The two pilots in the widely publicized incident a couple of days ago are both New Yorkers, and their unit is based in Fort Drum, NY.
Pilots Shot Down in Iraq Tell of Dramatic Escape – washingtonpost.com
As it lost altitude, the Kiowa started to shake violently, its main rotor damaged. Burrows said he decided to head into the field but the aircraft began to spin uncontrollably, and at about 20 feet above the ground he had to cut the power. The helicopter hit the ground tail first, bounced over an irrigation canal, crashed nose down and slid into a ditch beside a dirt road.
Cianfrini climbed out one door and Burrows got out the other. They met at the nose and discovered that they had suffered only scratches, they said. The Kiowa was by then on fire, its engine blowing up inside. Insurgents were shooting from across the field, and the pilots could hear rounds hitting the burning helicopter.
"Where’s your weapon?" Burrows yelled to Cianfrini.
"I have no idea," came the reply.
Cianfrini’s M4 rifle had apparently been thrown from the aircraft, but he still had his M9 pistol, he said. Burrows had both his weapons.
"We determined our only option was to go into the canal," said Burrows, who is from Waverly, N.Y.
Cianfrini, who lives in Oakfield, N.Y., initially stayed behind with the survival radio at the aircraft, while Burrows rushed about 30 feet across the road and into the canal. Cianfrini followed.
Burrows waded into knee-deep water, stepped off a steep underwater embankment and started sinking into the mud. Weighed down by his armor, he thought he would drown. As the water reached his neck, he hit firm ground. Cianfrini was in up to his chin.
The pilots had planned to cross the canal to reach a field on the other side, but the mud made it hard for them to move. Moments later, they realized that being stuck probably kept them alive: Insurgents were waiting on the opposite side.
About 15 or 20 insurgents with AK-47 assault rifles and other weapons then converged on both sides of the canal and started firing.
"We couldn’t move," Cianfrini said. "I was thinking, ‘This is it.’ " Bullets were hitting the water, chopping off the reeds and zinging over the pilots’ heads. The canal was only about 20 yards wide, he estimated. The insurgents were so close that Burrows could see one quite clearly. He wore a brown T-shirt and shouldered an AK-47.
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One Apache was over the nearby field, and Burrows managed to crawl out of the mud and scramble up the embankment, grasping at reeds. He waved the Apache down to the road and used his M4 to help pull Cianfrini out of the mud.
"I saw them hunkered down" near the road, said Apache pilot Chief Warrant Officer 3 Allan Davison, 28, of the 1-227 Attack Reconnaissance Battalion. Davison, of Tumwater, Wash., added: "I repositioned, and they ran over to the helicopter. They were all dirty and soaked to the bone."
Apache gunner Chief Warrant Officer 2 Micah Johnson, 25, of Del Rio, Tex., said at first it was hard to identify the pilots because their tan flight suits "looked dark brown, almost green." But seeing their M-9 pistols and radios, he motioned them to the aircraft.
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