What Really Happened During the Black Hawk Down Incident? Inside the Real-Life Combat Mission Gone Wrong Revisited in “Surviving Black Hawk Down”

The 2001 war film Black Hawk Down brought the deadly events of 1993’s Battle of Mogadishu to the big screen.

The Academy Award-winning film, which was directed by Ridley Scott and based on a 1999 book by journalist Mark Bowden, recounted the bloodshed that occurred in Somalia in October 1993.

U.S. forces, attempting to bring down Somali National Alliance (SNA) Leader Mohammed Farah Aidid, embarked on a mission in the capital city of Mogadishu to capture some of Aidid’s top aides. But the operation went awry when two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, and the American troops were plunged into a deadly firefight with Somali soldiers.

The 18-hour battle left 18 American soldiers dead, 84 wounded and one captured as a prisoner of war, according to The Washington Post. At the time, Somali leaders estimated that they suffered 312 deaths and 814 injuries.

“A fire-fight is considered long if it lasts 15 minutes,” Scott told the BBC, “but this was 18 and a half hours of relentless procedure on both sides.”

The dramatic retelling of the Black Hawk Down incident featured an ensemble cast full of Hollywood A-listers, including Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, Jeremy Piven, Orlando Bloom, Hugh Dancy and Tom Hardy.

Now, more than two decades later, the gripping story is being told once again — but this time, it’s through the words of the U.S. soldiers and Somali citizens who lived through the Battle of Mogadishu themselves. The first-hand accounts are featured in the new Netflix documentary Surviving Black Hawk Down, which was produced by Ridley Scott Associates and started streaming on Feb. 10.

Here is a look back at the devastating true events that inspired Scott’s 2001 film Black Hawk Down.

Why were U.S. troops in Somalia in 1993?

In the early 1990s, Somalia was in the throes of chaos. After the Eastern African country's President Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991, a deadly civil war ensued — during which severe drought and battles created a famine that killed an estimated 300,000 people, per The New York Times.

The United Nations began delivering humanitarian aid to the region in the spring of 1992 but struggled to get emergency food supplies to starving citizens due to the intense fighting. As a result, President George H.W. Bush and the U.S. initiated Operation Restore Hope — which sent 28,000 U.S. troops to Somalia in December 1992, according to The New York Times. Their job was originally to ensure that food and aid could be distributed safely.

Operation Restore Hope was initially a success: The U.N. estimated that, with the help of U.S. troops, more than 250,000 lives were saved, according to Smithsonian Magazine. But throughout 1993, the relief mission evolved into an initiative to rebuild the Somalian government and restore democracy in the country. The methods to do so, though, were deemed by many as too violent and colonial in nature, leading to heightened tensions between Somali and American troops.

What was the United States’ mission on Oct. 3, 1993?

In the spring of 1993, the U.N. had begun arranging a peace deal to reinstate a stable, unified government in Somalia’s capital city of Mogadishu, per The New York Times.

During this time, in one particularly deadly incident, the U.N. blamed Aidid’s forces for attacking Pakistani peacekeepers who were conducting a radio and arms storage inspection. Hospital officials said the ambush killed around two dozen Pakistani soldiers and 16 to 35 Somalis, per The New York Times. In the months following, it was reported that SNA soldiers thought the Pakistani troops were attempting to overtake the radio system.

The following month, American soldiers carried out the Bloody Monday Raid, in which the U.N. said they killed 13 people, including top SNA officials. Many human rights organizations and nonprofits, including other parts of the U.N., contested this claim and criticized the raid, per The Washington Post. SNA soldiers responded with two bomb attacks which eventually led President Bill Clinton to deploy U.S. Army Special Forces, led by Maj. Gen. William Garrison, to help capture Aidid and put a stop to his army.

By the time the Army Rangers and Delta Commandos arrived in Somalia in August, however, Aidid had slipped into hiding, per The New York Times. As a result, the U.S. mission expanded to capturing the violent ruler’s top aides and officials — in hopes of bringing them one step closer to Aidid himself.

On Oct. 3, 1993, the Army Rangers received intelligence that top Aidid deputies would be meeting that afternoon at a building in downtown Mogadishu. The plan was for a group of helicopters, trucks and Humvees to converge on the meeting location. Army Rangers would descend on the building by sliding down ropes from the helicopters, take their prisoners and load them onto the trucks waiting in the streets. The ground convoy, carrying the troops and prisoners, would then speed back to the base.

