Operation Red Wings - Operation Red Wings II - Quick Reaction Force, Search, Rescue, Recovery, and Presence Operations

Quick Reaction Force, Search, Rescue, Recovery, and Presence Operations

With the communication that the SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team was ambushed, the focus of the operation immediately shifted from disrupting ACM activity to finding, aiding, and extracting the SEALs of the reconnaissance and surveillance team. The operation was now known as Operation Red Wings II.

After the broken transmission from the SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team, the position and situation of the SEALs became unknown. Members of SEAL Team 10, U.S. Marines, and Aviators of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment were prepared to dispatch a quick reaction force, but command for launch from higher special operations headquarters was delayed for a number of hours. A quick reaction force finally launched, consisting of two MH-47 Special Operations Aircraft of the 160th, two UH-60 conventional Army aviation Black Hawk helicopters, and two AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. The two MH-47s took the lead. Upon reaching Sawtalo Sar, the two MH-47s received small arms fire. During an attempt to insert SEALs who were riding in one of the MH-47 helicopters, one of Ahmad Shah's men fired an RPG-7 rocket propelled grenade, which struck the transmission below the rear rotor assembly, causing the aircraft to immediately plummet to the ground, killing all 8 160th Army Special Operations Aviators and crew, and all 8 Navy SEALs who were passengers. Both commanders of the 160th, Ground commander LCDR Erik S. Kristensen, of SEAL Team 10, and aviation element commander Major Stephen C. Reich, were killed in the shootdown. Command and control (C2) at this point was lost, and neither visual nor radio contact could be established with the SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team. At this point, which was late in the afternoon, storm clouds were moving in over the region. The aircraft returned to their respective bases, and a massive search began, at first from the ground, and then with aviation assets. The 16 bodies of those killed in the MH-47 shootdown were recovered. After an intensive search, the bodies of Dietz, Murphy, and Axelson were eventually recovered, and Marcus Luttrell was rescued, his survival due in part to the aid of a local Afghan villager in the village of Salar Ban, roughly 0.7 miles down the Northeast Gulch of Sawtalo Sar from the location of the ambush.

A large amount of resources were devoted to the search, rescue, and recovery operations of Red Wings II. As such, Ahmad Shah and his men left the region and regrouped in Pakistan. During the following weeks of Red Wings II, ground units of 2/3 undertook a number of patrols, as did members of the Afghan National Army, Army Special Operations units, and Navy Special Operations units. These "presence operations" achieved the goal of disrupting anti-coalition militia activity, but at great cost, and upon the exfiltration of troops, Ahmad Shah and his reinforced cell was able to return to the area weeks later.