thedrifter
02-14-07, 07:34 AM
7th helicopter downed by automatic fire
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 14, 2007 6:28:14 EST
A Black Hawk was downed in a previously unreported incident amid the apparent recent spike in incidents of enemy fire bringing down U.S. helicopters, Army officials say.
No one died in the incident and the helicopter is back in service.
Between Jan. 20 and Feb. 7, six helicopters went down and 28 U.S. troops and civilians died. One of those incidents is believed to have been due to mechanical failure.
In the previously unreported seventh incident, a Black Hawk went down Jan. 25 in Hit in Anbar province. The attack was witnessed by a senior Army officer who was in a second Black Hawk.
“I can report that that one was brought down by automatic weapons fire,” Maj. Gen. Jim Simmons, deputy commanding general for Multi-National Corps-Iraq, said in a press briefing Feb. 11 in Baghdad he described all the incidents in detail.
“I think we just happened to come upon some guys who were involved in perhaps putting some weapons in a cache or taking some weapons out of a cache, and we stumbled upon them and they engaged us with what they had and they got lucky and hit the second aircraft,” Simmons said.
The use of helicopters for combat operations and moving people and cargo around the war zone has risen steadily in the past couple of years.
The Army has 500 helicopters in Iraq and the Marine Corps has 140. Since the beginning of operations in Afghanistan in October 2001, a total of 33 Army helicopters have been lost to hostile action and the Marines have lost seven.
In 2005, Army helicopters logged 244,000 hours, in 2006 they flew 340,000 hours and in 2007 rotary wing aircraft are expected to fly 400,000 hours, according to Simmons.
In the downing of a Black Hawk helicopter on Jan. 20 in which 12 soldiers were killed, and the shoot-down of an Apache on Feb. 2 that killed two soldiers, he said, “we know that there were multiple weapons systems that were involved in the engagement. This is not a new tactic. It was used against the 4th Infantry Division during their deployment here south of Baghdad. But it is the first time that we have seen it employed in several months.”
In those incidents, improvised explosive devices were on the roads leading to the wreckage of the aircraft, slowing the ground reaction force, he said.
In the heat of a battle Jan. 28 in Najaf, an Apache was shot down, which Simmons attributed to a complex, battalion level engagement.
“There was a lot of gun fire being exchanged. This was a wingman that was protecting the lead as lead went in to engage the enemy and he got hit and went down. There was an awful lot of gunfire going down at that time,” Simmons said.
Two civilian helicopters belonging to private security contractors were also shot down, one of them killing five people.
None of the recent incidents involved shoulder-fired rockets, although, he said, the enemy has used those in the past, but not for some time.
The Feb. 7 crash of a Marine Corps CH-46 helicopter is still under investigation. Five Marines and two sailors were killed in the crash. A video that purported to show the burning helicopter struck by a missile has been on the Internet since shortly after that incident.
According to the Marine Corps, the cause is still believed to be mechanical failure because the investigation has not yet proven otherwise, but the viability of the video is not being entirely discarded.
“We are looking at the video and other associated information to see if we can assist the forward units make a determination,” said Marine Corps spokesman Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas.
Simmons declined to discuss any information he may have on the Marine Corps crash, saying only that the video is inconsistent with what he has heard.
“The video does not tie in very well as to the descriptions of his wingman of what the aircraft was doing during the process of them going to the ground,” Simmons said.
Ellie
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Feb 14, 2007 6:28:14 EST
A Black Hawk was downed in a previously unreported incident amid the apparent recent spike in incidents of enemy fire bringing down U.S. helicopters, Army officials say.
No one died in the incident and the helicopter is back in service.
Between Jan. 20 and Feb. 7, six helicopters went down and 28 U.S. troops and civilians died. One of those incidents is believed to have been due to mechanical failure.
In the previously unreported seventh incident, a Black Hawk went down Jan. 25 in Hit in Anbar province. The attack was witnessed by a senior Army officer who was in a second Black Hawk.
“I can report that that one was brought down by automatic weapons fire,” Maj. Gen. Jim Simmons, deputy commanding general for Multi-National Corps-Iraq, said in a press briefing Feb. 11 in Baghdad he described all the incidents in detail.
“I think we just happened to come upon some guys who were involved in perhaps putting some weapons in a cache or taking some weapons out of a cache, and we stumbled upon them and they engaged us with what they had and they got lucky and hit the second aircraft,” Simmons said.
The use of helicopters for combat operations and moving people and cargo around the war zone has risen steadily in the past couple of years.
The Army has 500 helicopters in Iraq and the Marine Corps has 140. Since the beginning of operations in Afghanistan in October 2001, a total of 33 Army helicopters have been lost to hostile action and the Marines have lost seven.
In 2005, Army helicopters logged 244,000 hours, in 2006 they flew 340,000 hours and in 2007 rotary wing aircraft are expected to fly 400,000 hours, according to Simmons.
In the downing of a Black Hawk helicopter on Jan. 20 in which 12 soldiers were killed, and the shoot-down of an Apache on Feb. 2 that killed two soldiers, he said, “we know that there were multiple weapons systems that were involved in the engagement. This is not a new tactic. It was used against the 4th Infantry Division during their deployment here south of Baghdad. But it is the first time that we have seen it employed in several months.”
In those incidents, improvised explosive devices were on the roads leading to the wreckage of the aircraft, slowing the ground reaction force, he said.
In the heat of a battle Jan. 28 in Najaf, an Apache was shot down, which Simmons attributed to a complex, battalion level engagement.
“There was a lot of gun fire being exchanged. This was a wingman that was protecting the lead as lead went in to engage the enemy and he got hit and went down. There was an awful lot of gunfire going down at that time,” Simmons said.
Two civilian helicopters belonging to private security contractors were also shot down, one of them killing five people.
None of the recent incidents involved shoulder-fired rockets, although, he said, the enemy has used those in the past, but not for some time.
The Feb. 7 crash of a Marine Corps CH-46 helicopter is still under investigation. Five Marines and two sailors were killed in the crash. A video that purported to show the burning helicopter struck by a missile has been on the Internet since shortly after that incident.
According to the Marine Corps, the cause is still believed to be mechanical failure because the investigation has not yet proven otherwise, but the viability of the video is not being entirely discarded.
“We are looking at the video and other associated information to see if we can assist the forward units make a determination,” said Marine Corps spokesman Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas.
Simmons declined to discuss any information he may have on the Marine Corps crash, saying only that the video is inconsistent with what he has heard.
“The video does not tie in very well as to the descriptions of his wingman of what the aircraft was doing during the process of them going to the ground,” Simmons said.
Ellie