He pushed hard on the cyclic stick to tilt the helicopter forward. Osama bin Ladens personal journal was also recovered. The mission continues, uninterrupted.3:39 p.m. Osama bin Laden is located on the third floor of the compound and is shot in the head, above the left eye.Sometime during the operation, three other men (including one of bin Ladens sons) and a woman in the compound are also killed.3:53 p.m. President Obama receives preliminary word that bin Laden is identified and dead.3:55 p.m. SEAL team members move bin Ladens body to the first floor of the compound and place it in a body bag.3:39 p.m.-4:10 p.m. The team locates and retrieves multiple items from the compound for intelligence investigation.4:05 p.m. The first helicopter exits the compound.4:08 p.m. The team destroys the chopper that crashed.4:10 p.m. A backup helicopter scoops up remaining team members and leaves the area.5:53 p.m. The choppers with SEAL team members return to Afghanistan.7:01 p.m. President Obama receives further intelligence information that the body killed in the raid is likely that of bin Laden.11:35 p.m. President Obama addresses the nation about the raid.12:59 a.m. Osama bin Ladens body is buried at sea within 24 hours to comply with Islamic law. Trump, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, announced a slate of futuristic new policies in a campaign video Friday. 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. I had to learn how to land while browned-out, wearing NVGs, on the side of a mountain or an uneven field, Lee said. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. He would eventually do two tours and become commander of a Chinook unit during his second deployment in 2011. "One minuteone minute," transmitted Bryan Nichols, the pilot in command of the helicopter. All rights reserved. Were handing rifles to 20-year-olds and asking them to shoot people. The SEALS intentionally . He has written about soldiers returning home from war and the mental health crisis facing young people. Sign up for The Top of the World, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Joe Pappalardo is a contributing writer at Popular Mechanics and author of the new book, Spaceport Earth: The Reinvention of Spaceflight. There are no survivors. Navy SEALs. Two investigations of the incident proved inconclusive. Patrick Hamburger, served among the helicopter's crew. President Trump has been known, over the years, to tweet some bizarre things. On May 2, 2011, U.S. Special Forces raided an al-Qaeda compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and killed the worlds most wanted terrorist: Osama bin Laden. It's unclear how far away the helicopter was from the initial firefight when it went down and unclear how the troops in the firefight got to the crash location, the official said. What went so terribly wrong? In 2006, he was called into Afghanistan, where he turned 25. A junior, he was ready to fight, but the war would be over, he figured, before he even got out of college. 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 The United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DevGru)better known by its former name, Team 6-reportedly suffered the bulk of the casualties. 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., 3 Questions About the SEAL Team Six Crash, Russian Cargo Plane Explodes During Pressure Test, better protected from newer, more sophisticated threats, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. That left it to .css-3wjtm9{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.125rem;text-decoration-color:#1c6a65;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-3wjtm9:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Navy SEALs to undertake a dangerous raid in a notorious insurgent area to stem the Taliban's advance. Copyright 2023 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved, the 2011 raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. 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. 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. In all, 38 people died that night after the chopper was shot down by a Taliban-owned rocket-propelled grenade or RPG over the Wardak Province on Aug. 6, 2011. Darack did extensive research of what happened next. The helicopter was shot down by insurgents. I would say that on the three-minute call is when Gun 2 started looking at the LZ, giving an LZ brief op. One source says the team was thought to include 22 SEALs, three Air Force air controllers, seven Afghan Army troops, a dog and handler, and a civilian interpreter, plus the helicopter crew. They loaded onto Extortion 17, and then Carter and Nichols lifted the Chinook into the night sky. Not all will end as well as bin Laden's takedown, as PM noted in July. Around 2007, U.S. intelligence officials discovered the name of one of bin Ladens closest couriers, whom they speculated may have been involved in supporting or harboring the terrorist. Three of the . "President Karzai expressed his deep condolences because of this incident and expressed his sympathy to Barack Obama.". He was probably in the top 1 percent of Army aviators, Lee said. In fact, the conflict was heating up. Finally Sells Japan Tomahawk Missiles. U.S. Neither did the risk he and his pilots faced every night. On the fourth anniversary of the worst one-day loss of military life in the war on terror, families of the dead say they are aghast that the government will not honor basic requests under the Freedom of Information Act. Around 2:40 a.m., an Apache pilot flying in support came on the radio and shouted: Fallen Angel. They happened to be in the right place at the right time. It marked the greatest single incident loss of American life in the war in Afghanistan, the deadliest moment in the history of SEAL Team Six and the entirety of the Navy SEALs, and the deadliest single incident in the history of U.S. Special Operations Command. Insurgents in Iraq have used Russian-made SA-7s, shoulder-fired missiles tipped with infrared homing devices, against U.S. and British aircraft. In all 38 troops died after the helicopter was shot down by what a review determined to be a Taliban RPG over Wardak Province, Afghanistan, on Aug. 6, 2011. PRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402. By what name was Fallen Angel: Call Sign - Extortion 17 (2021) officially released in Canada in English? 