On 6 August 2011, a U.S. CH-47D Chinook military helicopter operating with the call sign Extortion 17 (pronounced "one-seven") was shot down while transporting a Quick Reaction Force attempting to reinforce a Joint Special Operations Command unit of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the Tangi Valley in Maidan Wardak province, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan.

For example, on 8 June 2011 another Chinook helicopter was engaged from five to six locations (i.e., points of origin) with 14 rocket-propelled grenades, forcing the crew to abort their mission.

[11] At 22:37 (local time) on the night of 5 August, a platoon of 47 U.S. Army Rangers left a forward operating base in Logar Province via two CH-47D transport helicopters, one of which would later be involved in the accident.

[9][10][11] After a 20-minute flight (around 23:00), the two Chinook helicopters landed near the compound ostensibly containing Tahir, offloaded the Ranger platoon and returned to base.

[11] The mission was deemed high risk; two AH-64 Apache helicopters, an AC-130 gunship, and other additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft supported the troop transports on their approach and remained with the ground forces afterwards.

In order to speed disembarkation, all troops were loaded on a single CH-47D helicopter for transport; the other Chinook would approach the landing zone second as a decoy.

At 02:15, one group of three Taliban fighters took a position in a stand of trees; the remaining six or seven men entered a building located some 2 km (1.2 mi) from the target compound.

[11] Casualties from the event included:[14] The 30 American deaths represent the greatest loss of U.S. military lives in a single incident in the war in Afghanistan that began in 2001.

[citation needed] Doubts about this story were raised by families and other concerned citizens despite the fact that the Navy SEAL team aboard Extortion 17 was a different squadron than that which had killed Osama bin Laden three months earlier.

"[29] On 12 August 2011, Jim Lehrer of the PBS NewsHour announced that he would report the Honor Roll at the end of the program with names and photographs of all 30 men.

Yesterday, the Pentagon released the names of the 30 troops-- Navy SEALs, soldiers, and airmen, killed in the helicopter downed by Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan last weekend.

Monitored and controlled by a Joint Terminal Attack Controller at Forward Operating Base Shank via a General Atomics MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, all six were positively confirmed killed by the bomb strike and subsequent attacks by a Lockheed AC-130 gunship and two Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships.

[38] During the same Pentagon news conference in which he announced that the F-16 airstrike had incapacitated "less than 10" of the insurgents involved, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander in Afghanistan John R. Allen said that the military investigation would also review whether small-arms fire or other causes might have contributed to the downing.

[38] Following the withdrawal of U.S. forces in April 2011, Tangi valley became a major staging area for attacks on Kabul (located just 60 miles away).

[39] In October 2011, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that an investigation following the shootdown concluded "that all operational decisions, linked to the incident, were deemed tactically sound."

[11] In 2013, Congressman Jason Chaffetz said that he would hold an investigation of the United States House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security into the matter.

[40] At the subsequent hearing in February 2014, Pentagon representative Garry Reid defended the decision to undertake the mission and denied that the Taliban had any advance knowledge of it.

[41] In 2017, Air Force captain Joni Marquez, the fire control officer on an AC-130 gunship that had accompanied Extortion 17 on the final flight, made a similar claim.

[44] McChrystal cited a previous "overreliance on firepower and force protection" and the need to reduce civilian casualties and win the cooperation of the local population.