The document - from May 30, 2007 - claims that insurgents shot down a Chinook transport helicopter over Helmand Province with a surface-to-air missile, or SAM. But a spokesman for the NATO command in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Col. Wayne Shanks, tells Danger Room, "We have no reports of any aircraft being damaged by SAMs."

Easily fired by infantry or a guy on a flatbed truck, MANPADs are capable of locking on to the heat generated by an aircraft within distances of around 6 miles, meaning that helicopters and low-flying fixed-wing aircraft are vulnerable - as are all aircraft at takeoff and landing.