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Six Soldiers Killed in Black Hawk Incident

Aired November 07, 2003 - 13:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's learn more about the Black Hawk helicopter, specifically, some of the tactics it can use to defend itself, and in general, get a sense of how vulnerable U.S. troops might be flying in broad daylight in helicopters over occupied Iraq. For that, we turn to one of our expert analysts. Retired General Don Shepperd joining us on the line now.
General Shepperd, good to have you with us.

GEN. DON SHEPPERD, (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good to be here, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Quickly, we just some states up here on the board I want to go through very quickly about the Black Hawk helicopter. Range of about 368 miles, 12 combat troops capacity. It's got a wide range of missions. It really is an army workhorse, isn't it?

SHEPPERD: It is indeed. It's the troop transport that takes people to the scene of the action. It is slow, cruises around 110 knots or so. It operates at low altitudes, both day and night. It's a vulnerable machine, but it's our truck that takes troops to bad areas -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: We still don't know for sure why, in fact, this particular Black Hawk went down. As we said, witnesses reports indicate it might have been an attack.

But let's hearken back to Sunday, that Chinook attack, which it is believed to have been caused by a heat-seeking missile, something that might have been in the Soviet inventory. We have an animation which shows how that might have occurred. And essentially what those heat-seeking missiles do is they go after the hot engine and kind of home in on it. That's a very difficult thing for a helicopter to defend against, isn't it, General Shepperd?

SHEPPERD: It is and it isn't. All our systems -- I want to be careful about explaining techniques, because I don't want to give out information that can help somebody. But all our systems out there, both fixed-wing and helicopters, have chaff and flare dispensers that -- the chaff against radar-guided missiles, the flares against heat- seeking missiles. And then there's other more sophisticated spoofing mechanisms that provide alternate heat sources.

When a heat seeking missile is fired, and it hits an engine, and the engine blows apart, it does other damage to things such as the transmission, the tail rotors, even the main rotors, that can cause havoc on the airplane -- Miles. O'BRIEN: Let's talk briefly about the Chinook helicopter. That is something that goes back to the early '60s. First saw service in 1962. That's more on the Black Hawk there. The Chinook helicopter is a much larger helicopter. The twin-bladed hovering craft with 150 mile an hour capability, carries artillery, personnel, real workhorse. You had an opportunity to fly on a Chinook over Iraq just about a month ago, didn't you?

SHEPPERD: Yes, I did. We ere on a trip to Iraq, we visited all the bad areas, including Tikrit, down where this one went down. Basically, again it carries much larger loads and larger numbers of troops. And tragically, there were around 26 people on board when this one went down. Not a surprise, Miles. These things get shot at on a daily basis over there. This isn't any new phase of operation. They're simply vulnerable when they're doing what they do.

O'BRIEN: General Shepperd, when you were onboard that Chinook, did you notice the crew taking any sort of specific, evasive actions in the way they flew, which would protect against these kinds of attacks?

SHEPPERD: No, there's no -- there's nothing you can do in the way of maneuvers and this type of thing. What you have to be concerned about is not flying the same routes repeatedly, the same time of day so that people can look out. They do have door gunners and ramp gunners, and they will return fire if they fired on. And they normally fly at least in two ships, so that if one airplane's attacked and goes down, the other can land to support it and attack other people firing on them, Miles.

O'BRIEN: And a final thought, one of the big U.S. superiorities is the capability of conducting operations at night. Clearly, in this setting, with this occupation, they can't limit their flights to nighttime flights. How much does that put these troops in jeopardy?

SHEPPERD: Well, night is a big defense against lots of things. You just can't see. If you're trying to track with a heat-seeking missile. You can't see the thing at night, especially when they're blacked out, flying on night-vision goggles. So it prevents the ground gunner from having the advantages he has during the day. But you can't see the daylight (ph) with the bad guys. It's simply not practical.

And again, hundreds of these flights go on every day. We have accidents. We have airplanes shot at. Some of them shot down. We're fortunate we haven't lost more. And it's going to continue as long as we're there, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Retired Major General Don Shepperd of the U.S. Air Force, Thanks for spending some time with us today. We appreciate it.

