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The ensuing crash killed all 16 on board, eight Army special operations aviators, and eight Navy SEALs. After the helicopter crash on August 6, 2011. Some of those Seals were members of Seal Team 6 that took part in the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, the AP reported today; although they were not actual participants in the Pakistan raid, according to the New York Times. The first grenade missed Extortion 17. PRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402. And Justice unilaterally set a new deadline for the release and then ignored it, Mr. Klayman said. 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. It has now been four years since Extortion 17 was shot down, said Doug Hamburger, whose Army air crew son, Patrick, was one of the 30 Americans killed. It is not uncommon for commandos to fly some of their missions aboard such aircraft in the war zone, however. the seal team 6 crash is just tying up loose ends for their crimes. And to this day, people are still debating what really happened. All of us know that going into it.". David Tarrant. 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. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Could an enemy have specifically targeted the U.S. special forces team that took down bin Laden? The next day, a DNA test confirmed that the body was indeed that of Osama bin Laden. I find it quite disturbing that the government is not willing to give us the answers we deserve. U.S. Aerial view of Osama bin Laden's compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, made by the CIA. Guys on the bush line. 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. Lee heard the call, and he knew what it meant. 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. "It's something that a lot of people who have never been in combat have a hard time understanding," he said. Were handing rifles to 20-year-olds and asking them to shoot people. A Defense Department special operations official told a House subcommittee last year that there is no indication the mission was compromised by the Afghans. It just wasnt.. Here are the . U.S. officials tell The Associated Press that they believe that . They stayed fixed on enemy squirters, or runners, until just a few minutes before landing. [PHOTOS:Fighting in Afghanistan Continues]. Today, some family members are not just disappointed in the investigation and the FOIA process, but also in how the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on national security conducted a brief hearing in Feb. 2014. JSOC ground forces and those who flew them knew and trusted each other. Honestly, sir, I dont think anybody had really looked at the LZ, said the pilot of Gun 1. For the last two years, hes been an attorney with the law firm Jackson Walker. But at least you should care about them and appreciate what were asking of them.. Its almost always a miss.. Since the agencys main task is to eavesdrop on phone and Internet messages, it may have recorded communications related to the attack. It was a good crew, it really was. But the Team Six connection makes it a major symbolic victory for them. They were part of his command. That assault team captured Tahirs compound and some of his men. Soon after US Navy Cryptologist Michael Strange and the elite SEAL Team 6 capture and kill Bin Laden, they are deployed to Afghanistan, where their Chinook is shot down. The more likely explanation seems to be that the president, like a lot of us, tweets without thinking, especially if the subject matter is something that praises him or denigrates his political opponents. More than 20 Navy Seals died in the helicopter crash that killed 31 in Afghanistan yesterday. Afghan President Karzai's office released a statement on the incident. However, a shoot down does not necessarily mean insurgents have changed their tactics or hardware. Mills, a 13-year veteran of the military . The team began intense training for the operation, which included practicing in a life-sized replica of the compound. Add in the fact that more sophisticated foreign intelligence agents are on the ground, with signals intelligence assets and deep pockets, and you have a recipe for a plot. 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. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Each shouldered a rocket propelled grenade launcher, aimed at the dim silhouette of the approaching helicopter then fired. Nothing tests the capabilities of a young helicopter pilot like flying in the extreme conditions of Afghanistan. The helicopter was in great operational shape. The parents of three SEALs. Caring is more than just slapping a bumper sticker on your car, he said. 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. There were guys in a tower. 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. About a dozen of the 33 troops in the back of the helicopter suffered broken bones, heavy bruises and scrapes. It's true that members of SEAL Team 6 died tragically in a helicopter crash not long after the Bin Laden mission, but the particular soldiers who perished weren't part of that operation, says O'Neill. Copyright 2023 The Washington Times, LLC. 