Probe of helicopter crash that was carrying SEAL Tm 6

[Jim]

Early in the Iraq invasion we had a number of CH-47s destroyed by RPG/B-40s. Unlucky shot.

[KW Driver]

My reading of the situation, having zero inside info, just gut guesses:

1) Overanxious SEALs wanting to 'get into the fight' pile onboard quickest bird available.
2) Quickest bird available is flown by National Guard/Reserve, who lack experience and are 'amped' to fly such a cool guy unit.
3) Nobody thought through the ramifications of such a high density number of very select individuals aboard a single bird/point of failure. Or, if they did, they were ignored.
4) Shit happened, as it is wont to do.

Lessons should have been learned from Red Wing and Anaconda. Both were cases of SEALs jumping into a bird with horrible results. What makes this case worse is the fact that they didn't even use 160th assets. Would it have made a difference? I don't know, but Desert One taught some good lessons around that as well.

I may be off, we'll see.

1. Fuck Seals. And fuuuuuuuuuuuuck Seal JTACs.

2. NG/Reserve units aren't any worse than any other unit after three months, generally, if at all. They also have a serious depth of experience in their senior Warrants that far exceeds active duty very often. I know of a Vietnam gun driver who hung up his wings last year. A buddy I went through flight school has flown NG Medevac his whole career and has more tours than I do.

Amped smamped, mostly. Maybe the first one or two missions. 160th? There were a lot of "cool units" that either had no access to 160th assets (there are only so many places one unit can be), or built habitual relationships, and preferred working with regular, or even <GASP> guard units. There have been years of complaints that 160th was not responsive to the needs of customers. It mainly had to do with 160th rigidity and adherence to their deliberate planning cycles. Same day or two hour from now hits on HVTs/etc couldn't be supported by 160th, because they needed more planning time. That's the versions I've generally heard, but as an outsider, I can't really confirm that.

I can say, I never saw 160th assets in Mosul. My squadron owned western/northern Niniva province. West of Mosul was economy of force, and not much fighting unless one of the three ODAs could develop something, it was rat lines of personnel and material, and training areas. They fed into Mosul and then down Tampa through Baghdad, and points south. Mosul ran a PLT of the boys full time. Sometimes cooler guys would show up. We shot for them full time. There was an ODA and a B TM in Mosul, but I don't ever really remember shooting for them, unless they got in a TIC. It worked. Out west, we had a Troop doing recon work, cause bad guys didn't stand and fight, and they could blend, with no ability to get a ground unit to interdict someone we thought was hanky. Based on our air recons, and ODA intel, the boys did do a couple of hits on compounds, flown by 160th. They even parked a couple of Pedros (AFSOF HH-60s, PJ-mobiles) on the nearest FOB. That fob had a Medevac birds, but I get it (PJs kick ass, AF rotary aircrews? Fucking clown shoes, I don't care what airframe). One of the hits, DAPs killed a 3rd Batter. (I'm not judging blame on this one at all. I don't know who was at fault on a danger close shot, I just know the results. I always implicitly trusted the birds as a customer, and rode a DAP during a CO assault live fire. It was fucking impressive).

Some of the cooler guys showed up and played desert rats for a few weeks, supported by nothing but regular Army airframes. An SMU air unit did a mission out west once, otherwise, it was just us pions doin the work, every day.

3. Meh... Risk assessment is risk assessment. Wasn't there.

4. Most likely primary causal factor. Chinooks are big fucking, hot targets. Low and slow, they're big targets.

[KW Driver]

Or... I could have just read Catfish's post.

[CatFish Driver]

Or... I could have just read Catfish's post.

Your opinion as a long time ground guy and aviator are always valued. As far as your assessment of the AF rotary-wing crews "FUCKING CLOWNSHOES", you are spot on my friend. I have seen them do more dumb shit and ball up airframes than I can count over 4 different gov't sponsored paid vacations. They need to leave the rotary-wing operations to the professionals.

[PocketKings]

Enlightening to say the least.

[SLEDGE HAMMER]

Update:

Three U.S. families filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his security forces, accusing them of betraying their sons in the Aug. 6, 2011, helicopter shoot-down that killed 30 Americans, 17 of them Navy SEALs.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... #pagebreak

At least the article makes a point to say we weren't being rescued this time around, although it does call Extortion 17 a CH-46D.