In October of 2004, a two-ship formation of Air Force HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters departed Kandahar Afghanistan on a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) mission in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF). The patient, a host-nation gunshot victim was stranded in a remote location and required immediate medical treatment and evacuation. The lack of mission and weather details, intelligence data, and patient vitals were business as usual for Air Force rescue crews. Upon mission completion, an airman's life had been lost, a twenty million dollar aircraft had been destroyed and questions pertaining to the actual condition of the patient began to surface. As investigators combed over aircrew records, maintenance documents, and digital mission tapes, they would discover, in spite of the tragedy, the doomed crew performed superbly. The crew executed the mission with a conservative and thorough approach to risk management and mitigated each aspect of the mission precisely as they had been trained.