As the assault was in progress, the Blackhawk with the Search and Rescue (SAR) package was in orbit north of the objective. The assault had been going on for approximately 20-30 minutes when we heard that a Blackhawk had been hit and was going in. The pilot told us to get ready - that we would be fast-roping in. Approximately 8 minutes later, our Blackhawk flared in north of the crash site and we fast-roped in. Just as the last two men were coming down the fast-rope there was an explosion near the center right of the aircraft. The pilot held steady until the last man was off the rope before cutting ropes and exfilling from the area. The Blackhawk just made it back to the airfield before seizing up.

A side note before I continue. When the other Blackhawk crashed, non-commissioned officers (NCOs) climbed out of the wreckage and immediately began to lay down suppressive fire on hostile personnel attempting to approach the aircraft. A short time later, a helicopter landed to the west of the crash site to attempt recovery of the casualties. By now, two NCOs had been wounded by enemy gunfire and the copilot of the aiding helicopter dismounted to help them to his helicopter.

Once the SAR helicopter cleared the site, the SAR team began to move south toward the crash site. We moved approximately 70 meters and turned east into the crash site. There were already several rangers there providing initial security. We immediately established the casualty collection point and provided additional security to the north, east, and west. Roughly five minutes into the situation, a team member was hit in the lower leg and went down. There were four other casualties on site. Both pilots died on impact. The SAR team started to attend to the wounded and removed one pilot from the aircraft. Four team members moved to the east of the crash and established security from that location. We went about disarming the miniguns and zeroing out all the radio gear. The enemy fire around us was increasing and as we attempted to move our casualties inside a building directly south of the crash, we received two more wounded. Due to the position of the aircraft, we were not able to pull the other pilot out of the helicopter.

Our communicator was now actively engaged in communicating with the command and control (C2) bird. He apprised them of our situation and coordinated for gun-ship support on the enemy positions. Three additional casualties were taken from gunfire and enemy grenades.

At this point, it is still daylight and we have made visual link up with an element southwest of our location. We are now able to lay down suppressive fire and move our casualties into the building just south of the crash site. I sent a medic to link up with that element because it was also receiving casualties and did not have a medic. The medic ran back across the street, through enemy fire, to pick up more medical supplies. He then crossed back over to rejoin the other element and did not return to us until the fight was over.

We assigned on Special Operations (SF) soldier and one Ranger to the northeast corner of the building block. Three personnel moved south inside the block and cleared the remainder of the structure to the south. The 11 wounded and one dead were moved into the center of the complex where a medic continued to stabilize the wounded. I put two Rangers with Squad Automatic Weapons (SAWs) in the hole in the wall just south of the aircraft to ensure that the helicopter remained secured. The remaining Rangers from chalk two went to the south courtyard and set up there. At this point, there were 33 soldiers, not counting the dead, inside our perimeter. It is now roughly three hours into the fight around the helicopter and darkness is approaching.

We were running out of ammunition, water, and medical supplies. One person went back into the crash and scavenged much of what we needed. We passed half of the supplies to a team who had occupied the building to the immediate west of us. We then recovered two sets of night vision devices (NVGs) from the helicopter and passed off one set to a team. By now, we had surmised that we would need a "quicky" saw to get the other dead pilot out of the helicopter. But, we also needed armored support to provide additional security to extract the body.

When the armored reinforcements arrived in the morning, we evacuated our wounded and dead using the Malaysian armored personnel carriers (APCs) on site. One team, led by an SF team sergeant linked up with us and moved to the east to provide the needed security for that site. An SF lieutenant colonel brought up some 10th Mountain Division soldiers who provided security to the west and north. We then attempted to use the saw to cut out the pilot from the crash. However, that failed, so we brought up a Hummer into the nose of the helicopter and proceeded to rip the front portion off. It took four hours to finally free the dead pilot from the wreckage. We also removed one minigun, the crew's personal weapons and classified documents from the crash.

We then planted an explosive charge on the helicopter and the whole force around the crash site moved south to link up with the remainder of the assault force. When the charge went off, the helicopter started to burn fiercely. We continued to move south with the assault force and 10th Mountain soldiers and subsequently linked up with the remainder of the Hummers somewhere near the Olympic Hotel. The SAR package then loaded up into the Hummers for the trip back. Unfortunately, the group split into two groups and 15 assorted passengers ended up at the new port. The remainder of the force went to the stadium controlled by Pakistani forces.

The group at the new port (harbor) was airlifted back to the airfield. The remainder of the SAR team arrived 30 minutes later as the forces were airlifted from the stadium.

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