Retired Air Force Captain Says Pentagon Lied About Cause of Helicopter Crash (Extortion 17) that Killed 38 Including 17 SEALs

April 25, 2017

FighterSweep Staff 31 Comments Afghanistan, Air Force, Army Aviation, Military Aviation, Navy, News, Photos, Special Operations, Video

Retired Air Force Captain Joni Marquez is claiming the Pentagon hid the truth and lied about the circumstances that led to a Chinook helicopter crash that killed 38 which included 17 Navy SEALs. The Chinook that was shot down had the call sign of Extortion 17.

Captain Marquez was the fire control officer aboard an AC-130 gunship that Army Rangers had called in for close air support in Afghanistan’s Tangi Valley.

The Heroes that were lost on Extortion 17

The Rangers had called in for assault helicopters to engage the enemy hiding among the rocky valley. The air weapons team fired on the Taliban fighters, but not all of the insurgents were killed as originally believed.

“I had the sensor operators immediately shift to the eight insurgents the helicopters had taken out,” Marquez told Circa, in her first interview about the incident. “Two were still alive.”

“We had seen two of them (insurgents) moving, crawling away from the area, as to not really make a whole lot of scene,” she recalled.

Monitoring the scene from above, she relayed the scene to the ground force commander. “You have two enemy forces that are still alive,” she said. “Permission to engage.” They were denied. – Read More at Circa

Captain Marquez watched as the two remaining insurgents made their way back to a village and then gathered additional fighters whom ultimately participated in the downing of Extortion 17. This was considered the largest single day loss of American lives in Afghanistan.

What are your thoughts and comments on this? Is Captain Marquez right and this tragedy could have been avoided?

Featured image by of Captain Joni Marquez by Circa

DrumminInACave

Was this from Red Wings, or a different mission?
- leftheart
  
  No that was 2005.. this was in 2011 it was a QRF to backup Army Rangers
  - DrumminInACave
    
    Cool, thanks for the clarification.
Mike Magro

Obama traded the lives of Seal Team 6 and the other heroes so he could get Bid Laden
- veej7485
  
  No.
  - Mike Magro
    
    I know Michael Strange’s Father. Seal Team 6 knew they were going to their deaths. Michael Strange called his father that night and said something doesnt feel, they are going against every protocol. You never put a whole Seal Team in one helicopter. Their lives were swapped for Bid Laden
    - veej7485
      
      Obama doesn’t tell seal commanders how to load their aircraft.., dumb conspiracy theorists. Look at Red Wing in 2005, same thing happened. Helo’s get shot down.
      - Mike Magro
        
        You must be a liberal who believes the obama administration done know wrong.
        They’ll orders come from the top, he was Command-in-Chief, it was his responsibility
      - veej7485
        
        am a repub, and your a moron that thinks everything was Obama fault.
      - Mike Magro
        
        Stand down orders, sending no help, putting a whole Special Ops team on one helicopter. Comes down to Obama since he was Commander-in-Chief
      - veej7485
        
        thats not correct whatsoever….I blame Obama for you being born.
      - Mike Magro
        
        Was Obama Commander-in-Chief. Yes. Obama did not trust his Generals, Obama signed off on Military Action just like every other President did, So yes, this in on Obama’s head., They covered it up. They lied. But you know it it all I see. I only the father of one of Seal Team 6 members, and he told me what happened with his son, and the cover up that took place.
      - veej7485
        
        ok great so trump is to blame every time a service member dies too. Could’a would’a should of….you could say that about any time a service member is killed. Stop politicizing their deaths, Grow up.
      - Mike Magro
        
        The President is the one that sends us off to fight, so yes you can blame him, I’m not the one politicizing their deaths, I’m telling the truth, but you have a problem believing the government is responsible for their deaths. But you know it all.
      - veej7485
        
        they were the help…they were the QRF.
      - Craig Brandon
        
        Don’t bother. It’s like trying to deal with these [email protected] who think that somehow the WTC’s were rigged with plasma or thermite or heat lightning. They live in their own little tin foil worlds. R.L.T.W.
    - Liberty007
      
      Something definitely was not right, and I hope one day we will know the truth.
      - Mike Magro
        
