Element's Infiltration of the Assault Force

The initial assault went extremely well. All air elements executed the plan as briefed, with only some minor variations. The helicopter elements led in as planned, they bumped looking for targets, saw none and called that to the AMC. The lead elements then initiated the infiltration f the assault element. Helicopter 1 went to their landing zone (LZ), determined that they couldn't land and roped in their assault element. Helicopter 2, on short final, saw that their original LZ was to tight to land so they landed on the far side of the street intersection. Both helicopters created a brown out condition so Helicopter 3 decided to do a tight go around to let the dust settle. The fourth helicopter (mine) was the tail helicopter and on short final, but the brown out was so severe that we lost sight of all the other helicopter elements. We did not hear number 3's go around call and continued to the LZ using the building on our left side and the wires directly crossing our front as reference points. We were taking fire during the approach and heard what appeared to be rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) being fired near or at us. The brown out became so severe that we lost sight of all references. We then stopped and came straight down until we touched down. Our assault force thought the helicopter was in a hover and the left side team threw out their fast rope and roped in. It was the world's shortest fast rope as we were only 3 feet off the ground! Helicopter 1 then took off vertically because of the brown out conditions. As we broke out of the dust cloud we saw that we flew directly over and within a few feet of Helicopter 3 as it as landing – this was because of his its initial go around. Once all the helicopter elements infiltrated their assault teams we entered our template holding pattern.

Helicopter 1's Exfiltration of Two Wounded at the Crash Site

The helicopter element received a call from another element to cycle in to the crash site to exfiltrate wounded and other personnel. It took a couple of passes to locate the crash site before they landed. They landed on a small road in an extremely tight, dusty LZ with a five to eight degree slope. Once on the ground they momentarily sat there waiting for friendly troops to bring the wounded to the helicopter. While waiting they began taking small arms fire from militia troops approaching the aircraft from the front. The left seater and a crewmember returned fire each killing a militia soldier. Shortly after, one of the crewmembers saw a friendly trying to bring a wounded soldier to the helicopter. He got out of Helicopter 1 and assisted in carrying the wounded to the aircraft. While he was out of the aircraft, the left seater again took fire from some militia. The crewmember saw where the fire was coming from and returned fire killing one enemy soldier. The left seater also began returning fire, also killing one of the enemy. The crew chief then helped put two badly wounded onto the helicopter. Helicopter 1 then flew them directly to the field hospital. Helicopter 2 then started inbound to continue the exfiltration when the ground element told them to return to holding. Helicopter 1 returned to holding with the rest of the flight to await further instructions.

Helicopter 1's Attempted Exfiltration at the Crash Site

Once the helicopter crashed, another helicopter roped two Special Forces (SF) soldiers into the crash site to assist the downed aircrew. The helicopter elements were again told to be prepared to exfiltrate wounded from the crash site. Helicopter 1 again was called in first to begin the exfiltration. Helicopter 1 landed approximately 100-150 feet from the crash site. No one was ready for exfiltration so the ground element told Helicopter 1 to leave the site until they were ready for exfiltration. Unfortunately, that never occurred and the helicopter elements were told to enter holding and remain until further notice.

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