CENTCOM website still fails to report November 15 Blackhawk collision

[VolcanoJen]

I check the CENTCOM webpage a few times a day, to keep track of the "official" account of soldier casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The webpage has yet to publish its News Release (if there was one) from November 15, in which two Blackhawk helicopters collided over Mosul, Iraq, killing 17 U.S. soldiers. At the time, it was also reported that one soldier remained unaccounted for. According to mainstream news reports at the time, witnesses at the scene, including a coalition officer on the ground, one helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade before colliding into the second helicopter. Most, if not all, of the identified soldiers were members of the 101st Airborne, based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

This is the URL for a the CENTCOM Casualty Report search utility (it's also worth mentioning that this URL is not easily found within the CENTCOM home page):

http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/casualties.asp?searchDays=&searchType=2&searchMonth=11&searchYear=2003&searchTopic=

Can anyone provide an explanation as to why CENTCOM has not posted the News Release from the November 15th Mosul Blackhawk tragedy? What is the "official" November soldier death toll, as of November 23, 2003?

[NNN0LHI]

1. Trying to keep the numbers down is the only explanation n/t

[Noordam]

2. I use lunaville and thay have not been wrong yet

http://www.lunaville.com/warcasualties/summary.aspx

[VolcanoJen]

3. I use Lunaville too, but it's not the official government-endorsed...

... casualty report. Contrasting the Lunaville casualty numbers to the CENTCOM numbers has been fascinating, although CENTCOM and Lunaville numbers for actual coalition deaths matches up very accurately.

Except for November 15, that is. And that's what's really been bothering me for the past week. What are we hiding? Why haven't we honored the 101st soldiers who perished on November 15th by reporting, and thereby acknowledging, the news of their deaths, in an official capacity?

[VolcanoJen]

4. Kicking for the early evening crowd.

Anyone have a logical (or cynical) explanation for me?

:D

[DUreader]

5. Jerks