The mission — which would eventually become known as the Battle of Mogadishu or the Black Hawk Down incident — was expected to take no longer than an hour, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

What went wrong during the Black Hawk Down incident?

Initially, the U.S. mission on Oct. 3, 1993 went according to plan. The attack force — which consisted of 19 aircrafts, 12 vehicles and around 160 soldiers — surprised the Somalis and captured 24 of Aidid’s men, according to The New York Times. The ground convoy moved in as planned to take away the prisoners and troops.

But the in-and-out mission was derailed when the lead Black Hawk helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade and crashed about three blocks north of the raid. A search-and-rescue helicopter landed at the crash site and rescued two of the wounded, but the body of the deceased pilot was trapped in the wreckage.

Garrison ordered the Army Rangers to consolidate forces and head to the crash site, but the trucks and Humvees faced intense fire and were forced to return to their base at the Mogadishu airfield, per The Washington Post.

About 100 American soldiers were able to reach the crash site on foot, however, and formed a perimeter around the downed Black Hawk. They refused to abandon the body of the dead pilot, who could not be freed from the carnage without saws to cut through the metal. As they stood their ground, the Rangers — who were more lightly armed for the assumed brief mission — faced hours of gunfire from Somali fighters.

The bad situation became even worse when a second Black Hawk helicopter, piloted by Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant, was shot down, according to The Washington Post. Two Delta snipers, Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart, were lowered by a third Black Hawk to attempt a rescue — but were quickly overpowered. Gordon, Shughart and some of the Black Hawk’s crew members were killed, and Durant was taken prisoner.

The deadly fighting continued throughout the night, until American rescue forces — with help from Pakistani and Malaysian tanks — were able to make it to both crash sites. By 7 a.m., the pilot’s body was pried from the first downed Black Hawk and the surviving American troops had made it to safety inside Mogadishu Stadium.

How many people died during the Black Hawk Down incident?

At the time, the Battle of Mogadishu was the longest and deadliest firefight U.S. forces had faced since the Vietnam War, according to The Washington Post. It left 18 American soldiers dead, 84 wounded and one captured.

The losses on the Somali side were staggering. Somali leaders claimed 312 people had been killed — including citizens and militia — and 814 wounded. Bowden’s reporting in his book, Black Hawk Down, places those figures even higher, alleging more than 500 killed and 1,000 injured.

As a result of the bloodshed, President Clinton ordered that the mission to capture Aidid be abandoned. All of the U.S. troops in Somalia were pulled out by March 1994, per The New York Times.

When was Mike Durant released from Somali captivity?

On Oct. 14, 1993, Durant — the Black Hawk pilot taken prisoner by Aidid’s men — was released after being held captive for 11 days, The New York Times reported. The 32-year-old pilot was injured, with a gunshot wound and broken leg, back and eye socket, but was expected to make a full physical recovery, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Durant’s release came after two days of intense negotiations between the White House and Aidid’s aides. Both U.S. officials and Aidid said that the release came with no conditions or concessions. Aidid reportedly told reporters in Mogadishu that the release of Durant was a message of goodwill.

“I want to ... emphasize that we made no deals to secure the release of Chief Warrant Officer Durant,” Clinton said at the time, according to the LA Times. Clinton also said that the U.S. "being a police officer" in Somalia and involving itself in the country’s political processes was “wrong."

After recovering from his injuries, Durant (who was played by Ron Eldard in Black Hawk Down) returned to the Army as a pilot until his retirement. He went on to found a company that specializes in building military training equipment, and unsuccessfully made a bid for the U.S. Senate in 2022.

“Telling the story was absolutely therapeutic for a long period of time,” Durant told CNN in 2016. “I didn’t realize it, but one theory I have about why I don’t think I suffer from most of the symptoms that would be associated with PTSD is that I have told this story."

What happened to Maj. Gen. William Garrison?

Following the Black Hawk Down incident, Garrison wrote a letter to President Clinton taking full responsibility for the failed mission, according to The New York Times.

The disastrous battle effectively ended Garrison’s highly decorated military career, though the Army general did not officially retire until 1996, around the time Aidid died of a heart attack.

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