Corkscrew landings in Afghanistan
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Interviewing a former US Navy helicopter pilot who had flown missions in Iraq, John Kiriakou interrupted her account of evasive flying to describe the passenger's end of the same manoeuvre.

Getting around the country

Each time he went to Afghanistan after 9/11, he said, he would usually fly into Kabul, and sometimes directly into Bagram. To get anywhere else in the country, though, "you have to take a helicopter for the most part."

The descent

Landing is where the risk concentrates. On approach, he said, "you have to be prepared to evade rocket attacks", and the pilots did so by flying "this corkscrew, a very tight corkscrew like circle."

The detail he dwells on is the doors. The side doors of the helicopter are open, so a passenger is looking straight out while the aircraft spins down. "People around me were throwing up," he said, "and it didn't bother my stomach for some reason. And I just thought it was really cool."

He adds that he laughs about it now in retrospect, and that the reason was explained to him at the time: "people really do fire stinger missiles at you or rocket propelled grenades at you."

What the pilot told him

His guest confirmed that man-portable missiles were the principal threat to a helicopter, being "low and slow," and explained the tactic from the cockpit. Against a radar-guided missile the aim is to fill the seeker's screen with metal as fast as possible, which is what the corkscrew does: the aircraft never holds a position or a constant relative motion long enough for the weapon to solve for it. Against a heat-seeker the answer is different, turn into the launch point and dive, because the nose is the coldest part of the helicopter.

That technical account is the guest's rather than Kiriakou's. What he contributes is the experience of riding it: the open door, the sick passengers, and a man who enjoyed it.

See also

See also

- John Kiriakou
- Central Intelligence Agency