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. Chinooks are American forces' preferred helicopters in Afghanistan because they are powerful enough fly over mountains while carrying a full complement of troops. There are more sophisticated threats out there, such as the SA-16. With Sean Hannity, Raj Kala, Justin Torrence, Vee Bhakta. Nothing tests the capabilities of a young helicopter pilot like flying in the extreme conditions of Afghanistan. Special Forces are expected to keep the pressure on the Taliban, working closely with Afghan forces to maintain control as U.S and Coalition troops depart. "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. More than 20 Navy Seals died in the helicopter crash that killed 31 in Afghanistan yesterday. 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. He finished his contract with the Army shortly afterward, and that September enrolled in Southern Methodist Universitys Dedman School of Law. The night her son Aaron died, he was in a helicopter that was built in the 1960s and last retrofitted in 1985. Lee remained in Afghanistan flying combat missions for another eight months before returning home in the spring of 2012. 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. It just wasnt.. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Saturday's deaths bring the total number of coalition troops killed in Afghanistan to 334 this year, according to the Associated Press. And to this day, people are still debating what really happened. 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. The Chinook headed to a different landing zone than the first assault team -- one in the narrowest part of the Tangi Valley. 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. Fallen Angel.. By late 2010, analysts were able to link the courier to a large, highly-secured compound in Abbottabad, a town about 35 miles north of Islamabad. Their target was a Taliban commander responsible for ambushes and other attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces. 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 the capital, Kabul. 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 what if it was a more advanced missile? The Taliban shot at the Chinooks all the time with RPGs and rifles, Darack said. Nearby, there were two enemy fighters with rocket-propelled grenade launchers. because seals have a habit of writing books once they retire. Due to the sheer magnitude of loss of life, combined with recent news of SEAL Team Six's successful raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, global media outlets lionized the tragedy. 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. Strange also blamed top military brass for sending the troops into a situation they were allegedly ill-equipped and unprepared to handle. Some news stories reported that investigators couldnt find the helicopters black box, referring to the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. At that time, this marked deadliest moment in the war in Afghanistan. This misinformation persists in part because those unfamiliar with the battlefield aren't taking into account a fundamental part of war: chance. JSOC and aviation commanders, prepared for virtually any outcome, quickly formulated a plan: they would send a team on one helicopter to bolster the Ranger-led force. 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. The Rangers were not in need of rescue. President Obama offered his thoughts and prayers to those killed in the crash. A Justice Department spokeswoman said there would be no comment beyond its court filings. But why? In addition to killing the man who was considered the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S. forces snagged valuable items from the compound during the raid. And we really feel that this put our guys in an unnecessary risk, Hamburger said. 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. 4:05 p.m. - The first helicopter exits the compound. It was an auspicious day for the two enemy fighters. The sheer amount of experience with our pilots, flight engineers and back-seaters and mechanics offered a wealth of knowledge, he said. Joining the 15members of SEAL Team 6, two pilots and three-man crew inside Extortion 17: ten other Navy and Air Force personnel, eight Afghansand a combat assault dog named Bart. The military's public contradictions raise more questions than answers. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. But the Team Six connection makes it a major symbolic victory for them. The helicopter crashed into a creek bed and a flash flood shortly afterward washed away some parts of the wreckage. Related: Marcus Luttrell's savior claim's 'Lone Survivor' got it wrong. Lee and his friend Bryan Nichols flew their Chinook into battle several timesthe first night, dropping off troops at a landing zone (LZ) almost 10,000 feet above sea level. (AP). We may earn commission if you buy from a link. Lees wife, Christy, hoped the news would bring a sudden end to the war. In combat, its mission is to transport large teams of elite assault troops, including Army Rangers and Navy SEALs, to and from the battlefield. They have to slow down to land or allow troops to rappel to the ground. Still, SEAL Team Sixs bold raid to take down bin Laden was an extraordinary operation that most experts regard as a resounding success. No one is planting victory gardens, and were not rationing. While the goggles are better than nothing, they turn everything green, distort depth perception and limit peripheral vision. The helicopter was in great operational shape. Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft that supported the raid, including a Predator drone, and a variety of highly specialized spy planes, had kept continuous watch over the region during the operation. The assassination of Osama bin Laden was a significant victory for the U.S. government and the American people at large. The military's public c Read allOn 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. Several Afghans were on board and were killed, but trust is in short supply in Afghanistan. The missions commanders decided to insert another team to go after Tahir while the Rangers held the compound. It was a good crew, it really was. But why? It's a scary thought. Additional forces were then sent to secure the crash site. 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. Aerial view of Osama bin Laden's compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, made by the CIA. This is all, needless to say, completely unsubstantiated if not outright false. Get everything off your social media. The military's public contradictions raise more questions than answers. Were asking people to do incredible things. It was the worst day for fatalities in the history of naval special warfare. She had just given birth to their first child. At this difficult hour, all Americans are united in support of our men and women in uniform who serve so that we can live in freedom and security.". Some of the most highly trained and skilled war fighters in history, the Rangers moved overland to a location where intelligence indicated Lefty Grove and his small cadre of fighters would be holding a meeting. Fallen Angel: Call Sign - Extortion 17: Directed by Karl Horstmann, Stephen Spivey. Doug Hamburger, whose son Patrick was killed, called the incident an ambush that could have been prevented. "He said, 'Mom, there's chatter. Insurgents shot down a U.S. military helicopter during fighting in eastern Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans, most of them belonging to the same elite unit as the Navy SEALs who killed former Al. They are also pretty tough; the only comparable loss to this one was a Chinook shot down in 2005. For many families of 9/11 victims, bin Ladens death symbolized justice and retribution. WASHINGTON - The families of Navy SEAL Team 6 members killed in a disastrous August 2011 helicopter crash in Afghanistan blamed the government for the tragedy, during an emotional press. The RPG that struck Extortion 17 threw the helicopter into an uncontrollable spin. The team boarded Extortion 17 with Dave Carter and Bryan Nichols at the controls. Onboard were 17 members of SEAL Team 6; five naval special warfare operators, including one to intercept communications and another to handle Bart the war dog; five Army flight crewmen, including a National Guard and an Army Reserve pilot; and three Air Force personnel. The Taliban silenced him. The team was responding to an Army Ranger unit that was engaged in a firefight with the Taliban and needed backup. 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. Afghan President Karzai's office released a statement on the incident. Per factcheck.org, while Obama and his advisers were deliberating over which mission to authorize for attacking Bin Ladens compound, Biden advised the president to wait for further confirmation that bin Laden was actually in the compound in Pakistan before acting. Biden was not, as implied, altogether opposed to killing Bin Laden. No family members were allowed to testify. A silhouette of a. Although the Taliban have claimed to have shot the helicopter down, U.S. officials have only identified the attackers as insurgents. 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. Somebody tipped them off. How SEAL Team 6 . 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. He probably doesnt. Flying 250 feet above the valley floor at just under 70 miles per hour, Dave Carter, the pilot to the right of Nichols, guided the helicopter toward a carefully chosen landing zone just over a mile away. There was a lot of experience in that cockpit, the flight engineers and the door gunners. We had guys who had flown in Desert Storm, guys who had just come off active duty, Lee said. 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. The alleged hit on SEAL Team 6 is a reference to the downing of a Chinook transport helicopter by insurgents a few months after the bin Laden raid. I didnt want to die., He remembered the words of his old flight instructor: Never stop flying the aircraft.. 