Hawk missile commander joe2/18/2023 ![]() "A corkscrew smoke trale was observed and the aircraft dispensed flares" just before projectiles streaked past the plane, read the assessment. All crew members heard a loud bang and the projectile passed within 50ft of the aircraft."Ī month later a C-130 aircraft was refueling 11,000ft over Nimroz province when a crew member spotted a "bright flash" followed by a second flash 2 nautical miles away. ![]() " The airburst was described as a dark grey cloud. "The crew looked out their window and observed a projectile with a white-grey tight spiral smoke trail rising from their 7 o'clock, climbing through their level and exploding 2000ft 3000ft above and 0.5-1nm ahead of the aircraft," it read. ![]() In June 2007, shortly after the American Chinook was shot down in Kajaki, a British Chinook had a close shave when its missile warning system activated 6,000ft over Helmand. "The crew chief saw only the smoke trail due to evasive maneuvering but determined that the missile was a type of MANPAD," the subsequent report read – the second Manpad attack that month. The missile changed course after the American crew launched six diversionary flares. In June 2006 a Black Hawk medevac helicopter came under fire 25 miles from Kandahar. Nine months later came the first of at least 10 near-miss reports. One internal report in September 2005 warned that Taliban commanders in Zabul and Kandahar provinces had acquired missiles they called "number two Stinger", for about $1,000 (£650) each. The crash and its handling highlight steadily escalating US worries amid a stream of intelligence reports, also captured in the files, that suggest the Taliban were being supplied with missiles from Iran and Pakistan. " Clearly the Taliban were attempting to down an Apache after downing the CH-47," it read. Both missiles missed, and the pilots subsequently reported that they were "not an RPG" but a "probable first-generation MANPAD". Those fears were confirmed by two Apache attack helicopters hovering over the crash site that came under fire from more missiles, twice in 30 minutes. "Witness statements from Chalk 3 suggest Flipper was struck by Manpad," it reads. A US official said it had "probably been brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade ".īut US pilot logs show they were certain the missile was not an RPG and was most likely a Manpad – the military term for a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile. "It's not impossible for small-arms fire to bring down a helicopter," Nato spokesman Major John Thomas told Reuters in Kabul. Later that day Nato and US officials suggested the helicopter, codenamed Flipper, had been brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade – effectively, a lucky hit. All on board died, including 28-year-old Corporal Mike Gilyeat of the Royal Military Police. Witnesses reported that a missile struck the left rear engine of the aircraft, causing it to burst into flames and nosedive into the ground. The CH-47 Chinook was shot down on after dropping troops at the strategic Kajaki dam in Helmand where the British were leading an anti-Taliban drive. The war logs detail at least 10 near-misses by missiles in four years against coalition aircraft, one while refuelling at 11,000ft and another involving a suspected Stinger missile of the kind supplied by the CIA to Afghan rebels in the 1980s.īut if American and British commanders were worried about the missile threat, they downplayed it in public – to the extent of ignoring their own pilots' testimony. Hundreds of files detail the efforts of insurgents, who have no aircraft, to shoot down western warplanes.
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