Blackwater 61

I was watching 60 Minutes tonight on CBS. Now I don't normally watch the program, but the intro had a story that caught my attention. The story was about Blackwater. For those of you that do not know what Blackwater is to put it in simple terms it was a contract army hired by the United States government to help in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blackwater hired former military personnel to run along side our regular military. In short Blackwater were "hired guns" or "contract killers". The piece on 60 minutes was entitled, Blackwater 61, which was the airplane call sign operated by Presidential Airlines.

Blackwater 61 (CBS 60 Minutes Video)was carrying a total of six people on board, three being Blackwater employees and three being military personnel. One of the military personnel that was on board the flight was Lt. Colonel McMahon. His wife, now a widow, is Col. McMahon. They were classmates at Westpoint and each served their country as they were asked to do after graduating from Westpoint. Lt. Colonel McMahon took a last minute ride with two of his soldiers on Blackwater 61.

Unfortunately the pilots of Blackwater 61 were inexperienced pilots. They had only been in Afghanistan for a total of 13 days. On top of that Presidential Airlines did not have the proper equipment to keep track of Blackwater 61 once it took off from the airstrip. There was no way to know that the inexperienced pilots had actually taken the wrong flight plan through a dangerous strip of mountains that any experienced pilot would be scared to fly through.

The following piece in red text is a transcript of the pilots as they flew through the skies of Afghanistan:

English: I hope I’m goin’ in the right valley.

Hammer: That one or this one?

English: I’m just gonna go up this one. … We’ll just see where this leads. … Normally we’d have time to, on a short day like this, we’d have time to play a little bit, do some explorin’, but with these winds comin’ up I want to (expletive) get there as fast as we can. …

Rowe: I don’t see anythin’ over about 13-three is the highest peak in the whole route, I think. …

English: Yeah, so we’ll be able to pick our way around it. … Yeah, with this good visibility, (expletive) it’s as easy as pie. You run into somethin’ big, you just parallel it until you find a way through. … Cool up in here.

Hammer: Yeah, this is fun.

English: We’re not supposed to be havin’ fun, though. … It’s supposed to be all work. We can’t enjoy any of it.

English: Exactly.

Hammer: ’Cause we’re getting paid too much to be havin’ fun.

English: You’re God (expletive) right. …

Rowe: I don’t know what we’re gonna see. We don’t normally go this route. …

English: All we want is to avoid seeing rock at 12 o’clock. … Ah, yeah, look at this. I swear to God, they wouldn’t pay me if they knew how much fun this was. …

Hammer: Well, this, ah, row of mountains off to our left – I mean, it doesn’t get much lower than about 14,000 the whole length of it, at least not till the edge of my map

The fact that these pilots were not taking the flight seriously is beyond me. At one point they even discussed what kind of music they should be playing while they try to navigate the mountains. Another point in the discussion Lt. Col. McMahon says that they are taking the wrong route and that they never go this way because of the terrain. 

Col. McMahon, the wife of Lt. Col. McMahon filed a lawsuit against Blackwater and Presidential Airlines for negligence in the way it operated Blackwater 61. Blackwater and Presidential Airlines tried to get the case dismissed "on the grounds that they were part of the military and immunized from civil lawsuits." (Story on CBS) 

Now wait a minute there Blackwater! You are a private contractor and NOT part of the military. After that didn't work Blackwater and Presidential Airlines they asked that the case be tried under Islamic law because the crash happened in Afghanistan. Under Islamic law companies are not held liable for the actions of its employees. On top of all that not once did Blackwater or Presidential Airlines send their condolences or offer any sort of apology to any of the families involved in the crash. 

Presidential Airways chief, Richard Pere, tried to put some of the blame of the crash on Lt. Col. McMahon. He stated during a deposition that, "Something changed them to make them go to the north, sir." He was then asked when something changed and he stated, "It took place after Lt. Colonel McMahon got on board that aircraft."

The audacity of Mr. Richard Pere is beyond me. A decorated soldier was doing his duty for our country and his life is put into the hands of civilians! Hired contractors to do a job that OUR military should be doing. After this incident Blackwater and Presidential Airlines was put on suspension for one month. 

After the suspension was over Blackwater and Presidential Airlines was awarded a new contract to the tune of $92 MILLION! Our own goverment hiring these civilian companies to do work that our military should be doing. Of course the "owners" of these "hired guns" are all in the back pocket of our elected officials. 
This is just another reason why our government needs to be turned upside down and all of the dirty, greedy, disgusting bastards thrown out into the streets. 


So while our educational system across the United States is in shambles our government ponies up $92 Million to an organization that is negligent in its operations and has no sympathy for the families of its employees. And not only that received so much press about their operations that they were forced to change their name to XE Services!!!!

Interesting Links

The "New and Improved" Blackwater 

Training Center