Mike Durant

You're giving the advantage to the bad guy.

I mean, you know, I got a 57-whatever-foot-long helicopter.

that they can shoot at.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to, you know, my guys are trying to hit a two foot wide target that has cover and we do not.

So all you gotta do is wait for us to fly by, which is what they did, and then come out of the doorway and shoot the RPG at us.

And I mean, we can't shoot.

I told the crew chiefs, I said, I'm arming you up, but I mean, we got friendlies all over the place here.

They've gone from the target to the crash site.

We don't know where they are.

we gotta hold until we figure out where all the friendlies are and then once we're comfortable then we can start engaging targets so they never fired around i mean we we made it maybe around a target three times and i'm doing again i'm flying i'm trying to do everything i can

I am, was it a right-hand turn?

No, I'm in the right seat.

So we're in a left-hand turn and we're in a bank.

So I'm actually looking through the cockpit to the open door on the other side, trying to figure out what the hell's happening as I'm making this orbit, trying to change my altitude, trying to speed up, slow down to make it hard for us to hit because we know they're going to shoot at us.

And, you know, guy steps out with an RPG, never saw him, never saw an RPG coming and

And of course, you know, they hadn't shot enough at helicopters to realize how much they needed to lead us.

That's why Cliff gets hit in the tail, and that's why we get hit in the tail.

And I'm sure they were shooting at the main body of the aircraft, and just because, you know, they don't know enough to lead, it hits the tail, which in the end is worse damage than if they'd have hit, you know, the main part of the fuselage.

Because if you lose a tail rotor on a Blackhawk at slow speed, you are fucked at low altitude.

and that's the condition we were in so it hits i tell people uh it feels like a speed bump going way too fast in a parking lot i mean if you had a speed bump 40 miles an hour that's what it felt like it jolted the fuselage but i never saw it so i don't know where we're hit i roll the aircraft level looking at everything everything looks okay controls are all working fine