Upon Another Shore is a forensic memoir examining the 2011 Extortion 17 helicopter shootdown in Afghanistan’s Tangi Valley, and bearing testimony to the lives of those on board.

The author is a British civilian, working professionally as a peace campaigner and arms trade analyst. What she brings is a scientific background, experience analysing weapons systems and conflict data, and — disclosed in the manuscript — a personal connection to the fallen.

The analysis draws exclusively on declassified US government documents (the Colt Report and JCAT assessment), manufacturer technical data, academic sources, and open-source terrain mapping. No classified information is used or implied. No personal confidences are broken.

The piece exists because, years after the event, people were still asking what happened.

This is an honest answer to that question. The author hopes it will inform future work on this and similar incidents.

Thanks go to the many who have had a hand in helping this work come to fruition, especially Andrew Smith, Emily Apple, Clare Bonetree, Adam Landau and Kate Young. Huge gratitude goes to editors Randy Surles and Laura Graves for their help and encouragement.

Those on board the aircraft are loved and missed to this day. This is, first and always, their story.

We remember.