        According to Michael Strange’s father they knew they were going to die. His father received a call from him and he told him something was not right . He’s another story about the incident.
        
        http://m.washingtontimes.com/
      - veej7485
        
        guys call home before most raids….because it might be the last time they speak to any of them…nothing special.
      - Mike Magro
        
        I’m so glad you know know it all, you sure you arent a liberal because you sure do act like one.
    - Pacemaker4
      
      sure they do…operation red wings was a helicopter escort screw up. heck you really have to wonder about the osprey ..supposed to be the cats ass but an escort that outruns it principle…is ludicrous. and the pilots who dont throttle back…and the leaders who knew it all before it started.
      Trying t fight a safe clean war is a joke.
      The Tarnak Farm incident ….one the reasons ROE changed.
Craig Brandon

This entire story is complete BULLSH@@T. This information has been in the public domain since 2015–c
- Sean McPartland
  
  Not sure what your saying Craig. Is it that the Captain, who was in the AC130, is lying? Thanks for your service with the Ranger Regiment.
  - Craig Brandon
    
    Sean, As they say in the courtroom…she’s assuming facts not in evidence. Ths AF Capt assumes that the reason permission to engage a ground target was denied was the ROE. The only one who, in truth, knows why permission was refused is the Ranger Ground Force Commander, whose testimony is not referenced here because it’s not available to her. Perhaps the ground commander was not able to confirm that there were NO Allied pax in the immediate target area. Perhaps he, like all who have ever called in CAS or an air strike, had that ever nagging thought that perhaps the AF had it wrong. Don’t get me wrong, Sean, I love the AF and I jump out of their perfectly good aircraft at every given opportunity (AR’s now), but history is replete with CAS mistakes going Blue on Blue. I don’t know why permission was denied, but for her to assume that the ROE is entirely to blame is just wrong. I am certain all the commanders involved, from high to low, have second guessed every decision a dozen, if not more times. BTW….loud-as@ helo’s had already landed, Allied troops are in a firefight, CAS has echoed for miles…..It’s a given that any of those [email protected] were already alerted to the situation. While I mourn the fallen, it all comes down to chance, probability, Murphy’s Laws Of Combat and the good ole, ever present, Fog Of War. Why she’s bringing all this up now is known only to her. R.L.T.W.
    - Sean McPartland
      
      Thanks for the response Craig. From the article it appears the ROE “could” have changed the outcome. It doesn’t appear there was an issue with “blue on blue” according to the article. An AC130 would have a handle on all friendly locations in that area. I believe her belief is that, the ROEs were restrictive and the ground commander was following the ROEs at the time. No specific threat from those two mopes at the time, so they followed protocol and let them go. Also, I see the link in the article quotes a 20 year legal advocate for SF who basically agrees the ROE were too restrictive at the time.
      
      One of the guys on the helo, Andy Harvell, was a Combat Controller. I attended Andys funeral and later his brother Sean’s funeral ( dual Silver Star recipient). I am former CCT too. Thus my more than passing interest. Take care man.
      - Mike Magro
        
        There is one thing everyone is forgetting, its not normal procedure to put all Special Ops on the same helicopter. That violates their procedures,
    - Mike Magro
      
      So the father of Michael Strange is lying too. He received the phone call from his son before the mission. So are you calling a Gold Star Family a liar?
      - Sean Detente
        
        So? I don’t know what a “gold star family” is supposed to be, except they sound like people to be avoided (Bernie Madoff types, ya know) because “trust me, my son sacrificed his life for his country” is the exact same logic behind “we’re the government, trust us!” Dad wasn’t there, and let’s be blunt, he’s a father, not exactly unbiased (don’t blame him either) towards his son’s demise.
      - Mike Magro
        
        Gold star families should not be avoided. Maybe you should take to a Gold Star family. Extortion 17 is under investigation. When their sons called home to tell the families something is going to happened to them. There is something wrong. And it was normal phone call before going out on a mission, saying I could die, the phone cal Charlie Strange received from his son, saying there were gonna die on that mission, They knew it.
- Pacemaker4
  
  The amount of lies coming out of the pentagon though makes it easy to understand.
Jana Kravina

Thanks Captain Joni Marquez.