This list of aviation shootdowns and accidents during the Iraq War includes incidents with Coalition and civilian aircraft during the Iraq War.
129 helicopters and 24 fixed-wing aircraft have been reported by media to be lost in Iraq since the 2003 invasion till February 2009. 46 of these incidents have been attributed to hostile fire such as anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missiles. In March 2007, Brig. Gen. Stephen Mundt said that 130 helicopters had been lost in both Iraq and Afghanistan, about a third to hostile fire, and he was concerned that they were not being replaced fast enough. Unmanned aircraft of any type are not included in the list.
At least 283 personnel have been killed in helicopter crashes since the invasion, and 19 have died in fixed-wing crashes.
Since the beginning of the invasion helicopters were the target of attacks with "aerial improvised explosive devices", home-made bombs. In early 2007 the US Army announced that the Iraqi resistance has a strategy for attacking US helicopters. This was confirmed by documents captured from Iraqi insurgents. A deputy commanding general in Iraq of the U.S. military said that the average month in 2006 and 2007 saw about 17 attacks against helicopters. Efforts to prevent more deaths included more training for helicopter pilots. They continue to improve tactics and aircraft defenses to reduce losses. In fall 2007, the military deployed the more advanced V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft. According to the military, this aircraft flies much higher and faster than helicopters and has six to seven times more survivability than the CH-46.
Read more about List Of Aviation Shootdowns And Accidents During The Iraq War: Summary Per Type, Summary Per Year
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, accidents and/or war:
“Religious literature has eminent examples, and if we run over our private list of poets, critics, philanthropists and philosophers, we shall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we ought to have tapped.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We saw the machinery where murderers are now executed. Seven have been executed. The plan is better than the old one. It is quietly done. Only a few, at the most about thirty or forty, can witness [an execution]. It excites nobody outside of the list permitted to attend. I think the time for capital punishment has passed. I would abolish it. But while it lasts this is the best mode.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“We are the men of intrinsic value, who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves, whose worth is independent of accidents in life, or revolutions in government: we have heads to get money, and hearts to spend it.”
—George Farquhar (1678–1707)
“Our job is now clear. All Americans must be prepared to make, on a 24 hour schedule, every war weapon possible and the war factory line will use men and materials which will bring, the war effort to every man, woman, and child in America. All one hundred thirty million of us will be needed to answer the sunrise stealth of the Sabbath Day Assassins.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)