A US Army Little Bird fires rockets at targets during an exercise in California.
The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment is a unit of the US Army.
In 2004, the "Night Stalkers" were transporting special-ops forces to Iraq.
The Night Stalkers were put in harm's way by those missions outside Baghdad.
The US troops in Iraq knew that the success of their invasion and defeat of Saddam Hussein's forces would be short-lived.
Iraq was made a "tick bomb" by the disbanding of the Iraqi Army, Iran's regional ambitions, and the influx of foreign fighters. The civil war broke out quickly and the US and Coalition troops were in the middle.
The US's elite Joint Special Operations Command led a brutal counterterrorism campaign. Army Delta Force, Rangers, and other special-operations units would hit targets every night in an attempt to dismantle the terrorist networks.
They relied on an elite aviation unit for most of their operations.
The night stalkers.
The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment is training with the US Army Rangers.
The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also known as the "Night Stalkers," is the world's premier special-operations unit.
After the failed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran, the US special-operations forces reformed. They have been involved in almost every US military operation since then.
During the "Black Hawk Down" battle in Mogadishu in 1993, the unit introduced itself to the general public with a motto of "night stalkers don't quit" and commitment to deliver their cargo anywhere in the world within a 30-second window.
There are three main types of helicopters that the 160th flies.
The Little Bird gunship conducts attack missions while the MH6 does transport and assault operations. The gunship version of the Black Hawks conducts attack missions. The helicopter conducts transport and assault operations.
Little Bird is down!
Greg Coker's helicopter went down after being hit. The photo was taken by the US Army Rangers.
In March 2004, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Greg Coker and another Night Stalker were flying an AH6 to support special-operations troops in a suburb of Baghdad.
"We were conducting a daytime mission, the first one since the Battle of the Black Sea in Somalia, I believe," Coker told Insider.
Night stalkers prefer to operate in the dark, so a daylight mission was very unusual. The Little Bird was brought down by a shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile as they were flying at a low level.
In eight seconds, Coker and his copilot performed an auto rotation maneuver, which allowed them to crash land the helicopter.
After impact, the end rolled over and came to a halt. There was fuel leaking and bullets going off, creating a recipe for disaster.
Lived to tell the story.
Greg Coker's helicopter was torched after it crashed.
Few pilots who crash in combat survive. The worst moment for Coker, who spent 30 years in uniform and 11 combat tours, was when he got hit.
It was a moment of defeat. It was scary as hell. Coker told Insider that it was sheer terror.
A superior gun pilot uses his superior knowledge to keep him out of situations where he will have to use his superior skill, according to an old gun helicopter pilot. Coker, author of Death Waits in the Dark, said that training takes over and you go to work, focusing on the things that you can control.
The US forces in Iraq were aware of the danger posed by shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and the MANPADS.
The US launched a covert-action program in Afghanistan in the late 1980s to shoot down Soviet aircraft, and that concern was present around many military operations.
The area known as the Devil's Triangle was the location of several helicopter shot down with a MANPAD. No one in the other crashed helicopter survived, Coker said.
Greg Coker is sitting on the side bench.
When an aircraft goes down, the standard operating procedure is to try to save the pilots. Air Force Pararescuemen and other Air Commandos would usually respond to a crash in a quick-reaction force composed of units in the region and a combat-search-and-rescue element in the theater.
The Pentagon will approve operations that don't have a contingency plan for downed aircraft, but they will not approve operations that don't have a plan. Before a combat-search-and-rescue team was set up in Pakistan, the Department of Defense wouldn't authorize any operations with special-operations forces.
Coker's experience is unique because he and his copilot were back in the fight after being shot down, and they were 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609- 888-609-.
The B Squadron of Delta Force arrived on the scene quickly, and the Night Stalkers joined them in a raid on the house from where the missile had been launched.
One of the war's unique moments was when Coker killed the man who shot him.
I was angry after I was shot down. I wanted to get back at them after I lost an AH 6. I wanted to kill them. Coker said that's it. I wanted to see if we could prove the type of system that shot us down. It felt good.
A Hellenic Army veteran, a defense journalist, and a graduate of the University of Baltimore are some of the things that Stavros Atlamazoglou is.
Business Insider has an original article.
