Did Stealth Modifications Cause SEAL Chopper to Crash?
- Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:34pm by
Billy Hallowell
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Military experts and enthusiasts, alike, are buzzing over leaked images that allegedly expose a never-before-seen Black Hawk design. This excitement comes alongside worry, as the design and functionality exposed in the pictures could make its way into the hands of the Chinese or U.S. enemies abroad. And now, to add more intrigue into the mix, a retired special operations aviator claims that the design, itself, may be at the root cause of the helicopter’s crash during last week’s historic Navy SEAL operation.
A tractor trolley carries the wreckage of a helicopter that crashed next to the wall of a compound. (AP Caption and Photo/Aqeel Ahmed)
To recap, ABC News reports:
In the course of the operation that cost the al Qaeda leader his life, one of the two Blackhawk helicopters that carried the SEALs into bin Laden‘s Pakistani compound grazed one of the compound’s wall and was forced to make a hard landing. With the copter inoperable, at the end of the mission the SEALs destroyed it with explosives.
Among its unique features, the helicopter’s noise-reducing design is being credited by some as a contributor to the mission’s success. According to The Daily Beast:
In addition to the noise-reducing modifications, the helicopters had a different look than other military helicopters—sharper angles and flat surfaces more common to stealth jets.
Pakistan has reportedly claimed that the U.S. mission involved helicopters that were able to exploit “blind spots” in the nation’s radar monitoring systems. As a result, the copters traveled into Pakistani territory undetected. Interestingly, neighbors claim they didn’t hear the helicopters approaching bin Laden’s compound until they were directly overhead, a claim that corroborates expert opinion on the matter.
If all of this is accurate, then the new design played a key role in the covert operation and the subsequent assassination of Osama bin Laden. However, at least one source sees the Black Hawk’s new design as a potential liability. In an interview with The Army Times, the retired, former aviator claimed that it is these instrumental changes that may have caused the copter’s problems. According to the Times:
…low-observable modifications added “several hundred pounds” to the weight of the MH-60, which already weighs about 500 to 1000 pounds more than a regular UH-60 Black Hawk.
In addition to these concerns, information leaked to the public is also causing a stir. Following the crash, a Pakistani security official sold images of the wreckage to Reuters. Now, experts fear that foreign enemies could exploit these previously unseen technologies.
Pentagon officials have no comment on the incident, though Pakistan is expected to transfer the wreckage back to the U.S. Here’s a report from ABC News:
Clearly, this technology is of high value to the U.S. military and its use by foreign powers would be less than ideal. The images provide evidence that the U.S. military has been steadily working to improve the Black Hawk’s functionality. That said, past allegations of China’s exploitation of U.S. military technology certainly substantiates expert fears.
Whether the design contributed to the crash is still unsubstantiated, though the effectiveness of the mission cannot be dismissed. MSNBC has an excellent graphic that details the helicopter’s specs:
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Comments (68)
Keith B
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:57pmI don’t buy that picture for one minute. More garbage.
Report Post »NC
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:56pmBHO will be visiting Ft. Campbell KY tomorrow, the training center for the special op flight crews.
While the service men might enjoy the distraction from their regularly scheduled training, and the CIC would like to continue the rise in his polling approval numbers, the U.S. budget can’t afford the 100s of thousands of $ this visit and every other daily visit the POTUS makes.
NC (put a putting green in at the White House and take Air Force One way from him)
Report Post »nosycophant
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:55pmIt was probably made in Boeings China facilities anyway.
Report Post »AmeriCat
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:49pmObama to meet personally with Seals Team 6!
Now their identity will be known!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This meeting should NOT happen. Their identity should remain anonymous.
If he asks who pulled the trigger…..they had better answer, “All of us.”
Al Qaida now has it‘s own personal ’informer.”
Report Post »Pray for the Seals.
redfish83
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:40pmit was probably the new electric hybrid black hawk
much to their detriment, they unplugged it to early from its charge station
Glad everyone was okay!!!!!
Report Post »TheMarine
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:37pmObama is going to tell everyone that he designed this new helicopter, but that Bush made some last minute alterations to it.
Report Post »Nevada Tumbleweed
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:26pmWhatever that is it’s way to small to be a Blackhawk. Looks more like an unmanned recon drone.
Report Post »trooper
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 3:38pmThat’s the tail section, did you not look at the drawings of the aircraft on the report.
Report Post »Hachiko
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 6:57am@trooper Yeah…. you know how you can believe everything the media prints.
