The Final Mission of Extortion 17 Read online

  Text and maps © 2017 by Ed Darack

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  Published by Smithsonian Books

  Director: Carolyn Gleason

  Managing Editor: Christina Wiginton

  Project Editor: Laura Harger

  Editorial Assistant: Jaime Schwender

  Edited by Mark Gatlin

  Designed by BookMatters, Berkeley

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Darack, Ed, author.

  Title: The final mission of Extortion 17 : special ops, helicopter support, SEAL Team Six, and the deadliest day of the U.S. war in Afghanistan / Ed Darack.

  Other titles: Complete untold story of the deadliest day in the U.S. war in Afghanistan

  Description: Washington, DC : Smithsonian Books, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017001110 | ISBN 9781588345899

  Subjects: LCSH: Afghan War, 2001—Aerial operations, American. | United States. Navy. SEALs—History—21st century. | United States. Naval Special Warfare Development Group—History. | United States. Army. Ranger Regiment, 75th—History—21st century. | Chinook (Military transport helicopter) | Special operations (Military science)—United States—History—21st century. | Afghan War, 2001—Campaigns.

  Classification: LCC DS371.412 .D37 2017 | DDC 958.104/742—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2017001110

  Ebook ISBN 9781588345905

  For permission to reproduce photos and illustrations appearing in this book, please correspond directly with the owners of the works, as noted on here. Smithsonian Books does not retain reproduction rights for these images individually or maintain a file of addresses for sources.

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  To the enduring memories of those lost in the tragedies narrated in this book, and to their families, comrades, and friends.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Preface

  1 REDCON 2

  2 America’s Longest War

  3 “Make It Count”

  4 Forging a Modern U.S. Army Aviator and Commander

  5 Extortion Company and the Modern American War Machine

  6 Special Operations and the 160th

  7 Through the Perilous Skies of War

  8 Progression of Excellence

  9 Families and War

  10 Born to Fly

  11 Never Stop Flying the Aircraft

  12 Three Steps ahead of the Helicopter

  13 Wooden Wings

  14 The Invisible Warfighters

  15 The Mechanics of the Mission

  16 Decision Point

  17 The Passengers

  18 Highest Valor

  19 Aftermath

  20 Operation Ginosa

  Epilogue

  Abbreviations and Acronyms

  Sources

  Acknowledgments

  Index

  Figure and Map Credits

  PREFACE

  This book began as a magazine article, “The Final Flight of Extortion 17,” about the circumstances leading to the downing of Extortion 17 (pronounced “one-seven,” not “seventeen”) in eastern Afghanistan’s Tangi Valley in the dark early-morning hours of August 6, 2011. Published in the March–April 2015 issue of Air & Space magazine, the article generated a wealth of positive feedback from a number of those intimately involved with the Extortion 17 story. After it appeared, some of those closest to the story reached out to me, including pilots and crew in Extortion Company, the unit to which Extortion 17 belonged, as well as close friends and family members of those aboard. Among dozens of others, Justin “Buddy” Lee, commander of Extortion Company, contacted me and provided invaluable details about the incident, background stories, and introductions to a number of people with more information about the incident in the Tangi Valley.

  Because of the input of these mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, fellow soldiers, and pilots and crew who had flown with Extortion 17, I realized that there was much more to this incident than I had imagined. The full story of Extortion 17 stretches far beyond the few minutes of that early-morning mission, long before the pilots and crew launched their fateful flight and long after their tragic downing. The true Extortion 17 story is a nexus of diverse yet interrelated narratives about individuals and events bound by both the mission and the tragedy. Ultimately, this book is intended to show the what, the where, the why, the how, and, most important, the who of the mission, the downing, the subsequent action against the enemy, and the enduring legacies of those involved.

  The book also focuses on those at the heart of the story—the pilots and crew of Extortion 17—through the memories of their fellow soldiers, family members, and friends. It also reveals, as only the accounts of eyewitnesses can, the world of Army aviation and of humanity in one of its most extreme states: war.

