The CH -47 Chinook helicopter was bringing in troops to rescue an Army Ranger unit under fire by insurgents in Afghanistan. That mission was completed successfully and the crew was back on board, heading back when a rocket shot the slow moving copter out of the sky, killing at least 31 military personnel, including seven Afghan commandos on board. Included with the dead is a military dog handler and his dog.

Among the dead are members of the Navy SEALS unit, including part of the unit that killed Osama Bin Laden in May.The actual team that were on that mission was not on board the helicopter, however. This attack, currently being claimed by the Taliban, marks the deadliest event for the American forces in the last ten years. NATO confirmed that a helicopter was shot down but would not give any details about who was on board or any casualties. US officials did confirm that the Chinook helicopter was taken down but did not provide any additional, official statements. An anonymous source did confirm that the military has no evidence that this was anything other than hostile.

More than twenty Navy SEALS are considered to be among the dead, but their names are not being released pending notifications of all of the families. Some family members have come forward to say that the State Department has notified them of their loss, all of them praising their loved one’s supreme sacrifice.

Should the total of deceased as it stands be confirmed, it will be a higher number of dead than the June 2005 helicopter crash in Eastern Kunar. During that attack, sixteen Navy Seals as well as a number of Army Special Operation forces were shot down while they were on a rescue. The details of both crashes are eerily similar to one another, starting with a helicopter mission to rescue another unit under attack and then being shot down once the mission is over and done.

The mountains of Afghanistan make certain flight missions, especially involving helicopters dangerous. The copters tend to be much slower and louder than other crafts, alerting the insurgents to where they are. The mountains provide a number of places to hide, putting the enemy directly on the level of the flight crew. Even when they do not have rocket launchers to use, the insurgents can hide in their various locations and use small weapons fire to kill the flight crews or to disable the helicopters and other smaller aircraft.

Speculation of the nature of the mission that the special forces units were on continues with many experts believing that a high ranking insurgent official might have been targeted by the elite team.

The US and NATO are currently working on a mission to gather the wreckage of the downed aircraft. NATO estimates show that nearly 400 combined troops have died in Afghanistan this year with 42 so far this month alone.