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. "A NATO helicopter crashed last night in Wardak province," Karzai said in the statement. He was probably in the top 1 percent of Army aviators, Lee said. At that time, this marked deadliest moment in the war in Afghanistan. More than 20 Navy Seals died in the helicopter crash that killed 31 in Afghanistan yesterday. Back in May, the families of the SEALs went public with concerns that the Obama administration was at least partially responsible for the deaths [] However, it would be a very lucky shot to hit a moving Chinook with an RPG and they typically fly high to avoid such dangers as well as small arms fire. A man reads the front page of a newspaper featuring the news that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was shot dead deep inside Pakistan in a night-time helicopter raid by US covert forces, ending a decade-long manhunt for the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. The extreme G-forces killed everyone on board within a fraction of a second, Darack said. It launched in the belly of the aircraft which made a hard landing and only two soldiers were injured in that attack but this time all on board were killed. 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 downing of Extortion 17 was a catastrophic and unprecedented tragedy for our nation," Reid testified. But Tahir and a group of his fighters escaped. Members of Navy SEAL Team Six formed the core of the IRF, with other American special operations personnel and highly-vetted Afghans playing integral roles. 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. Conspiracy theories over the years have alleged that President Barack Obama and presumably then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and now Joe Biden had somehow been responsible for the attack, supposedly in order to silence the Seals for something having to do with the Bin Laden raid three months earlier. 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. See production, box office & company info, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words. 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. Nearby, there were two enemy fighters with rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The story itself is tragic, but tons of war propaganda. Strange also blamed top military brass for sending the troops into a situation they were allegedly ill-equipped and unprepared to handle. While the press conference was long on speculation and short on concrete evidence, the family members and their supporters didn't pull any punches. They dont even produce under their own self-imposed deadline, Mr. Klayman told The Washington Times. The tempo of the missions did not decrease. If this [operation] was survivable, that was the right crew to have. I didnt want to die., He remembered the words of his old flight instructor: Never stop flying the aircraft.. As they started their descent, Lee heard a loud popping noise. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. 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. It's certainly possible. There was a lot of experience in that cockpit, the flight engineers and the door gunners. But why? The tragedy took some of the glow off SEAL Team 6s grand achievement just three months earlier: A team penetrated Pakistan airspace, infiltrated a compound in Abbottabad and killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. They heard a helicopter coming, they grabbed their RPGs, and they fired in quick succession, Darack said. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. The chopper's manifest. As reported on by The Daily Beast, Trump retweeted a message posted by an account called Oscar the Midnight Rider 1111, which alleges that Hiden Biden and Obama may have had Seal team 6 killed! I had to learn how to land while browned-out, wearing NVGs, on the side of a mountain or an uneven field, Lee said. By the time the third sped away from its launcher, however, no target remained. The crash took the lives of 17 SEALs and five special warfare development group operators, making it the worst one-day loss in the history of U.S. naval special operations. International reactions to bin Ladens death ranged from favorable to mixed. Copyright 2023 Center for the National Interest All Rights Reserved, the 2011 raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. The workhorse in Army aviation, the tandem rotor, heavy-lift Chinook helicopter is used for carrying troops, equipment, supplies and even the mail. Nobody tipped off the fightersnor could anyone have alerted them. The former vice president has become the Democratic front-runner with primary victories across the country. 4:08 p.m. - The team destroys the chopper that crashed. We also mourn the Afghans who died alongside our troops in pursuit of a more peaceful and hopeful future for their country. At that time, this marked deadliest moment in the war in Afghanistan. Aaron Vaughn's mother, Karen, also demanded an explanation for why her son and his team were not using a special operations aircraft, such as the Chinooks flown by special operations pilots, which have specialized defenses designed to fly commandos deep behind enemy lines. 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. President Trump has been known, over the years, to tweet some bizarre things. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver. The two Apaches, Gun 1 and Gun 2, on scene were never emphatically told to move near the landing zone to scan for threats. The crash sent shock waves throughout U.S. special operations. 