  Late on the moonless night of August 5, 2011, two U.S. Army CH-47D Chinook helicopters, empty of all passengers, cut through the pitch-black sky at more than 100 mph above the rolling high desert of eastern Afghanistan. The pilot on the stick of each aircraft lowered the thrust control with his left hand and rocked the cyclic back slightly with his right. The helicopters flared nose-high in unison as they slowed before landing. Using familiar terrain features projected onto his eyes from his night-vision goggles (NVGs), Chief Warrant Officer 4 (CW4) David “Dave” Carter, the pilot on the controls of the lead ship, Chalk 1, guided his Chinook toward the airfield of their home base, Forward Operating Base Shank. “Coming over the wire,” transmitted CW2 Bryan Nichols, seated next to Carter as pilot-in-command, over Chalk 1’s internal communication system (ICS) to the flight crew. Specialist Spencer Duncan, the left-door gunner, and Sergeant Alexander “Alex” Bennett, manning the right-door gun, each flipped the fire selector of his M240B machine gun from the stamped F (fire) to S (safe) and removed the belted 7.62mm ammunition from the weapon’s feed tray. Sergeant Patrick “Pat” Hamburger, flight engineer (FE), sitting near the Chinook’s loading ramp at the rear of the helicopter, safed his M4 carbine by removing the weapon’s magazine and clearing the 5.56mm round loaded in its chamber with a quick rearward slide and release of its charging handle, making a ker-chunk sound.

  “Left gun, safe and clear.”

  “Right gun, safe and clear.”

  “Ramp, safe and clear.”

  An Extortion CH-47D Chinook flying over Maidan Wardak Province, Afghanistan, silhouetted by the rising sun, 2011. Credit 1

  Each crew member transmitted in quick succession as Bryan deactivated the helicopter’s automatic defensive countermeasures system. Chalk 1 screamed over the razor wire–topped earthen barrier encircling the outpost, followed seconds later by Chalk 2. Both touched down at the base’s forward arming and refueling point, or FARP.

  “Knighthawk X-ray, we’re Zulu,” Chalk 2’s pilot-in-command transmitted, “Zulu” indicating to the base’s air traffic controllers that the flight of two, known as a two-ship, had safely returned. Their journey, requiring the utmost skill, confidence, and teamwork, had ended successfully and without incident after their flight into the den of a harden
ed and determined enemy that sought to destroy American helicopters at every opportunity.

  Minutes earlier, the two Chinooks, call signs Extortion 16 and Extortion 17, had been speeding into one of the war’s most important and dangerous focal points, the Tangi Valley of eastern Afghanistan’s Maidan Wardak Province. Only 40 miles south-southwest of Kabul, the nation’s capital, the Tangi, due to its location and layout, had been of key strategic significance for a number of terrorist and insurgent groups since Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) had started in October 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 strikes. It was an indispensable corridor for the movement of fighters, weapons, and contraband, including the opium sold to fund the enemy’s violence. Here a collection of insurgents and terrorists with ties to the Pakistan-based Taliban and the Haqqani Network lashed out with sniper attacks, mortar and rocket assaults, coordinated ambushes, and improvised explosive device (IED) strikes day and night against U.S., coalition, and Afghan government forces, as well as innocent civilians, to wield dominance over this vital swath of terrain. American units, in turn, relentlessly struck at the myriad enemy factions to deny them claim of and passage through the Tangi, unleashing carefully planned and executed operations such as the one launched on the night of August 5. In this raid, Extortion 16 and 17 played a role so critical that it could never have been undertaken without their involvement.

