2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook shootdown 2011 Afghanistan Boeing Chinook shootdown On 6 August 2011, a U.S. CH-47D Chinook military helicopter operating with the call sign "Extortion 17" (pronounced "one-seven") was shot down while transporting an Immediate Reaction Force attempting to reinforce a Joint Special Operations Command unit of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the Tangi Valley in Maidan Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan. The resulting crash killed all 38 people on board - 25 American special operations personnel, one pilot and two crewmen of the United States Army Reserve, one pilot and one crewman of the United States Army National Guard, seven members of
Boeing CH-47 Chinook in June 2005 with all aboard killed, including a 16-member U.S. Special Operations team. In May 2011, an Australian Army CH-47D crashed during a resupply mission in Zabul Province, resulting in one fatality and five survivors. The helicopter was unable to be recovered and was destroyed in place. To compensate for the loss, the ADF added two ex-U.S. Army CH-47Ds to the fleet which are expected to be in service until the introduction of the CH-47Fs in 2016. Since the type's inception, the Chinook has carried out secondary missions including medical evacuation, disaster relief, search and rescue, aircraft recovery, fire