen. Stanley McChrystal in 2009 in order to improve American counterinsurgency strategy. But one thing that doesnt fade is never forgetting what they did.. Extortion 17 and the Truth The Havok Journal The helicopter fell from the sky, killing all 38 on board. Lee is 36 now, a civil attorney in Dallas, a world away from Afghanistan. A Black Hawk Down of the war in Afghanistan, the deadliest day for the U.S. in 12 years of that conflictand a military investigation that covered up evidence of an inside job by the Taliban. The helicopter carrying the SEALs proceeded to the landing zone alone, without external lighting. There remained many mysteries about the Extortion 17 shoot down. Fallen Angel: Extortion 17 Facts and Documentary Families suspect SEAL Team 6 crash was inside job on worst day in At the flight controls were David R. Carter of the Colorado Army National Guard and copilot Bryan J. Nichols, a Kansas-based Army reservist. The shoot-down of 'Extortion 17' constitutes the greatest loss of American life from a single battle in the history of the Afghanistan War. "Fallen Angel" - What really happened to Extortion 17? New film probes So where did it go?? David Tarrant, The Dallas Morning News Cookie Settings, 5,000-Year-Old Tavern With Food Still Inside Discovered in Iraq, Archaeologists Discover Wooden Spikes Described by Julius Caesar, The Surprisingly Scientific Roots of Monkey Bars, Kids Start Forgetting Early Childhood Around Age 7, Artificial Sweetener Tied to Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke, Study Finds. 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 helicopters are capacious and fast, and they can perform well in Afghanistans performance-degrading high altitudes and heat. The worst of the wounded was one of Lees crew members, who suffered what was later diagnosed as a severe traumatic brain injury. Campbell was one of 30 Americans killed when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, with the call sign Extortion 17, crashed in Afghanistan. That's the only route, so they took positions on either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. Enterprise. Photo by Sgt. Available for both RF and RM licensing. August 6 marks six years since deadly 'Extortion 17' helicopter crash He was probably in the top 1 percent of Army aviators, Lee said. The co-pilot, Bryan Nichols, was one of Lees closest friends in the Chinook company. The US soldiers killed in the 2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook shoot-down with the call sign Extortion 17 (Photo: XY) SGT Alexander J. Bennett SPC Spencer Duncan (youngest onboard) CWO Bryan J. Nichols "[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. 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 God sees you, You do see that A-12(1963! It would never return. Explore. Its the worst day in our history by a mile.. Connor Mendez, courtesy of U.S. Army. The helicopter plunged tail first. The Chinook headed to a different landing zone than the first assault team one in the narrowest part of the Tangi Valley. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Geneva G. Brier/Released) If this was survivable, that was the right crew to have. 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. [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. SEAL Team 6 & Extortion 17 Families Suspect Crash Was Inside Job 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. All three airmen were assigned to the 24th Special Tactics Squadron, Pope Field, North Carolina. [11][12], As the Rangers approached the target compound, ISR aircraft observed several people leaving the compound. Extortion 17: Bodies of the 22 slain SEAL Team 6 members cremated We were told at that time we were the first unit to make it through a rotation without having anyone killed.. Caring is more than just slapping a bumper sticker on your car, he said. Every mission is potentially life-threatening. August 2011 Attack on U.S. 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. For example, on 8 June 2011 another Chinook helicopter was engaged from five to six locations (i.e., points of origin) with 14 rocket-propelled grenades, forcing the crew to abort their mission. At the time of the Juy Zarin raid, the battalion had been flying in Afghanistan for about two weeks. 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. Conspiracy theories started almost immediately. 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. 