  Moments after lifting into the sky above their base at the outset of the operation, the two Chinooks had roared through the darkness in tight formation at less than 100 feet above the barren peaks that form the southern wall of the Tangi, carrying a ground assault force of several dozen Special Operations Forces (SOF) personnel. The pilots of Extortion 16 and 17 slowed their aircraft as they streaked over the edge of a flat corridor of spindly trees and coarsely manicured fields and orchards, part of a river-quenched verdant ribbon snaking along the floor of the valley. Seconds before they touched down, the passengers unbuckled their restraints and checked their radios, weapons, and the multitude of other combat implements they carried, readying themselves to storm into the night toward an enemy of only partially known disposition. The full weight of the operation at that point rested on the shoulders of the pilots and crew of the two helicopters, who needed to ensure the speedy yet safe passage of the assault force and preserve their vital element of surprise.

  Critical to the security of the Chinooks’ flight, and the efficacy of the mission overall, were the personnel in a four-engine AC-130 Spectre gunship armed with a 105mm artillery piece and a number of other powerful guns orbiting thousands of feet above the Tangi and scanning for enemy threats while aiding the helicopters’ navigation on the final leg of their ingress. At a far lower altitude, yet still above that of Extortion 16 and 17, two Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, each bristling with ballistic rockets, laser-guided missiles, and a powerful chain gun loaded with high-explosive rounds, carved broad circles around the Chinooks’ landing zone (LZ), a flat patch on the corner of an empty field at the valley’s midpoint. Like those in the higher-flying gunship, the helicopter pilots used powerful infrared sensors to scan every nook and crevice for signs of danger, ready to eliminate identified threats within seconds.

  As the two Chinooks closed in on the most critical moment of their flight, the pilots listened for direction from the attack helicopters to either proceed to the LZ or abort, an assessment based on a number of human and environmental risk factors. Word that Extortion 16 and 17 could touch down came precisely at the planned moment.

  Both pilots locked their shoulder harnesses in place, a measure meant not just for their own safety but to ensure the survival of the others onboard the helicopters should an enemy bullet strike and kill either of them. Dave edged the cyclic back, flaring the ship while keeping it aimed directly at the LZ, the target glimmering in shades of green through his NVGs. Bryan scanned the helicopter’s array of gauges and monitored the radios, paying close attention to transmissions from the three gunships keeping the Chinooks updated on LZ conditions, including wind, dust, and environmental and human obstructions and dangers—even an errant head of livestock. As they sped closer, Spencer and Alex focused on every canal, trail, tree, stone, and mud wall in a weapons-tight posture, their gazes aimed down the barrels of their machine guns and their trigger fingers ready to unleash focused bursts of fire at a rate of more than a dozen rounds per second. They knew that even a single enemy bullet could send them all plummeting to earth. In fact, just a few weeks earlier, another CH-47 belonging to their unit had gone down as it approached an LZ in a different part of eastern Afghanistan during a nighttime insertion (“insert”) of troops.

  Pat scanned for hazards out the rear of the helicopter as he stood ready to coordinate the offloading of the assault force, whose members could sense, by the pitch of the aircraft, its rumbling vibrations, and the acute clacking sounds of its rotors, that they would touch down in seconds. The FE glanced toward the passengers in the dark Chinook, his NVGs projecting two dimly glowing green dots, then outside at the trailing Chinook and the land streaking below, and then back to the interior. He gestured to indicate to the members of the assault force that they would soon be on the ground to unleash their phase of the operation.

  Standing at the Chinook’s right, or number-two, side, Pat clasped a black-knobbed lever labeled RAMP CONTROL as Dave pitched the Chinook to about 10 degrees nose-up by pulling the cyclic slightly farther back. As Alex and Spencer scanned for any emerging enemy who might seek a lucky shot during this, the most dangerous moment of their flight, Dave rotated the Chinook toward a level attitude as the aircraft slowed to zero airspeed and the rear landing-gear wheels kissed the crumbly ground, settling a few inches into the dirt. Less than a second later, the nose wheels touched down and the Chinook nudged a half foot forward as a ring of light dust enveloped the helicopter. “Down and safe,” Bryan quickly and smoothly transmitted to the gunships orbiting above. The members of the assault force rose in unison and faced the rear of the aircraft, which bobbed gently up and down as the engines idled under Dave’s control. “Down and safe,” the pilot-in-command of Chalk 2 radioed immediately after Bryan’s transmission.

