Check out these great photos of U.S., French and Italian troops recovering a French Air Force Mirage 2000-D that crashed pretty much intact a little more than 60 miles from the town of Farah in the Bakwa district of Farah Province, Afghanistan. The cause of the May 24 crash is still unknown but French officials ruled out enemy fire early on and the crew was ok.
The May 27 recovery effort involved U.S. Army troops with heavy lifting equipment, Marine firefighters and EOD techs, a French aircraft recovery team and Italian troops to provide security performing an 81-mile round-trip drive to the middle of nowhere to get the jet. And nothing bad happened along the way.
More photos of the operation after the jump.
Loading the jet onto a flatbed after the wings, fuel, flares and other items were removed:
Recovering one of the wings:
Removing the wings:
French troops removing hazardous materials from the wing root areas:
Marine Corps aircraft firefighters spray the jet down after C-4 plastic explosive was used to sever the wings:
Boom! Severing the wings with C-4:
Marine EOD techs setting the C-4 charges:
A Marine EOD tech and French troops removing flares from the jet:
Before all the work shown above could happen, this Marine Corps M88 recovery vehicle had to drag the jet away from its fuel-saturated crash site to a safer location:
The recovery convoy coming or going from the crash site, I can't tell:
