Crash that killed Canadian caused by missile, Wikileak document says

One of the thousands of classified Afghanistan war documents controversially released Sunday by the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks shows that a Canadian military photographer who died in a 2007 helicopter crash that also killed six other NATO troops was the victim of a heat-seeking missile fired by Taliban forces, shedding new light on a previously downplayed threat in the Afghan war zone.

The destruction of the American CH-47 Chinook transport chopper on May 30, 2007, killed 30-year-old Master Cpl. Darrell Jason Priede an Ontario-born, New Brunswick-based photographer who took pictures for the Canadian military publications Combat Camera and Army News along with one British and five U.S. soldiers.

But, according to a U.S. military report made public by WikiLeaks and highlighted Sunday by the New York Times, one of three news agencies given weeks of advance access to the massive database of classified documents, witnesses quickly identified the weapon used in the helicopter strike near Kandahar as a heat-seeking, surface-to-air missile rather than a rocket-propelled grenade as widely reported.

The U.S. government has condemned WikiLeaks release of the classified documents, saying the disclosures could risk the lives of American and other NATO soldiers still fighting in Afghanistan ahead of planned withdrawals beginning next year.

The prospect that Taliban fighters have access to a significant number of heat-seeking missiles some possibly supplied by the U.S. itself to help thwart the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan has been an issue of considerable concern since the latest Afghan war began in late 2001 following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

While the use of portable, heat-seeking missiles by the Taliban has apparently been limited throughout the war, the newly revealed cause of the 2007 helicopter crash indicates enemy fighters have, in fact, had access to the technology and used it to combat NATO forces.

The Taliban have used portable heat-seeking missiles against allied aircraft, a fact that has not been publicly disclosed by the military, the Times reported on Sunday. This type of weapon helped the Afghan mujahedeen defeat the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

The WikiLeaks document that details the apparent missile attack, an internal U.S. military report issued on the day the helicopter went down just after crossing the Helmand River, states that the missile struck the aircraft in the left engine. The impact of the missile projected the aft end of the aircraft up as it burst into flames followed immediately by a nose dive into the crash site with no survivors.

The report went on to state: Based on description of launch, size of round, and impact force of the projectile, it is assessed to be bigger (than) an RPG and possibly a surface-to-air missile.

As early as November 2001, Jane’s Defence Weekly highlighted the weak defences against heat-seeking missiles among the fleet of Sea King helicopters dispatched by the Canadian military to Afghanistan in the early days of the war on terrorism.

The international military journal stated at the time that Canada’s Sea Kings were equipped with an infrared jammer meant to disrupt the guidance system used by heat-seeking missiles but lacked two types of technology that had been employed on Canadian helicopters in the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s.

The Sea Kings, according to Janes, did not have a system meant to warn their crew when they were being targeted by enemy radar, nor did they have a defensive device to dispense decoy chaff to confuse an approaching missile during an enemy attack.

In November 2002, an Israeli passenger plane carrying 261 people narrowly missed being shot down by a heat-seeking missile after it took off from the airport in Mombasa, Kenya.

Then-Israeli foreign minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now the country’s prime minister, said at the time that the use of heat-seeking missiles in the failed attack constituted a very serious escalation of terrorism."

In 2004, amid growing world-wide concerns that al-QaIda and other terrorist groups could have access to heat-seeking missiles to attack commercial airliners, two American lawmakers introduced a bill calling for missile-defence systems to be installed in all civilian passenger aircraft in the U.S.

In June 2007, just a week after the downing of the U.S. Chinook helicopter in Helmand province, the Canadian government announced that its plan to acquire 16 Chinook helicopters would be delayed until late 2011 because of the need to incorporate extra defensive technology in the design, including additional devices to guard against attacks by heat-seeking missiles.

Then, in July 2007, less than two months after the May 2007 crash that killed Priede, the Daily Telegraph reported that Taliban fighters had for the first time used a portable, heat-seeking surface-to-air missile in Afghanistan to attack a coalition aircraft.

The attempted strike that month on an American C-130 Hercules aircraft, said to have taken place in southwestern Nimroz province, was described as having forced the heavy transport planes crew to take evasive measures and fire flares to confuse the missiles heat sensors.

NATO officials would not confirm the Telegraph report at that time.

Priede, whose expert photographs of Canadian soldiers stationed in Afghanistan were widely distributed by before his death, was based at New Brunswick’s CFB Gagetown and had volunteered for the overseas assignment.

Born in Burlington, Ont., and raised in Grand Forks, B.C., Priede had viewed his role in Afghanistan as a relatively safe assignment compared with the risks faced by combat troops.

"Our son was exemplary, his mother Roxanne, of Grand Forks, said in the days following his death. He didn’t have one black mark in the military . . . He enjoyed what he did because he always wanted to capture as much good as possible.

CFB Gagetown commander Col. Ryan Jestin said at the time that Priede told me about two weeks ago that he thought he was in one of the safest jobs in Afghanistan."

From WikiLeaks, verbatim transcript of U.S. military incident report filed May 30, 2007:

At 302104LMAY07, on egress of TF Fury insertion of Lift 1 , Flipper 75 (CH-47D) was engaged and struck with a Missile at 41S PR 919 727 shortly after crossing over the Helmand River. Suspected POO site is 41S PR 92801 71833. A/C was travelling at approx. 70-80 Knots, 200-250ft AGL on an easterly heading when it was hit from the rear. The missile struck the aircraft in the left engine. The impact of the missile projected the aft end of the aircraft up as it burst into flames followed immediately by a nose dive into the crash site with no survivors.

A/C was Lift 1, Serial 1, Chalk 2, but due a delay on HLZ to offload a gator, Flipper 75 along with Chalk 3 took off significantly after Chalk 1 and in effect became a second serial on the same route. Chalk 3 witnessed a burst come from their SE approx. 300-500m away. Chalk 3 did not witness a flare launch from Flipper 75 which is consistent with later missile launch at Arrow 25 (AH-64D) in same location that did not bring about CMWS flare launch. Based on description of launch, size of round, and impact force of the projectile, it is assessed to be bigger then an RPG and possibly a Surface-to-Air Missile. Witness statements from Chalk 3 suggest Flipper was struck by MANPAD and is consistent with MANPAD event described by Arrow 25. ODA responded to crash site and eventually secured the site and recovered crew and passengers.