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. They dont even produce under their own self-imposed deadline, Mr. Klayman told The Washington Times. They knew. We were told at that time we were the first unit to make it through a rotation without having anyone killed.. They heard a helicopter coming, they grabbed their RPGs, and they fired in quick succession, Darack said. This critical, but completely uncontrollable, aspect of war, is well-known among fighters like Buddy. A CH-47D Chinook helicopter (the same model as Extortion 17) speeds through the Sierra Nevada Mountains at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, near Bridgeport, California, during mountain warfare training exercises. Victory Point: Operations Red Wings and Whalersthe Marine Corps' Battle for Freedom in Afghanistan, Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion, Navy SEAL's Savior Claims 'Lone Survivor' Got It Wrong. The military's public contradictions raise more questions than answers. Legal Statement. This crash is incredibly demoralizing. After the helicopter crash on August 6, 2011. A silhouette of a flight engineer manning an M240 machine gun on the ramp of a CH-47D Chinook in eastern Afghanistan. I would say that was the first time that we really had eyes on the LZ.. It's certainly possible. Military officials told her operating outside of these rules "damages our efforts to win the hearts and minds of our enemies. The Taliban, of course, has taken credit, saying it shot down the helo during a special forces raid on a home. The Graveyard of Empires: Directed by David Boreanaz. These missiles add ultraviolet tracking to infrared seekers, making them less susceptible to the flares that Chinooks fire to try to throw incoming missiles off course. The Pentagons witness stuck to a theme that no mistakes were made that night, though the investigative file contained testimony from a number of witnesses saying the mission was riddled with missteps. 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. Things like Benghazi and the NSA. Its lawyers have told the judge that the process of locating relevant documents and removing classified information takes time. Could an enemy have specifically targeted the U.S. special forces team that took down bin Laden? Following a helicopter crash, the SEAL Team must proceed with the mission as hostiles bear down on them and an injured and impaired Jason goes after their target alone. One of the best crews in my company. All Rights Reserved. Six weeks into his deployment, Lee experienced his worst day as a helicopter pilot to that point. And Justice unilaterally set a new deadline for the release and then ignored it, Mr. Klayman said. Lee heard the call, and he knew what it meant. Virginia-based Navy SEALs in a training exercise. Its like taking a paper towel roll, cutting it in half and strapping it to your eye, Lee said. 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. 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. The SEAL Team 6 community was devastated. Hamburger added. 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. But it's just as plausible that the Taliban got lucky. 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. Coincidence or not, any Chinook shoot-down is a coup for the Taliban. Karen Vaughn says she wants to know why her son Aaron and his team were not using special operations aircraft which have defenses in place to help allow helicopters to go deep behind enemy lines. 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. Almost 10 years after 9/11, here's what led to the death of Osama bin Laden. 4:08 p.m. - The team destroys the chopper that crashed. But we are still sending people to another country to fight, and we need to understand why were doing that, he said. On his right wrist, he wears a bracelet with the names of the five crew members of Extortion 17. The guy was incredibly skilled.. As they started their descent, Lee heard a loud popping noise. During a press conference on Washington Thursday, family and advocates for the fallen troops called into question the rules of engagement that they say prohibited their sons from being able to return fire, and the White House's decision to announce shortly after the killing of Osama bin Laden that SEAL Team 6 was responsible for the raid. A volley of three rockets total sped toward the general direction of the approaching Chinook, all launched within a few seconds of each other. [PHOTOS:Fighting in Afghanistan Continues]. 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. Ten computer hard drives, five computers and more than 100 storage devices were retrieved. 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. 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. the seal team 6 crash is just tying up loose ends for their crimes. An official report was released in October 2011 but family members say it did little to fill in the details and left more questions than answers. In fact, Chinooks are better protected from newer, more sophisticated threats than from older, more crude ones. And you know, never before in the history of our county (had) a sitting president released that type of information to the public, especially when he was talking about special forces. Located in a remote and dangerous province in eastern Afghanistan, the base was the target of near-constant rocket attacks from Taliban insurgents. Oops, this content can't be loadedbecause you're having connectivity problems, Stay always informed and up to date with our breaking news alerts, - The Washington Times - Wednesday, August 5, 2015. The "had Seal team 6 killed" is a likely reference to what's known as the "Extortion 17" incident, the August 2011 tragedy in which a Chinook military helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan,. Only the pilots, crew, and special operations ground forces commanders knew about the planned flight path and time. It was exactly four years ago, at 2:22 a.m., that a rebuilt conventional CH-47 Chinook helicopter took off from a forward operating base, carrying some of the most skilled and advanced warriors ever molded by U.S. special operations. they won't view it as wrong, just a "necessary" sacrifice for your country. Market data provided by Factset. The former vice president has become the Democratic front-runner with primary victories across the country. Military officers interviewed by investigators said they could not recall an IRF ever being sent for such a mission. 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