9 US troops dead in Iraq copter crash

ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq -- A US Black Hawk medevac helicopter crashed yesterday near the western Iraqi town of Fallujah, killing all nine US soldiers aboard, and an Air Force C-5 transport plane made an emergency landing in Baghdad after being hit by ground fire, US officials said.

The official cause of the helicopter crash was not known late yesterday, but a witness told wire services that the chopper was hit by a rocket. If it was brought down by enemy fire, it would mark the second such attack in less than a week -- an OH-58 Kiowa Warrior was shot down last Friday.

No US soldiers had been killed in a helicopter since a spate of three deadly attacks in early November. The military has employed new tactics to avoid missile attacks as a result of those crashes.

"We express our heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of those who perished in this incident," Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director for coalition operations, told reporters after yesterday's crash.

On Nov. 2, a Chinook transport helicopter was shot down near Fallujah with what is believed to have been a surface-to-air missile, killing 16 people and wounding 21. Five days later, a rocket-propelled grenade struck a Black Hawk near Tikrit, killing all six people aboard. On Nov. 15, two Black Hawks collided in Mosul while taking enemy fire, killing 17 troops -- the deadliest event for US forces since the war began.

Surface-to-air missiles are generally heat-seeking, while rocket-propelled grenades are aimed visually and have a much shorter range. More than three dozen surface-to-air missile attacks have occurred since May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq.

"There's no doubt that [the insurgents] see the attractiveness of these things," a defense official said, referring to the missiles. "Any increase is going to be spurred by the realization that they get what they want: mass casualties and media attention."

The November attacks spurred US military officials to alter flying tactics.

"The Army has adopted a whole range of different operating procedures to try to minimize its vulnerability to attacks," said Loren Thompson, a military specialist with the Lexington Institute, a libertarian think tank in Virginia. "When it became apparent that insurgents had access to shoulder-fired missiles, the Army immediately changed its tactics and accelerated its introduction of countermeasures, such as flares, in the country."

Thompson said that before the war, Iraq was known to have possessed more than 5,000 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, only a small fraction of which have been accounted for. Considering the number of available weapons and the swarm of military helicopters airborne on any given day, the US tactics have worked, he said.

"The insurgents have had very few successful hits against US helicopters," Thompson said. "There are hundreds of helicopter missions per day and on a typical day, no SAMs are launched, much less hit a helicopter. You have to conclude from that that the insurgents either are not very capable, or most of the time they're on the run."

Mohammed Ahmed al-Jamali, a farmer near Fallujah, told the Associated Press that he saw a missile hit the Black Hawk yesterday: "I was in the farm. I heard the sound, looked up, and I saw the rocket hit it. It hit it in the tail."

The helicopter was on a "routine mission," according to Kimmitt, when it went down for what he initially described as an "emergency landing." Fallujah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, has been a hotbed of anticoalition activity.

Military officials did not say late yesterday where the flight originated. But officers from the Army's Third Armored Cavalry Regiment at Asad Air Base, in Iraq's western desert, said the medevac crew came from that base.

The officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, and other soldiers at the base seemed devastated by the deaths and angry over preliminary reports from witnesses that the helicopter -- which bore the markings of a medical aircraft -- had been downed by hostile fire.

"They shot at a helicopter with a big red cross on it -- that was unforgivable," Sergeant First Class William Sommer said. "These are the same helicopters we have used to transport wounded Iraqis."

Sergeant Gary Qualls, a public affairs officer, said: "The saddest thing about this is we're pretty close to going home" as part of the looming troop-rotating plan. "They made it this far."

Officers at the Asad base said it is unclear whether insurgents are getting more accurate at shooting down helicopters; successful attacks are so rare that it is hard to come up with a meaningful average. But they said the military has taken steps to lessen the risks.

"We have to alter our routes, and we're doing that," Major John Crean said. "But I believe that flying is safer than ground convoys. It's only a matter of time before [the military] finds the caches of surface-to-air missiles" used in attacks against coalition forces.

Soldiers from the Asad base patrol broad swaths of Iraq's borders with Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, a large Air Force C-5 Galaxy transport plane flying out of Baghdad returned to the capital for an emergency landing yesterday after one of its engines was hit. US officials said it was not clear what weapon was used. None of the 63 passengers and crew aboard was hurt.

Schlesinger reported from Washington, and Barnard reported from Asad Air Base. Material from the Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report. Robert Schlesinger can be reached at schlesinger@globe.com