SHEPPERD: Pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired November 7, 2003 - 13:01   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's learn more about the Black Hawk helicopter, specifically, some of the tactics it can use to defend itself, and in general, get a sense of how vulnerable U.S. troops might be flying in broad daylight in helicopters over occupied Iraq. For that, we turn to one of our expert analysts. Retired General Don Shepperd joining us on the line now.
General Shepperd, good to have you with us.

GEN. DON SHEPPERD, (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good to be here, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Quickly, we just some states up here on the board I want to go through very quickly about the Black Hawk helicopter. Range of about 368 miles, 12 combat troops capacity. It's got a wide range of missions. It really is an army workhorse, isn't it?

SHEPPERD: It is indeed. It's the troop transport that takes people to the scene of the action. It is slow, cruises around 110 knots or so. It operates at low altitudes, both day and night. It's a vulnerable machine, but it's our truck that takes troops to bad areas -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: We still don't know for sure why, in fact, this particular Black Hawk went down. As we said, witnesses reports indicate it might have been an attack.

But let's hearken back to Sunday, that Chinook attack, which it is believed to have been caused by a heat-seeking missile, something that might have been in the Soviet inventory. We have an animation which shows how that might have occurred. And essentially what those heat-seeking missiles do is they go after the hot engine and kind of home in on it. That's a very difficult thing for a helicopter to defend against, isn't it, General Shepperd?

SHEPPERD: It is and it isn't. All our systems -- I want to be careful about explaining techniques, because I don't want to give out information that can help somebody. But all our systems out there, both fixed-wing and helicopters, have chaff and flare dispensers that -- the chaff against radar-guided missiles, the flares against heat- seeking missiles. And then there's other more sophisticated spoofing mechanisms that provide alternate heat sources.

When a heat seeking missile is fired, and it hits an engine, and the engine blows apart, it does other damage to things such as the transmission, the tail rotors, even the main rotors, that can cause havoc on the airplane -- Miles. O'BRIEN: Let's talk briefly about the Chinook helicopter. That is something that goes back to the early '60s. First saw service in 1962. That's more on the Black Hawk there. The Chinook helicopter is a much larger helicopter. The twin-bladed hovering craft with 150 mile an hour capability, carries artillery, personnel, real workhorse. You had an opportunity to fly on a Chinook over Iraq just about a month ago, didn't you?

SHEPPERD: Yes, I did. We ere on a trip to Iraq, we visited all the bad areas, including Tikrit, down where this one went down. Basically, again it carries much larger loads and larger numbers of troops. And tragically, there were around 26 people on board when this one went down. Not a surprise, Miles. These things get shot at on a daily basis over there. This isn't any new phase of operation. They're simply vulnerable when they're doing what they do.

O'BRIEN: General Shepperd, when you were onboard that Chinook, did you notice the crew taking any sort of specific, evasive actions in the way they flew, which would protect against these kinds of attacks?

SHEPPERD: No, there's no -- there's nothing you can do in the way of maneuvers and this type of thing. What you have to be concerned about is not flying the same routes repeatedly, the same time of day so that people can look out. They do have door gunners and ramp gunners, and they will return fire if they fired on. And they normally fly at least in two ships, so that if one airplane's attacked and goes down, the other can land to support it and attack other people firing on them, Miles.

O'BRIEN: And a final thought, one of the big U.S. superiorities is the capability of conducting operations at night. Clearly, in this setting, with this occupation, they can't limit their flights to nighttime flights. How much does that put these troops in jeopardy?

SHEPPERD: Well, night is a big defense against lots of things. You just can't see. If you're trying to track with a heat-seeking missile. You can't see the thing at night, especially when they're blacked out, flying on night-vision goggles. So it prevents the ground gunner from having the advantages he has during the day. But you can't see the daylight (ph) with the bad guys. It's simply not practical.

And again, hundreds of these flights go on every day. We have accidents. We have airplanes shot at. Some of them shot down. We're fortunate we haven't lost more. And it's going to continue as long as we're there, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Retired Major General Don Shepperd of the U.S. Air Force, Thanks for spending some time with us today. We appreciate it.

SHEPPERD: Pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com