of Ahmad Shah's men fired an RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade which struck the transmission below the rear rotor assembly, causing the aircraft to immediately plummet to the ground. All eight 160th SOAR aviators and crew and all eight Navy SEALs onboard were killed, including commander of the 160th, Major Stephen C. Reich, and ground commander LCDR Erik S. Kristensen, of SEAL Team 10. Command and control was lost and neither visual nor radio contact could be established with the SEAL team. At this point, late in the afternoon, storm clouds were moving in over the region and the aircraft returned to their respective bases. A massive search began, at first from the ground, and then with aviation assets which was able to retrieve the bodies of the 16 killed in the MH-47 shootdown. Meanwhile, Marcus Luttrell had been taken in by a local Afghan, Gulab, from the village of Salar Ban, roughly down the northeast gulch of Sawtalo Sar from the location of the ambush. After word was received of his survival, Luttrell and Gulab were recovered by Pararescuemen Josh Appel and Chris Piercecchi. Based on Luttrell's descriptions of the area, Appel and Piercecchi returned to the site of the battle two days later and retrieved the remains of Dietz, Murphy, and Axelson. Afghans who aided Luttrell In the years following Operation Red Wings more details emerged about the circumstances surrounding Luttrell survival, including that he was given sanctuary by local villagers. Many of the details regarding the Afghans who aided Luttrell were reported incorrectly in the American press during the days after the events occurred. The SEALs' firefight with Ahmad Shah's Taliban forces began along a high-elevation ridgeline called Sawtalo Sar (whose highest peak is ). A descent down the east side of the ridgeline leads into the Shuryek Valley. The northeastern gulch in which the SEALs became trapped was in this direction, above the village of Salar Ban. To the west of the Sawtalo Sar ridgeline is the Korangal Valley. As the wounded Luttrell descended the gulch, he encountered a Pashtun named Mohammad Gulab Khan from the mountain village of Salar Ban. Known simply as Gulab, he took Luttrell into his home that first day in accordance with the Pashtunwali custom of Nanawatai, whereby asylum is given to a person to protect them from their enemies. Gulab then invoked the assistance of fellow villagers to help protect Luttrell until