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. I will never forget what they did, he said. His unit called itself Extortion Company. One of his Chinooks, flying under the call sign Extortion 17 (one-seven), was tasked with the special operations mission the night of Aug. 6. The terrorist leader was not only a major player within al-Qaeda but also a figurehead that attracted supporters and recruits from around the world. Then they have to stick the landing. Ten computer hard drives, five computers and more than 100 storage devices were retrieved. The night her son Aaron died, he was in a helicopter that was built in the 1960s and last retrofitted in 1985. When the shock subsided, questions arose and persisted. Around 2:40 a.m., an Apache pilot flying in support came on the radio and shouted: Fallen Angel. Still, the one the president retweeted earlier this week may have been the weirdest yet. There was no conspiracy. Were very concerned that the administration had disclosed that the Navy SEALs had carried out a successful attack on bin Ladens compound resulting in his death. Winds whipped through the fir trees. That means more raids, more targets and more reliance on Afghan competenceall of which add up to more special forces casualties. All Rights Reserved. While some of those who lost their lives that day were members of Seal Team 6, it was not the same platoon that had carried out the Bin Laden raid, and none of those killed in the crash had been a part of that event. But special forces don't get such a cushion: Because they can react more quickly, they undertake more dangerous missions; their risk tolerance is much, much higher. ", While not commenting directly on the allegations, he called those who were lost "warriors" who represented "the diversity and talent of America and its military.". The helicopter was shot down by insurgents. 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. All rights reserved. Doug Hamburger, whose son Patrick was killed, called the incident an ambush that could have been prevented. The hearing as it took place was meant to honor the heroes of Extortion 17 instead of to answer our questions, Mr. 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. Aug. 6, 2011— -- A helicopter was shot down today by Afghan insurgents as it was rushing to aid troops in a firefight, killing 30 Americans, including 22 Navy SEALs, most of whom belonged to Team 6, the unit whose members were involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, U.S. officials said. Special forces routinely use helicopters in raids on homes in Afghanistan. The helicopter plunged tail first. The entire operation, which lasted only 40 minutes from start to finish, was the culmination of years of calculated planning and training. Enterprise writer at The Dallas Morning News. My life is in danger. A silhouette of a. they won't view it as wrong, just a "necessary" sacrifice for your country. They are also pretty tough; the only comparable loss to this one was a Chinook shot down in 2005. RETWEET!, The president went on to follow that last command, although the Oscar the Midnight Rider account has since been suspended by Twitter. The Graveyard of Empires: Directed by David Boreanaz. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. MARTHA RADDATZ, LUIS MARTINEZ and MIKE BOETTCHER, helicopter was shot down today by Afghan insurgents, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Does Donald Trump believe that Joe Biden played a part in murdering those Navy Seals? On his right wrist, he wears a bracelet with the names of the five crew members of Extortion 17. Lee remained in Afghanistan flying combat missions for another eight months before returning home in the spring of 2012. 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. "No amount of training, skill, or technology will ever defeat chance on the battlefield. 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. 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 . It alleges thatthe 2011 raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, which took place when Biden was vice president, did not actually kill the al-Qaeda leader, but rather a body double, and that Iran had been part of the conspiracy as well. 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. Virginia-based Navy SEALs in a training exercise. 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. Its crazy how many times I can think of where me or the guys I was with had to do that.. Darack did extensive research of what happened next. 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. 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. 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. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Its one reason Twitter has put in place safeguards encouraging users to read links before retweeting them. Stay informed daily on the latest news and advice on COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report. 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. For Lee, there was no time to reflect on how close he had come to dying. We had guys who had flown in Desert Storm, guys who had just come off active duty, Lee said. Joe Pappalardo is a contributing writer at Popular Mechanics and author of the new book, Spaceport Earth: The Reinvention of Spaceflight. 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. 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. These materials provided much-needed intelligence about bin Ladens role within al-Qaeda and the organizations inner-workings. Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, BroadStreet Review and Splice Today. The Justice Department said at least 50 documents in the Pentagon have been identified as relevant, but only one has been turned over. It was a hard landing, but it would have been worse if they had landed tail first. 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. It requires the highest level of skills from the pilots because they are some of the most dangerous operations.. 