Turbine 33 — The 16 Who Answered the Call | Self Growth Videos
When Michael Murphy made his phone call from that exposed ridgeline — the call that cost him his life — sixteen men responded.
They didn’t have to think about it. Their brothers were on a mountain, surrounded, bleeding, out of options. The only question was how fast they could get there.
They loaded onto a Chinook helicopter called Turbine 33. They flew into the Hindu Kush in broad daylight, into a known hot zone, without their Apache gunship escort. They knew the risk. They flew anyway.
An RPG hit the transmission of Turbine 33 as it came in to hover. The aircraft inverted and crashed into the mountain.
All sixteen men aboard were killed.
Nobody knows their names the way they know Murphy’s. Nobody made a movie about them. They answered a call, flew toward the sound of a firefight, and died before they ever touched the ground.
These are their names.
The Navy SEALs Aboard Turbine 33
Lt. Cmdr. Erik S. Kristensen, 33, of San Diego, California. Commander of the SEAL element. His plan for insertion: “Drop us on the high ground, and we’ll make our way to our swim buddies.” Those were among his last known words.
Lt. Michael M. McGreevy Jr., 30, of Portville, New York.
Chief Fire Controlman Jacques J. Fontan, 36, of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Electronics Technician 1st Class Jeffery A. Lucas, 33, of Corbett, Oregon.
Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Jeffrey S. Taylor, 30, of Midway, West Virginia.
Senior Chief Information Systems Technician Daniel R. Healy, 36, of Exeter, New Hampshire.
Quartermaster 2nd Class James Suh, 28, of Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Eric S. Patton, 22, of Boulder City, Nevada.
The Night Stalkers — 160th SOAR
Maj. Stephen C. Reich, HQ Company, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Commander of the 160th. He died flying his men toward a fight they had been told not to wait on.
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Chris J. Scherkenbach, Jacksonville, Florida.
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Corey J. Goodnature, Clarks Grove, Minnesota.
Sgt. Kip A. Jacoby, Pompano Beach, Florida. He was on the ramp when the RPG hit. He rode the aircraft all the way in.
Sgt. 1st Class Marcus V. Muralles, Shelbyville, Indiana.
Master Sgt. James W. Ponder III, 36, of Franklin, Tennessee.
Staff Sgt. Shamus O. Goare, Danville, Ohio.
Sgt. Michael L. Russell, Stafford, Virginia.
What Happened to Turbine 33
The Night Stalkers are called Night Stalkers for a reason. They operate in the dark. Their record of helicopter losses before June 28, 2005, was almost entirely in daytime missions. Their commander, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Chris Eicher, told the task force commander before launch that they should wait until dark. The request was denied. The ground force commander had already rejected the plan and didn’t want to wait.
Two MH-47 Chinooks launched — Turbine 33 and Turbine 34. They flew toward Jalalabad first, where they had to offload half their SEAL passengers because the elevation requirements for the mountains reduced how much weight each aircraft could carry. Many of the men who had to get off the helicopter were furious. They wanted to stay on the mission. They wanted to reach their brothers.
During the flight, they passed two Apache gunships whose crews offered to accompany them and provide surveillance and fire support. Not wanting to slow down and wait for approval from the task force commander, the Chinooks continued without them.
Turbine 33 descended into a hover above the insertion point. Its ramp lowered. The crewman walked out onto it to observe the landing zone below.
Staff Sgt. Steven Smith, the flight engineer aboard Turbine 34 circling nearby, saw a smoke trail emerge from the tree line. The RPG flew through the open ramp of Turbine 33 and exploded inside. The aircraft’s nose dipped. It slid left, appearing for a moment to almost recover. Then the rotor blades began striking each other, the helicopter rolled right, inverted, and fell.
Smith watched it crash into the mountain and erupt in flames.
Turbine 34 circled for an hour, looking for survivors. There were none. They were ordered back to Jalalabad. One of the SEALs on Turbine 34 drew his pistol and tried to force the helicopter to land so he could go back for his brothers. The order stood. They flew back.
The crash site was later reached by ground convoy — armed vehicles full of Rangers and special operations troops who fought their way up the mountainside. When the Night Stalkers eventually flew back to recover the dead, the flight engineer could see the smoldering crash site glowing through his night vision goggles, and sixteen remains bags lined up in a row.
They were loaded one by one onto the Chinooks. The flight back to Bagram was silence.
The Weight of That Number
June 28, 2005 was the single deadliest day for Naval Special Warfare since World War II. Nineteen Americans killed — three on the ground, sixteen in the air — in a sequence that began with a four-man team that was compromised, a fight they couldn’t win, and a phone call that brought rescue toward a mountain that was waiting for it.
The men on Turbine 33 didn’t cause any of that. They heard a call for help and they flew.
A C-17 carried their sixteen flag-draped coffins from Germany back to the United States. Three war-weary escorts sat on the sides of the aircraft, staring off into nothing. Children played around the coffins, too young to understand what they were, too young to know that the men inside had died trying to reach someone else’s brothers.
Their names are above. Say them.