Taliban Claims Responsbility for Brit Chinook Shoot-Down in Helmand

[The Bread Guy]

UK MoD Statement:

A British helicopter crew has escaped without injury after their Chinook was forced to make an emergency landing in Helmand province late last night following an engine fire.  The incident happened after two helicopters dropped off cargo and passengers a few miles north of Sangin.  Shortly after take-off the four-strong crew of one Chinook saw cockpit indications of an engine fire during take-off.  The pilots skilfully continued to manoeuvre the helicopter about 1km away from the danger zone to safely make an emergency landing.  All four crew onboard managed to evacuate the aircraft safely. They were recovered by the second helicopter which took them out of the area.  The helicopter was later deliberately destroyed by a coalition airstrike to deny it to enemy forces .... The exact cause of the incident is still under investigation and enemy action has not yet been ruled out ....

Taliban alleges missile hit Chinook (statements in Arabic and GoogEng translation attached):

Military helicopter shot down, 41 invaders killed in Helmand 20/8/09
Killed and forty-one occupation soldier in the helicopter in Helmand Almsagotp
Continental / Yousuf Ahmadi
According to The mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate of Helmand province that killed and forty-one soldiers in the occupied state of the plane Almsagotp Helmand.  The helicopter dropped the giant of the foreign occupying forces yesterday evening (2009-08-20) targeted by the mujahideen after the missile when it was down the soldiers to storm the House of the occupiers of two civilians in the village of Siah Kjki the mandate of the Directorate of Helmand.  And, by the people of the region: a giant helicopter fell to the enemy in the region to bring the soldiers down the occupiers, where the mujahideen immediately targeted by missiles, and burned the ashes are still completely in the village.  Adds the report, after the helicopter had targeted the enemy jet fighters bombed the scorched wreckage of their helicopter in the area and was completely destroyed.  After the attack of the enemy forces fled the area and the struggling sheep Pekka three machine guns of heavy caliber rifles and a number of the remainder of the American enemy.

 

[FishOuttaWater]

Quite the difference in reports/casualties...!

Unfortunately, sometimes they are somewhat accurate... 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Glad no one was hurt, but the loss of a Chinook will hurt, to bad they could not have saved it. You can be sure the wreckage will be photographed and the Taliban claiming a victory.

 

[The Bread Guy]

If you believe the earlier version of the Telegraph, "Military sources confirmed that the helicopter came under attack from machine gun and rocket propelled grenade fire as it took off after a supply drop near Sangin in northern Helmand."

If you believe the later version of the same story, "It is possible that the Taliban might have managed to use heavy anti-aircraft artillery such as a Soviet era ZPU-1 mounted on a truck."

Some ZPU-1's were destroyed in Helmand in late April
http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/85630.0.html