  “Ramp’s coming level,” Pat said over the ICS as he rocked the hydraulic control toward the rear of the Chinook and the loading ramp rotated to the ground, locking with a pop. The FE jumped into the night with the assault force directly on his heels. Moving out of the ground team’s way toward the side of the helicopter, Pat passed under the hot, pungent exhaust plume roiling out of the Chinook’s right engine and stood under the rear rotor system, its wavering, high-pitched whine and thwack-thwack-thwack deafening as the passengers sprinted in two lines directly away from the rear of the CH-47. “Pax clear,” he transmitted as the last members of the assault force hit the ground. He bounded back inside the helicopter and rocked the ramp controller toward the front of the Chinook, saying, “Ramp’s coming up.”

  “Crew, passengers, mission equipment.” Bryan transmitted to the crewmen over the ICS the list of critical items to check before relaunching. Dave calmly scanned the helicopter’s gauges and searched outside for possible enemy movement. He, like the others in both helicopters, was no doubt intensely aware that they sat atop a dangerously vulnerable patch of ground where spending a fraction of a second too long could invite tragedy. A patient, careful enemy, luckily positioned at or near the secret LZ and well aware of the propaganda value of a helicopter shoot-down, could have remained hidden throughout the landing phase and insert. And with the over-watching gunships’ attention now split between guarding the assault force and the two Chinooks, all onboard needed to maintain vigilance for militants alerted by the din of engines and spinning rotors.

  “Left gun ready,” Spencer responded after hearing Bryan’s call. The gunner scanned down the length of his machine gun, sweeping it back and forth across his field of view.

  “Right gun ready,” Alex said.

  “Ramp ready,” Pat transmitted, safely inside the helicopter with
the ramp locked in flight position.

  “Clear up left,” said Spencer.

  “Clear up right,” Alex said, completing the checklist.

  The idling engines wound into a scream as Dave pulled pitch at the right-door gunner’s cue, the helicopter’s rotors biting into the air and sending another ring of dust into the sky. As the escort ships above tracked the assault force members’ move to their post-insert rally point with their night-vision sensors, the two Chinooks vibrated and rocked side to side for a fraction of a second and then heaved upward. The combined power of each ship’s two turboshaft engines pressed the pilots into their seats and the standing crew firmly into the soles of their boots. The CH-47s roared into the night sky with a steep nose-down attitude, accelerating as they rose above the valley floor.

  As he had done thousands of times before, Dave moved the sticks so precisely, coordinating thrust, cyclic, and other controls with a touch honed by decades of practice, that the Chinook rocketed smoothly away from the potentially deadly LZ as fast as the 8,500 combined horsepower of its engines could muster along its finely controlled flight trajectory. During the first seconds after liftoff, Bryan and Dave scanned the landscape streaking below them through their goggles while shooting naked-eye glances down at the helicopter’s dimly lit gauges, checking for enemy fighters on the ground while simultaneously monitoring the conditions of the CH-47’s systems. Their mission was among the most difficult of military helicopter operations: moonless, pitch-black night flying through high-altitude mountainous terrain. Flights in such conditions during daylight hours pose incredible challenges, but zero-illumination flying in any environment, most aviators believe, is far more difficult than flights during the day, due in great measure to fundamental limitations of night-vision equipment, notably their constricted field of view. Despite the challenges and threats, however, the collective skills of the two crews had ensured the safe, speedy delivery of the assault force and the Chinooks’ subsequent quick exit. Seconds after liftoff, only a fading bump-bump-bump resonated through the LZ. The entire insert, from the start of landing until relaunch, had spanned less than a minute.