Report Shows No Error in SEAL Crash

Military investigators found no wrongdoing in the Aug. 6 crash of a helicopter carrying dozens of elite Navy SEALs that became the deadliest single incident of the Afghan war, according to a report issued this week.

In an unclassified summary of his official investigation, Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Colt "determined that this mission, and the tactics and resources employed in its execution, were consistent with previous U.S. special operations missions and the strike forces selected to execute the mission were appropriate."

"For the families, friends and fellow warriors of the fallen, American and Afghan, the loss of these selfless and courageous men was a tragedy for which this report can provide little comfort," he wrote.

Colt confirmed that a Taliban rocket-propelled grenade is what felled the Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter, killing all 38 men onboard, including operators from the elite Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or SEAL Team 6.

Some have questioned whether commanders made the right decisions in sending so many high-value special operators into action together aboard a National Guard helicopter, rather than a regular Army special operations helo. Colt's report says the crash and loss of life were an unpreventable consequence of war.

"Each CH-47D crewmember assigned to fly this mission was fully trained and qualified to perform the aircrew duties to which he was assigned," he wrote. The helicopters themselves were fully equipped for the mission.

The report provides the most detail yet about the circumstances of the crash. The operation began as an attempt to capture or kill Qari Tahir, an Afghan insurgent leader in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province. When allied intelligence learned he would be at a certain compound on Aug. 5, commanders ordered special operators to go in and get him.

A troop of Army Rangers aboard two Chinooks; along with two AH-64 Apache attack helicopters; an AC-130 Spectre gunship and "a relatively robust team of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft" formed the first wave of the operation, Colt wrote.

The SEALs and other special operators were part of a second "immediate reaction force" that would keep ready at a forward operating base to support the Rangers in case they needed help.

According to Colt's report, American commanders were still seeing groups of enemy fighters outside the compound. To keep the stragglers from getting away, mission commanders sent in the immediate reaction force. Officials wanted the troops in one helicopter so they could get on the ground and into action as quickly as possible.

When the helo carrying 17 Navy SEALs; five support sailors; three Air Force special operators; seven Afghan soldiers; a working dog and its own aircrew started to land, "a previously undetected group of suspected Taliban fighters fired two or three RPGs in rapid succession," Colt wrote.

"The first RPG missed the helicopter, but the second RPG struck one of the blades on the aft rotor assembly and exploded," the report said.

The helicopter dropped into a dry creek bed and "was immediately engulfed in a large fireball, causing multiple secondary explosions of fuel and munitions until the aircraft burned out several hours later," according to the report.

The report puts to rest assertions that the shootdown was an elaborate trap prompted by revenge for the death of Osama bin Laden.

"The shoot-down was not the result of a baited ambush, but rather the result of the enemy being at a heightened state of alert due to three and a half hours of ongoing coalition air operations concentrated over the northwestern portion of the Tangi Valley," Colt wrote.

Colt did criticize commanders for not having enough surveillance aircraft supporting the SEAL force, but added it was not a cause of the shootdown.

"The employment of aircraft overhead prior to a helicopter insertion should be better synchronized to minimize possible early warning to the enemy of imminent ground operations," he wrote.

The summary of his report released by Central Command also does not address the Air Force strike later that week that commanders believe killed the insurgent who fired on the Chinook. The top American commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen, suggested in August that the surveillance aircraft that had been overhead for the Rangers' raid may have followed the RPG shooters until commanders could attack them.