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. Extortion 17 August 6, 2022 marks 11 years since Extortion 17. This would not be the first time that an Afghan military member has been an undercover Taliban Terrorist and shot our US Military! On such missions, the Chinook pilots nearly always fly at night, wearing night vision goggles, or NVGs. When the auto-complete results are available, use the up and down arrows to review and Enter to select. But what really happened that night? For Lee, there was no time to reflect on how close he had come to dying. EXTORTION 17 COVER-UP OF SEAL TEAM SIX SHOOT-DOWN | BWCentral Ill try to reply the best I can. Their target was a Taliban commander responsible for ambushes and other attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces. Find the perfect extortion 17 stock photo, image, vector, illustration or 360 image. Were asking people to do incredible things. Night Stalker pilots and crew rigorously train for nighttime raids, like the one in Juy Zarin. The downing of Extortion 17 spurred a number of conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the shootdown was revenge for bin Laden's death. Aired: 08/01/21 Rating: NR 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. Several minutes later, a 20-man Pathfinder team (specializing in downed-aircraft rescue and recovery) arrived at the site. #neverforgotten #screwedbygovt #demmandanswers. He was also an instructor at the High Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site (see Triple Threat: High, Hot, and Heavy, Aug. 2014), where many U.S. and foreign helicopter pilots train for mountainous and high-altitude flying, often before deployment to Afghanistan. The IRF also included two SEALs from another team, five Navy special operations support personnel, three Air Force special tactics airmen, seven Afghan National Army commandos, a translator, and a combat assault dog. 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. To find answers to many of the outstanding questions regarding Extortion 17, a congressional oversight committee held a hearing on February 27, 2014. The hardest LZ Id ever been into, Lee said. Extortion 17: Were American Servicemen in Afghanistan Set Up For 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. He pushed hard on the cyclic stick to tilt the helicopter forward. 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. Extortion 17: The Mission and the Tragedy in Afghanistan 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. 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 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. The second slammed into one of the Chinooks rear rotor blades and exploded, severing 10 feet of it. PDF AFGHANISTAN: HONORING THE HEROES OF EXTORTION 17 - GovInfo The extreme G-forces killed everyone on board within a fraction of a second, Darack said. It just wasnt.. The conspiracy theories didnt bother Lee at first. Patrick D. Hamburger, 30, of Lincoln, Neb. Six weeks into his deployment, Lee experienced his worst day as a helicopter pilot to that point. A body went into the ocean, but Ill bet it wasnt Bin Ladens. August 12, 2022. by Samantha Franco. That June, the U.S. military launched Operation Hammer Down to drive out insurgents entrenched in remote strongholds of eastern Afghanistan. The Chinook helicopter they were aboard was shot down by . 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. He was too busy. [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. August 6, 2017 marks six years since 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. These are the words of Billy Vaughn. In 2006, he was called into Afghanistan, where he turned 25. On Aug. 6, 2011, insurgent forces in Afghanistan shot down an American aircraft. He knew the pilots and crew members aboard Extortion 17. Rest in peace, gentlemen; you will not be forgotten. "[31][32] NBC News reported that the Pentagon released the names of the 30 Americans killed. On 6 August 2011, a U.S. CH-47D Chinook military helicopter operating with the call sign Extortion 17 (pronounced "one-seven") was shot down while transporting a Quick Reaction Force attempting to reinforce a Joint Special Operations Command unit of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the Tangi Valley in Maidan Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan. Recovery of wreckage from the crash site lasted until 9 August 2011. The quick reaction force included SEAL Team 6 and other special operations personnel. 2017 The Dallas Morning News. Spec Ops Magazine 2023 All Rights Reserved. AC-130 gunships orbiting overhead directed two AH-64 Apache attack helicopters to fire on and kill five enemy fighters. On 6 August 2011, a U.S. CH-47D Chinook military helicopter operating with the call sign Extortion 17 (pronounced "one-seven") was shot down while transporting a Quick Reaction Force attempting to reinforce a Joint Special Operations Command unit of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the Tangi Valley in Maidan Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, Landing in deserts or mountainsides, the helicopter rotors kick up clouds of sand and dust, causing brownouts that can blind a pilot. The crash claimed the lives of 38 personnel, including 22 special operations forces in Afghanistan Aug. 6, 2011. The crash is referred to as Extortion 17 by the callsign of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter involved in the crash. Hi there! But no one died. 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. U.S. Army Helicopter "EXTORTION 17" Shot Down - PBS.org Planners then chose a new landing zone for the IRF, but it was large enough to accommodate only one Chinook. Extortion 17 - IMDb Obama 'Put a Target on Their Backs', SEAL Team 6 Family Members Say On his right wrist, he wears a bracelet with the names of the five crew members of Extortion 17.
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