Los Angeles Times: Army Helicopters Shot Down Before
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Army Helicopters Shot Down Before
By MATT KELLEY
Associated Press Writer
October 5 2001, 2:14 AM PDT
WASHINGTON -- It's a nightmare the Pentagon doesn't want repeated: Guerillas
reportedly trained by Osama bin Laden shoot down two U.S. helicopters over
Mogadishu, Somalia, and jeering mobs drag a crewman's body through the streets.
That 1993 incident, in which 18 U.S. soldiers died, prompted America's pullout
from peacekeeping operations in Somalia. Since then, the Army's special forces
have changed their tactics but haven't replaced the type of helicopter involved
-- the UH-60 Black Hawk.
The Black Hawk remains a workhorse of the Army helicopter fleet, used for
multiple jobs such as taking commandos to their targets and giving officers an
airborne command center. In Afghanistan, its probable use would be to transport
U.S. forces hunting bin Laden.
First added to the arsenal in 1979, the Black Hawk design has been updated
several times; the latest versions are larger and faster than the original. For
special forces operations, a Black Hawk can carry up to 14 commandos and their
equipment.
The helicopters carry two 7.62 mm machine guns to defend themselves, and can be
fitted with air-to-ground rockets. Black Hawks are heavily armored, designed to
survive hitting the ground at 137 mph and to fly for 30 minutes with one rotor
blade severed.
The 1993 counterattack by supporters of Somali warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid,
however, showed that Black Hawks are not bulletproof. Using machine guns and
rocket-propelled grenades, and reportedly focusing their fire on the
helicopters' most vulnerable areas, the Somalis shot down two of the four Black
Hawks engaged in an operation to arrest several of Aidid's top lieutenants.
U.S. prosecutors later said bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network had helped
train Aidid's forces to shoot down Black Hawks.
Adding more armor to the Black Hawk wouldn't have helped in Mogadishu, said
retired Army Col. Ken Allard. Aidid's men knew the Americans were coming and
were willing to lose more than 300 people to bring down a U.S. helicopter, said
Allard, who teaches at Georgetown University.
"That has nothing to do with hardening the Black Hawk. That's having to deal
with a fighting, learning enemy," Allard said.
One lesson the U.S. military learned was that trying to go after one leader is
almost impossible, Allard said. Officers also learned how damaging the images of
dead Americans can be.