Evacuation of Private Chris Gray Afghanistan - Chinook

[Music] every minute is now crucial pre-flight checks on a chuk normally take half an hour but today it's different okay VC for fting talk 100% if going to stop fuel's coming off quick set of scams done sweet okay right then if you just follow me please somebody B on the AP four flight and slav in warning away t t and I have everything is looking good they're ready for rails if noty is yeah Charlie 7 your side well we're doing it left now alling 100% within 11 minutes they're in the air and heading straight for an ongoing firefight Ser uh the am fire V cool we cool fire vter chance are theck still Ono so we'll just be in and out as soon as we can and on board there's an emergency medical team as well as a force protection unit to secure the area when they arrive and alongside is their escort the Apache attack helicopter I've said we'll try and make 120 at low level and actually should sit them quite nicely at 1 10 cuz we'll be weaving they won yeah no worries yeah stay okay got a few T coming down left hand side and we got a couple of villagers on the nose so I'm going to go in between the two of them into the valley okay I'm going to be going in between a couple of compounds for about 700 me time uh we may stretch Pates if need be bring the speed back now and then we can accelerate out there accelerate back in low level later on okay without much wind there n if you're happy I'll just go straight in rather fing around doing any turns yeah I thinkinking on the way there's no wind at all all straight in and then we can come out over the shoulder if need to be depends how close we are there going to be troops fir on the ground and B going from the hill but be clear yeah I've just passed that up guys that will be getting off okay P with a few plumes of smoke in at 12:00 that must be from the M rounds 2 and half minutes despite clearly visible smoke from the nearby firefight the crew decides to press ahead with their mission still he's still T1 one more going to start increasing speed cool that's one now yeah got women moving expecting smoke just beond ground speed 50 good height 45 40 good height 20 15 4 3 okay Brees on clear right 2:00 we get for arm with armed Taliban fighters little over a mile away the chuk presents an easy target when it lifts off it'll be in real danger of being hit by a mortar or rocket attack cool P if you do it as low as you can while watching a r out through and I'll call R out doesn't matter if in the dust cloud I'll call R out yeah we'll do mate and we don't want to go up high cuz we'll get Zapped that's more for right again that's small arm still 19-year-old private Christopher gray has been shot in the chest oh there smoke again so still go I'm still happy you want yeah coming to the airra now right everybody happy left yeah go right left you're clear above thank you my 40 50 60 good ref yeah I've got good references 20 there still good the chuk is soon flying straight to a British Field hospital and the Medics can begin their attempt to save the young Soldier how's the guy doing down the bank he still holding in yeah C the moment okay okay there a chance you may be okay we maybe we we got a bit an aircraft for at the moment we can either go smooth and slow or fast okay cool faster the better actually cool we're just going to run back as fast we can now way back happy 600 half high with the Soldier's Health deteriorating the crew pushes the CH to its maximum speed but this means they will outrun their Apache escort and have to fly back to base completely unguarded I think if we can s a bit more out it might be helpful speed yeah we got 145 we can pull a little bit yeah I'll do what I can mate the a bit on the buck yeah yeah uh we got about 180 going to be there uh the 170 sorry as good as we're going get I think just they're doing CPR on the lad it's got b as well okay okay we're coming at 90° to 90° to the spot unlike last night and we'll turn the tail dust allowing towards the ambulance okay bring the height up a little bit spot side yeah I don't know where it's got be on the nowhere yeah you got it slightly left on no about eight people on the ground 1:00 standing by Lo sit there in the circle if you go into the 3:00 T be closest yeah we do forward 40 and right descending 30 20 better ahead 15 10 8 6 5 4 3 2 1 cow down three 2 1 okay Park break on clear R clear pass down I've got the secret stuff there's gles in that this is the odd bit we're obviously detached from everything sat in the front and certainly when we're going to Dusty places we got the curtain across here so you can't see what's going on in the mirrors and it's no no we don't we just and then after an hour or two of flying you come back and actually see all the stuff in the back of the cab which obviously opens your eyes to what's actually going on rather than just hearing it on the intercom I don't know it's difficult to explain I feel if that's them I'll take minutes after landing Dan and Phil learned that private gray was declared dead on arrival at hospital [Music]

Channel: Julian Hensey

Views: 1,378,150

Keywords: Salmin, Afghanistan, Private, Chris, Gray, Chinook

Id: ACA8wJ6dRWM

Length: 8min 0sec (480 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 03 2007