Above Iraq, pilots race death

The pilots of Fort Bragg's 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry recently returned from a one-year tour in Mosul, Iraq. Jason Anderson and Leif Neely, charged with providing cover for ground troops from their two-seat Kiowa Warrior helicopter, flew so low May 16 that they smelled the enemy's gunpowder. This is the story of their most harrowing mission.

Even before pilots Jason Anderson and Leif Neely were caught in a race against two ways to die, it had been a bad day in Mosul.

So many car bombs had detonated it was hard to keep track. Two bridges had already collapsed into the Tigris River when a huge explosion leveled a three-story building, creating a shock wave that buffeted the two little helicopters.

Then someone on the radio said their base was taking rocket and mortar fire.

The lead OH-58D Kiowa Warrior dipped low, flying just above the roofs, to see if it could find the enemy the hard way -- by drawing fire. Anderson and Neely, in the second chopper, kept it higher so they could watch for insurgents.

The low buildings, houses and mosques of the city, Iraq's second-largest, sprawled beneath them. It had been a violent place even before the U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad last winter pushed many insurgents north.

Neely didn't normally fly with Anderson, though both men were with the same unit based at Fort Bragg. But he had asked to come along as co-pilot so that Anderson, an instructor pilot, could check out his skills, an annual requirement. It was Anderson's usual Kiowa, and between the men, a fake shrunken head dangled where a rearview mirror would be. Across his face mask, Anderson had painted a zipper that made him look like a character in a horror movie.

The Kiowa inspired that kind of irreverence. It didn't command much respect from other fliers, though. They made fun of the tiny, low-powered chopper, which was based on a civilian model often used by local TV stations. Kiowas can be armed with an array of weapons, including Hellfire missiles, but even Kiowa pilots sometimes called them "flying beer cans."

Few military aircraft have less armor. And none flew lower; their job was mainly darting above infantry units to protect them. Which meant getting close to the ground, and the enemy.

On this day in mid-May, Anderson and Neely got too close.

The lower chopper found the enemy first, its crew suddenly shouting into the radio that they might have been hit, according to interviews with members of the squadron. The lower chopper's crew said they were heading for an open area nearby where it was usually safe to fly slow and wait for action or check each other for damage.

Anderson put the nose down, and his helicopter came hurtling out of the sky. Bullets snapped past with a crackling sound, so sharp it was impossible to tell whether the helicopter was hit. He fired seven rockets into a line of trees where the shots were coming from, then yanked the Kiowa around to follow the other chopper.

Slow down, he told the other crew. He wanted to give their bird a once-over for damage.

Over the supposedly safe zone, he wondered why smoke was coming from the front of the other chopper. Then he understood -- the co-pilot was leaning out the door, firing his rifle. The enemy had set an ambush.

Gunfire erupted from all sides. Anderson flung the little helicopter into one violent turn after another, trying to dodge bullets. The Kiowa was so close to the ground that the sharp smell of gunpowder from the insurgents' guns drifted into the cockpit.

Then Neely's right leg jumped so forcefully his knee smacked his chin. An armor-piercing bullet had blasted through his foot. At almost the same instant, another bullet hit just above Anderson's left ankle, then exited and shattered a bone in his other leg.

Anderson knew he was losing blood so quickly that he should cinch on a tourniquet. He was afraid to try, though: While his hands and feet were off the controls, his co-pilot might lose consciousness.

Neely looked at the gauges and yelled.

"Hey, man, no transmission fluid."

As their lives were leaking out, so was the Kiowa's. A bullet had hit the gearbox, and its lubricant was gushing into the chopper's slipstream. Both pilots were already getting lightheaded.

They were in a race to reach the airfield before they lost consciousness -- or before the little chopper fell out of the sky.

It would take only two minutes to get there, Anderson thought. Did they have two minutes?

JAY PRICE, 46, covers military affairs. He has made three reporting trips to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. A Raleigh native and graduate of UNCChapel Hill, he joined The News & Observer in 1996. He has won more than half a dozen state press awards and co-wrote a series of stories on U.S. security contractors in Iraq that won a national Society of Professional Journalists award for non-deadline reporting in 2005. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife and daughter.

This series is based on interviews with several members of the 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry, which just completed a yearlong combat tour in Iraq.