BLACK HAWK DOWN 35
script approval rights, the Department of Defense (DOD) supplied numerous con-
sul tants and the requisite war matériel, including Black Hawk he li cop ters and the
pi lots to fly them. The DOD also arranged for military training of the actors. The
40 actors playing Army Rangers took a one- week crash course at Fort Benning,
Georgia, while the 15 Delta Force actors took a two- week course from the 1st Spe-
cial Warfare Training Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Mogadishu survivor
Michael Durant and other Little Bird and Black Hawk pi lots briefed Ron Eldard
and the actors playing 160th SOAR he li cop ter pi lots at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
“They [the DOD] saw this as a recruitment film,” Scott later avowed. Scott and his
team initially scouted Amman, Jordan, as their principal location, but the city was
too built up and not on the coast, as is Mogadishu. They ended up shooting the
film in Morocco, where Scott had shot parts of Gladiator in 1999. Filming took
place in the cities of Rabat, Salé, and Kénitra, Morocco, between March and
June 2001.
Plot Summary
In 1993, following the start of a civil war in Somalia, the United Nations conducted
military peacekeeping operations there. When it withdrew most of its forces,
Mogadishu- based militia loyal to Mohamed Farrah Aidid declared war on the
remaining UN personnel. In response, U.S. Army Rangers, Delta Force counter-
terrorist specialists, and 160th SOAR airmen are deployed to capture Omar Salad
Elmi and Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdiid, two of Aidid’s top advisors. Delta Force
troops take Aidid’s lieutenants prisoner within the building, but the Rangers and
he li cop ters chaperoning the convoy are hit by intense fire, while SSG Matt Evers-
mann’s ( Josh Hartnett) Chalk Four is mistakenly let off a block away. Pfc. Todd
Blackburn (Orlando Bloom) fractures his spine after a fall out of a Black Hawk he li -
cop ter, so SSG Jeff Struecker (Brian Van Holt) takes a few Humvees and moves to
rescue Blackburn. As Struecker breaks away from the convoy, Sgt. Dominick
Pilla (Danny Hoch) is shot and killed. Black Hawk Super Six- One pi loted by
CWO Clifton “Elvis” Wolcott ( Jeremy Piven) is shot from the air by a rocket-
propelled grenade (RPG). The pi lots perish in the aftermath, and the crew chiefs
sustain injuries. Ordered to reach the crash site and evacuate survivors and fatali-
ties, LTC Danny McKnight’s (Tom Sizemore) Humvee column sustains heavy casu-
alties in a failed attempt to reach it. In the meantime, a set of Ranger Chalks,
including Eversmann’s unit, arrive at the Super Six-One crash site and form a bar-
rier around the wounded men and deceased pi lots and wait for extraction. As they
wait, Super Six- Four, pi loted by CWO Michael Durant (Ron Eldard), is gunned
down and sent crashing to the road, blocks away from Super Six-One. Heavy gun-
fire keeps ground troops from accessing the crash sites and leaves all Rangers with-
out backup. A pair of Delta Force snipers are dropped into the Super Six-One site
and find Durant alive. Unfortunately, the crash site is infiltrated by enemy combat-
ants: Shughart and Gordon are killed, and Durant is captured. McKnight’s column
decides against proceeding to the Six- One crash site and instead returns to the
base. The men regroup and devise a plan to rescue the Rangers and pi lots, led
by Major General William F. Garrison (Sam Shepard), commander of Task Force
Ranger, who sends an LTC (Steven Ford) to request back-up reinforcements