Aug 9, 2022
Welcome to the thirty-fifth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast!
In the fifth part of our series on the Battle of Roberts Ridge we talk with Warrant Officer Al Mack, the pilot of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment MH-47 Chinook callsign RAZOR 3 delivering SEAL Team MAKO 30 to the top of Takur Ghar mountain at 3:30 am Monday morning 4 March 2002. His Chinook comes under heavy fire from enemy forces and SEAL Neil Roberts falls off the back ramp, which begins the desperate search and rescue for him. Al goes into the small details of how this mission unfolded and the lessons learned from the Battle of Roberts Ridge. Numerous changes were made because Al wrote all of his lessons down!
There are several documentaries on the Battle of Roberts Ridge with Al Mack and other participants on YouTube. I suggest you watch these three videos on what happened on Takur Ghar here, here, and the CIA Predator UAV video of John Chapman's heroics here.
An article on the recovery of MH-47 Chinook RAZOR 3 called From a Great Height is a great read on how the Army recovered Al Mack's wounded helo from the valley his crew crash-landed in.
Two great articles on how a candidate becomes a 160th SOAR Night Stalker are found on the Office of the Command Historian webpage.
Support from the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast comes from Wall Pilot, aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hanger. These very detailed images are printed on vinyl and can be peeled off and stuck to any flat surface or just framed.
Please share this and previous episodes of the Lesson from the Cockpit podcast with your family and friends found on my website markhasara.com