Report Post »Sr Newk
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:09pmIf the illustrations are there to show an example of tail section and where it would be located on the helicopter, then they are fine. If the illustrations are to show some example of what the stealth chopper might look like then the illustrations are way off the mark, not even close. The stealth chopper is one well refined machine and it doesn’t even look anything like a Black Hawk. ZTKRAPTOR I agree, you said it all in a single statement.
Report Post »ztkraptor
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:42pmthis was not a “modified” aircraft, it was its own design. Jesus, how dumb are you all.
Report Post »davecoolworld
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:08pmRetro fitted is more accurate. That tail rotor assembly comes from the scrapped Comanche program.
Report Post »No need to call anyone dumb…many people, such as yourself, are ill informed.
Have a nice day.
Nevada Tumbleweed
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:29pmThis thing is not big enough for a person to get inside. Look at the people next to it.
Report Post »rafeeboy
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:42pmHey I bet these babies are Green too. You know, electric Very quiet in combination with the High tech Blades. The extra weights could be Battery cells that can be very heavy. Knowing about all this new stuff leads me to believe Usama maybe having a bad day with Elvis Presly. I have a question… Is telling a live man he’s legally dead and showing front page of newspapers to back it up is within the Geneva agreements?
Report Post »Ron_WA
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:38pmMy guess is the pilot lost situational awareness of where the wall was due to brown-out & disorientation at night, under googles causing contact w/ the wall which brought the bird down.
It’s obvious the tail rotor assembly that was left was not destroyed because that portion was on the far side of the wall apart from the fuselage which prevented it from burning … kind of surprised they did not throw thermites on that portion as well (maybe they did but the grenade malfunctioned).
Wish the media would stop referring to this helo as a stealth Blackhawk; it is obviously a new type of stealth helo & I’m certain whatever its name it is new & unique to that platform.
Report Post »elosogrande
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:31pmLet’s see, we told them that we retreived five laptops, over one nundred hard drives, the telephone numbers to be used to get out of town. Now they know that the helicoptor wreckage could be very important junk. Is there any other information we can give out to help our enemies and screw our men fighting over there?
They made sure everyone knew that Osama bin Thumped was unarmed, and shot “in cold blood”, rather than being allowed to surrender. A great move by a Navy SEAL, but why does the world have to know what happened. This administration should sit down with Patrick Leahy and see if they have missed any opportunities to make it tougher find and kill these bastards.
If Americans don’t wise up and vote all 535 of these fools out of office, we’re doomed.
Report Post »wallyworld
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:28pmAmen, brother!
Those brave men did their country a great service by terminating that piece of garbage with extreme prejudice. In my world, BHO should have told us what happened, congratulated and thanked the men who actually did it, and made some reference to the work that has been done over the past 10 years (by the Bush administration) that led us here. He should have commented on the moral need to kill OBL (and anyone that aspires to take his place). And then he should have shut up. Period. No answering questions on every detail of what happened during that 40 minutes (it’s obviously not in our national interest, he can’t seem to get the story straight, and he can’t get his staff of clowns to keep their mouths shut, either). No more “he was armed”, “he was unarmed”, he was firing a weapon”, “he was reaching for a weapon”, “his wife was a human shield”, “no, she wasn’t”, “we killed him”, “I think we killed him”, “we watched it”, “we lost the video”, “I’ll release the photographs”, “we can’t release the photographs”, and on and on. No more. For all the hard work and sacrifice of our brave servicemen, we still look like complete idiots. And the media needs to exercise some self-control for once and shut up about the aircraft wreckage, what the aircraft may have sounded like, what happened to power and phone service in the area, and all the other crap that I’m reading. What have we become? We’re like children. Time to man up. We’
Report Post »SoCalConservative88
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:17pm…why did they need to leave the helicopter behind?!
Report Post »hud
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 3:11pmThe Paki‘s weren’t in on he act, we didn’t need to stay and get in a shootout with them. eg we leave the parts of the helo.
Report Post »capitalismrocks
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:08pmWell, here is another test of our supposed Allie Pakistan…. have their military allow the US to retrieve all of the remaining components… if Pakistan is truly a US ally, then returning such items should be a no brainer non-issue… so contact all of your Congressman you know, put them on the spot, and tell them – demand Pakistan return all US equipment to US forces immediately to demonstrate that it truly is America’s Ally.
