Rehearsals were conducted on a mockup of the compound at the CIA’s Harvey Point facility in North Carolina, and also in Nevada, the second location probably chosen because 160th Special Operations Aviation could simulate their border infiltration of Pakistan over the Nevada desert without attracting much attention to their stealth helicopters, the existence of which had been kept under wraps at that time.
In the early morning hours of May 1st, 2011 Operation Neptune Spear was initiated. Various accounts of the raid itself have surfaced in recent years, some more accurate than others, none of them close to telling the full account. Contrary to official denials, helmet cam video of the raid does exist. The mission was a complete success aside from the downing of one of 160th stealth helicopters. Exactly what brought the helicopter down is a cause for speculation.
After consulting with experts in the field of rotary wing aircraft, it seems that the most likely cause of the crash was due to a phenomena known to pilots as “settling with power” with atmospheric conditions potentially playing a role as well. Helicopter pilots will almost always attempt to land while facing into the wind; however, the pre-determined approach into the objective in this case may have actually given them a down-wind landing. If the rotor wash pushed from the rotors down to the ground, then comes back up and pushes into the descent path of the helicopter, it can then make the aircraft unstable. This is how settling with power can destabilize a helicopter. The rotors essentially created a vortex of dead air space that could no longer generate lift.
The rotor blade system needs clean, that is, uniform air to produce lift. If instead it gets non-uniform air, such as air previously disturbed by the helicopter’s own rotor wash, than the pilot could be in for some trouble.
At this point, the pilot would have begun to lose control of the aircraft from self-induced turbulence. Without lift and maneuverability, he would have to conduct a controlled crash as a last resort. As we see in the pictures of the wreckage left after the mission, the tail rotor section split over an outer wall of the compound. Did this obstacle also disrupt the air flow from the main rotor system and destabilize the aircraft? Maybe.
Why didn’t this problem surface during the training rehearsals at Harvey Point? It may have been because the walls around the Bin Laden compound were made out of concrete, while the walls at the rehearsal mockup were simply chain link fences, which did not impede the flow of air the same way. Be that as it may, SEAL Team Six was able to destroy the wrecked stealth helicopter, cross load onto another helicopter, and successfully withdraw off the objective.
A cover story for the entire mission had been developed well ahead of time, a cover story greatly needed by the United States in order to prevent the destabilization of the Pakistani government. The original cover story went up in smoke with 160th’s stealth helicopter. If not for the wreckage of the American helicopter on the compound, the world would have been told of Bin Laden’s death several days later, and the location of the killing would have been reported as being in the mountains of Afghanistan. The entire operation in Abbotabad would simply have been denied.
With the cover story blown, an alternate was floated out to the media via a series of controlled leaks to outlets like The New Yorker magazine, which was given the leaked cover story so early that they had to sit on it for weeks in order to make it look like their journalists were doing actual, you know, journalism. That cover story was chiseled into the American psyche with Katherine Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, a movie that had nothing to do with reality but greatly molded public perceptions about the operation.
In reality, Bin Laden was not tracked to the Abbotabad compound by following his courier network. That story was ludicrous when it was first leaked and got even sillier in Bigelow’s movie. Also, the use of stealth aircraft and reports of UAVs conducting electronic jamming operations to obscure the radar signature of the helicopters was also a myth.
The truth is that the highest levels of the Pakistani government knew that the Red Squadron assaulters were coming. At least two Pakistani Generals were informed, and this is how Operation Neptune Spear was able to take place so deep into Pakistan without the Pakistani military scrambling fighter jets or troops to the scene.
The Generals kept those planes on the ground and allowed the mission to take place. The reason for the elaborate cover story was because if the Islamist elements in Pakistan became aware of their leaders collaborating in the killing of Bin Laden, then it could have destabilized the Pakistani government. Unchecked, it could have resulted in a coup. Remember that Pakistan is a nuclear power…
Perhaps this brings us full circle back to how Bin Laden’s location was identified in the first place. Was Bin Laden located by the outstanding intelligence efforts of JSOC, the CIA, or some commercial intelligence organization, or was Bin Laden simply cashed in by the Pakistani government who always knew where he was and turned him out when they thought they could get the most collateral in return from the US government?
That is the ultimate question and for now it remains unanswered.
Sources
Kill Bin Laden by Dalton Fury
NY Times
SOFREP
(Featured Image Courtesy: NPR.org)
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