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." Mr. Klayman said the NSA has agreed to provide some information. He probably doesnt. One helicopter crashes, but there are no injuries. He finished his contract with the Army shortly afterward, and that September enrolled in Southern Methodist Universitys Dedman School of Law. 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. 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.. Trump, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, announced a slate of futuristic new policies in a campaign video Friday. Neither did the risk he and his pilots faced every night. 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. No one is planting victory gardens, and were not rationing. Asked for comment, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. James Gregory said: "We share in the grief of all of the families who lost their loved ones. He would eventually do two tours and become commander of a Chinook unit during his second deployment in 2011. For many families of 9/11 victims, bin Ladens death symbolized justice and retribution. This misinformation persists in part because those unfamiliar with the battlefield aren't taking into account a fundamental part of war: chance. The aircraft jerked. SEAL TEAM SIX - Extortion 17 EXPOSED theunitedwest 15.8K subscribers Subscribe 4.7K 394K views Streamed 9 years ago AUGUST 6, 2015 - Today, on the fourth anniversary of the shoot down of. Some news stories reported that investigators couldnt find the helicopters black box, referring to the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. EXPLOSIVE: CIA Whistleblower Exposes Bidens Alleged Role With the Deaths of Seal Team- Claims to have Documented Proof. Fallen Angel.. 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. (AP). Fallen Angel: Call Sign - Extortion 17: Directed by Karl Horstmann, Stephen Spivey. Get everything off your social media. The subject of the tweet, per The Beast, is Alan Howell Parrot, a falconer-turned-CIA whistleblower who was once the star of a documentary called Feathered Cocaine.. 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. He taught helicopter pilots how to fly in high altitudes at an aviation training site in Colorado. On this night, Aug. 6, 2011, something went terribly wrong. "Chance will always play a role in war," stated Justin "Buddy" Lee, the commander of Extortion Company, who had flown with Dave Carter the night before Extortion 17's demise on a similar raid, and who had co-piloted a number of missions with Bryan Nichols. In the immediate wake of the tragedy, the military initiated two investigations. SEAL TEAM SIX - EXTORTION 17 COVER UP theunitedwest 15.8K subscribers Subscribe 683 53K views Streamed 7 years ago WOW, watch author Don Brown blow the lid off of the official government report. 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. While the vast majority of attempts to down helicopters failed, the lucky shot that took down Extortion 17 had a precedent. 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 board the Chinook CH-47D were 15 members of SEAL Team Six, 15 SEAL Team Six Support personnel, 1 Bomb Dog, 7 unidentified members of the Afghan National Army, and 1 . When they arrived at the compound, however, the strike force couldn't locate Tahir, and some of his fighters dispersed. They happened to be in the right place at the right time. 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. He was too busy. Retired Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who served as deputy undersecretary of defense for Intelligence and was a commander in the Army's super-secret "Delta Force," denounced politicized rules of engagement as a "deliberate plot" within the American armed forces that he says puts political correctness above the safety of the troops. 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. During the last several years it is evident that our government has spent a lot of time and resources covering up the truth on many things from both our allies and the American public, Mr. With Robert O'Neill, Patricia Economo, Enrique Garcia, James Obrien. The U.S. Army knows the risks when it plans air assault operations in Afghanistan. Only the pilots, crew, and special operations ground forces commanders knew about the planned flight path and time. 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. Is Russias Only Aircraft Carrier Cursed? The fighting lasted at least two hours, he said, the New York Times reported. On July 25, a Chinook was hit by a rocket propelled grenade fired by the Taliban. 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. But we are still sending people to another country to fight, and we need to understand why were doing that, he said. Just as ridiculous as saying [President George W.] Bush was responsible for 9/11, Lee said. I mean, at any time if we would have found these squirters, or they would have found weapons, we were the way I was understanding it, we were going to be clear to engage due to the fact that they had weapons, but we had to [positively identify] them first., He added: So we hadnt started looking at the LZ yet, just due to there was so much more of a threat to the east with the squirters. Nobody involved had overlooked even the most minute detail. A Marine speaks into a radio and troops unload a CH-47D Chinook in Afghanistan's Kunar Province. But Chinooks are at their most vulnerable while hovering in place during raids like the one this team is thought to have been conducting. 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.