Report Post »hud
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 3:12pmThat, or we terminate aid
Report Post »Beck-n-ing The Blaze
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:00pmWhat I don’t get is this – if we knew there was a big section of the tail still intact, why not send in a predator drone or two with missiles to destroy that remaining part right away before the Pakistanis could move it anywhere? Seriously, that seems like a basic, common sense way to handle it. Give the Pakistani military a 2-minute warning to get away from it (I doubt they could move it far enough to matter in 2 minutes given that they’re dragging it out of there with a farm tractor) and then blast it into tiny pieces. Better that than letting the Chinese get ahold of it. Yes, they’ll still have fragments, but if nothing else, it would make it harder to reverse-engineer.
Report Post »As others have posted, thank God that none of our troops were injured due to the malfunction, and God bless our brave men and women in the armed forces!
warrior21
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:09pmHmmm, the chopper hit a wall? And here I thought we were told yesterday that the chopper was too heavy, the heat too high and the air too thin. Another piece of S—T coming out of a truly screwed up WH operation.
Report Post »kryptonite
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:07pmBeck-n-ing The Blaze: What I don’t get is this – if we knew there was a big section of the tail still intact, why not send in a predator drone or two with missiles to destroy that remaining part right away before the Pakistanis could move it anywhere?
——
Good question. There is a CiC vacuum in America.
This mission’s first goal was to overcome the traitor in the WH. That took months. It is so laughable that he is being called gutsy. It’s another myth, like the “great orator” myth, “the bright Harvard man” myth, and the “Christian convert” myth. Our military and intel community have to work this CiC for months — and then some — to get him to act on our behalf, and sometimes they do not succeed, because he won’t move unless he is exposed (McChrystal) or can score political points (Operation Geronimo).
Report Post »outpost13
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:56pmThe root cause of the helicopter’s crash was Not made in America it was assembled in America.
Report Post »rightwinglefty
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:55pmThe Chinese can also see where their money is going.
Report Post »rightwinglefty
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:54pmI am sure The Paki’s will sell every scrap they can find to the Chinese. We should have “accidentally” bombed their academy as well. We need to harvest the heroin poppies from Afghanistan and flood Iran and Pakistan with drugs. We can learn from Mexico.
Report Post »Stu Pedaso
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:50pmOK If these birds are operational whats on the drawing board? Yo all know that we never leave anything alone, We hot rod everything. Good is not good enough. Even if the Chinese get a hold of this copy you think we have not figured out how to defeat it?
Report Post »avi8tor
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:46pmJust hope we get the tail section and all those large parts and pieces back…
Report Post »Ron_WA
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 6:06pmThat may be the reason that at the official govt. level we haven’t been more critical of Pakistan (playing nice to get our toys back)
Report Post »Tlc3Terry
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 8:22pmThey are already saying that their not giving it back guys! This is an outrage! China is already trying to bribe them into selling it to them! If this President doesnt get that back there should be hell to pay! If he doesnt tell them to had it over right now we should demand they give it back or else! If you get my drift! … Lol
God Bless Our Troops and thanks god none of them got hurt! But this whole story is starting to sound real fishy!
Report Post »Omikronian
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:41pmPakistan really wants to get on our nerves.
Report Post »TRONINTHEMORNING
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:40pmI’m soooo glad our guys were not hurt.
Report Post »Untameable-kate
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:06pmAmen.
Report Post »Finch88
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:40pmI for one would like more information about this situation.
http://politicalbowl.com – Political Videos
Report Post »Vickie Dhaene
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:39pmI would have thought that the demolition team would have destroyed it a little better.
Report Post »Untameable-kate
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:59pmMaybe there wasn’t really anything all that special about it. I can’t believe that the SEALs would have left anything behind that our enimies could gain from. Most of the stories are just conjecture and theories on the internet anyways.
Report Post »TSUNAMI-22
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:32pmPossibly looks to me like the tail rotor assembly got severed on the 20 foot wall during the hard landing. The main body got destroyed but mission priority did not allow the tail feathers to be destroyed.
I find it difficult to believe that a “mechanical failure” brought that bird down….especially with only one reported armed guard firing at the SEAL team.
It’s quite possible that the tail was deliberately left behind to lead counter technology from another countries stealth research and development program to be deliberately lead in the wrong direction. Otherwise the US govt would have had the Pakistani military immediately seize it all despite the strained relationship with them.
This whole thing is starting to generate more questions than answers (in my opinion).
Report Post »RCScrolls
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 3:49pmlovenfl3
Report Post »Sorry buddy but all the Major componants of that chopper are in the section they left.
Everything computor sonar radar all electrical componants were left.
Only bad part of the demo Recon
Smitty1969
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 9:26pmHoly Crap Guys and Gals, unless those are Umpa Lumpas that IS NOT a H-60 (BlackHawk) tail rotor ! Something new.
