15 killed as US 'Chinook'shot down over Iraq
Posted: 11:12 PM (Manila Time) | Nov. 02, 2003
Agence France-Presse
FALLUJAH - Fifteen soldiers were killed and 21 wounded when a US army helicopter was shot down near the flashpoint Iraqi town of Fallujah while en route to Baghdad airport early Sunday, the coalition said.
It was the bloodiest attack on US troops in Iraq since the April 9 fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein at the hands of a US-led military coalition that now faces spiraling attacks.
"As a result of the crash, 15 were killed in action and 21 wounded," said US army Colonel Bill Darley, confirming the dead were soldiers from the US-led coalition but without specifying how many were Americans.
"At approximately 9:00 am (0600 GMT) local time, a US CH-47 of the 12th Aviation Brigade, in support of the 82nd Airborne Division, made a crash landing approximately one mile (less than one kilometer) southwest of Fallujah.
"We are aware of eyewitnesses seeing what they presumed to be missile trails," Darley said, raising speculation the chopper was hit by a surface-to-air missile.
Although listing 36 casualties, a spokesperson in Baghdad said 25 passengers and five crew were aboard the helicopter, which was traveling with another Chinook that carried another 25 people.
The helicopters, attached to the 12th Aviation Brigade operating in support of the 82nd Airborne Division, were ferrying the soldiers to go on leave after several months in war-torn Iraq.
In Washington, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told NBC television that at least 10 of the dead were US soldiers. He also confirmed that the chopper was likely hit by a portable surface-to-air missile.
"We've known about surface-to-air missiles since before we went in," he said. "They are dangerous and they exist in that country in large numbers, as they do in that part of the world. So it's always a risk."
US forces had sealed off the area and helicopters hovered over the site near Fallujah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad and a main battlefield in the low-level war between the coalition and anti-US fighters.
Farmer Mohamad al-Issawi told AFP that "a projectile struck the tail of the helicopter at around 9:00 am. I saw fire coming out of the front of the aircraft which then crashed."
Issawi said the owner of the land where the helicopter crashed "fled the area with his family of some 15 people, immediately after the explosion."
"Human remains were found 500 yards (yards) away," he said.
"I saw two helicopters coming from (the US military airport in) Habbaniyah. Two missiles were fired; one of them missed one of the helicopters and the other hit the tail of the other aircraft," said taxi-driver Rauf Suleiman Abed, 35.