Qualla: 2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook Shootdown

2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook Shootdown: Introduction

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The call sign was Extortion 17. On the night of August 6, 2011, a CH-47D Chinook helicopter carrying a Quick Reaction Force descended into the Tangi Valley in Maidan Wardak province, southwest of Kabul. It never climbed out. A rocket-propelled grenade struck the helicopter's aft rotor assembly, and the aircraft fell from the Afghan sky, killing all thirty-eight people and one military working dog on board. Thirty of the dead were Americans. It remains the single deadliest loss of U.S. military lives in the entire war in Afghanistan.

2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook Shootdown: The Mission in Tangi Valley

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

American intelligence had placed senior Taliban leader Qari Tahir in the Tangi Valley. Army Rangers launched a night operation to find him, and the mission progressed through the early hours as ISR aircraft tracked movement around the target compound. Apache helicopters engaged a...

2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook Shootdown: One Minute Out

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Extortion 17 made its last radio transmission reporting it was one minute from the landing zone. The Chinook slowed and descended, following a steep valley where fighters had positioned themselves on both sides. Whether it was a lucky shot or a prepared ambush has been debated ev...

2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook Shootdown: Thirty Families

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The loss surpassed the sixteen Americans killed in the 2005 downing of Turbine 33 during Operation Red Wings. Among the dead were some of the most experienced special operators in the American military, though they were from a different DEVGRU squadron than the team that had kill...

2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook Shootdown: Retribution and Reckoning

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The insurgent who fired the RPG did not survive long. After the shootdown, he used a two-way radio to boast about the act. American signals intelligence aircraft intercepted the transmission and tracked him. Two days later, on August 8, an F-16 dropped four GBU-54 laser-guided bo...

2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook Shootdown: A Valley's Silence

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Tangi Valley lies in rugged terrain about sixty miles southwest of Kabul, a landscape of narrow ravines and steep ridgelines that made helicopter operations inherently dangerous. The valley had been contested ground for years, a place where insurgents could position themselve...