Report Post »Robert-CA
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:37pmI’m happy that no one got hurt in this crash .
Report Post »GOD Bless our troops .
Revere1
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:43pmI‘m surprised Obama didn’t take credit for that too. http://www.elephantwatcher.com/2011/05/after-bin-laden-should-republicans-be.html
Report Post »J.C. McGlynn
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 12:55pmNeed a covert to destroy what is left of it. Should have had Preditors in the air, just in case.
Report Post »lovenfl3
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:00pmI agree Robert, at least no Americans were hurt in the crash. I’m confident that our military disposed of the critical components. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGMl5TBfepc Just imagine how the media would be freaking out over this if Bush were president.
Report Post »bluegoldnationdotcom
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:04pmIf Slick Willy had been in office he would have sent China the blueprints for a political kick back or twelve.
Report Post »kryptonite
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:26pm@bluegoldnationdotcom
Report Post »Someone worse, far worse than Slick Willy is here.
lcam67
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:37pmpakistan = eurodisney, or make it a parking lot
Report Post »Robert-CA
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 1:51pmThey look like farmers more than military people .
Report Post »davecoolworld
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:03pmThey are trying to retro-fit technology from the Comanche Platform that was cancelled.
Lt. Col. Allen West for President of The United States of America in 2012….spread the word…without a man like him, we are doomed to a 2nd American Revolution
Report Post »Obama Snake Oil Co
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 2:04pmActually, the illustration is not exactly what the helio looks like. There is some of it on Utube….it was a concept picture only….that means, classified. I also hear the chinese would love to have the materials we used to make it stealth. It is very quite too……
Report Post »Select Palin for GOP 2012 to Reelect Obama!
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 4:41pmThis ‘stealth’ helo was designed and built on GWB’s watch.
No wonder it crashed, just like the economy on his watch.
Report Post »Clara88
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 4:57pmhttp://theodoresworld.net/
The Obama Administration’s cloud of confusion explained
Bookworm Room
what do we have here:
1) There was a firefight.
2) There was no firefight.
3) Bin Laden was “resisting.”
4) Bin Laden wasn’t armed. (Makes the concept of “resisting” interesting.)
[4.a) And the newest one: the SEALS thought bin Laden was reaching for a weapon.]
5) He used his wife as a shield.
6) His wife was killed too.
7) He didn’t use his wife as a shield. She ran at a SEAL who shot her in the leg, but she’s fine.
8 ) Some other woman — the maid? — was used as a shield. By somebody. Downstairs.
9) That other woman — downstairs — was killed.
10) Maybe not. She was killed unless she wasn’t — and who was she, anyway?
11) Bin Laden’s son was killed.
12) Unless it was some other guy.
13) Bin Laden’s daughter saw him get killed. She’s undoubtedly traumatized, poor dear.
14) They were going to capture Bin Laden until the problem with the helicopter, which was:
A) It had mechanical trouble
B) It did a hard landing
C) It crashed
D) It clipped a wall with a tail rotor, effectively a crash
15.) They were never going to try to capture him; it was always a kill mission.
Report Post »16.) No, it wasn’t.
17) The chopper blew up.
18) The SEALs blew it up.
19.) Panetta said yesterday the world needed proof and the photo would be released.
20.) Obama said today in an interview he taped with Steve Kroft for “
chexfive
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 10:40pmIs this what was supposed to be burning when they showed that fire in the compound? That big fire and it appears this has no char at all on it. I’m sorry, they throw everything out there and then retract it and then change and change and change the story, and they expect people to believe this, no matter how many times it changes? Especially with no proof of anything?
Be good little sheep and except what we tell you, we say we did this and did that, then we did it, you have no right to question or expect proof.
Did you hear the war hog Oliver North on Hannity saying we should have not told anybody we did this if we in fact did? In other words, just shut up, do what you are told, just send your taxes to the government, you have no right to know what your country is doing on your behalf. Just sit down and shut up you peons! Yeah, just like when they made cocaine deals and then supplied the dealers with the drugs, and at the same time started a war on drugs, the very drugs Oliver North was bringing in and help distribute all around America, which was then reformed as crack and dished out across our country to our kids and loved ones. See, that’s how it is, and how anyone trust a LIAR and a proven hack government that does these things, and now Obummer is even worse, but I know all these guys will say the military is different, no, the same corrupt gov runs the military too, don’t ya get it? The reason why Penneta and Patreius traded places is because Penneta is a better
Report Post »chexfive
Posted on May 5, 2011 at 10:44pmPenneta is a better LIAR.
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