Corrected entry: When Dominick Pilla is impersonating Captain Steele in the hangar, Steele refers to him as 'Specialist' and he is wearing specialist's rank insignia on his collar. When he is later shot, Struecker twice refers to him as 'Sergeant Pilla' (which was his actual rank in real-life).
Corrected entry: In the scene where the second convoy is leaving the base to head back into Mogadishu the 3 Humvee's pass a C-130. If you look at the engines you can see that there are no propellers on the aircraft at all. There should be 4, 2 on each wing. Even if this was a maintenance issue it wouldn't be at that level in a hostile environment, and the plane would be in a hanger, not parked outside with no covers on any of the exposed lines. It appears to be a decommissioned aircraft used for a prop. (01:18:52)
Correction: This C-130 is NOT a USAF plane but along with a B707 stored nearby is a scrapped & derelict aircraft of the Moroccan Air Force, in one shot you can see a crown on the tail giving hint to the fact that the scenes where shot in Morocco. The C-130 shows no signs or insignias of the USAF. Also, the Boeing 707 in the other shots carries a Moroccan registration (CN-).
Corrected entry: At the 2nd helicopter crash site (Durant's) the scene jumps back to Pilot Durant in a small room several times while the D-boys are outside fighting. After Durant is placed in the small room with his MP-5, he is shown with Gordon's CAR-15 on his lap, then without. (01:28:02)
Correction: If you watch carefully, you can see one of the Somalis pick it up.
Corrected entry: In the first major ambush of the bad guys' meeting, a black hawk helicopter is hovering. We see the ropes dropped before Josh Harnett shouts "ropes down" and then they are dropped again. (00:40:00)
Correction: It is not the same helicopter, there are 4 Black Hawks with Rangers inside.
Corrected entry: Helo pilots are on the right side of the aircraft and copilots on the left. This is shown wrong in the movie.
Correction: In modernized US Army helicopters, both crew stations are identical. Two qualified and current pilots are required to fly the aircraft. The pilot in command may sit in either the right or left seat.
Corrected entry: When some of the soldiers are firing their M-16s, they don't seem to produce any recoil. M-16s do have low-to-moderate recoil. This happens multiple times throughout the movie.
Correction: Good soldiers eventually develop a strong grip for their weapons, especially the small caliber, low-recoil M-16. Remember, the 5.56mm round it fires is equal to .22 caliber. It's all about firmly gripping the handle and barrel guard and planting the buttstock rigidly into your shoulder to reduce the effects of recoil.
Corrected entry: When Durant's Blackhawk went down there is only one crew chief, but there were actually two. Also, everyone on board the crash survived the fall, but were later killed when the Somali militia came except for Durant.
Correction: There were four men on Durant's Super-64, but three are shown (a crew chief and a brief shot of the co-pilot). This was apparently done for pacing reasons and to not clog up the screen.
Corrected entry: Sgt Everman's chalk four, which in the movie made it to the first crash site, never even got there that night. They initially moved out on foot, then got picked up by the "Lost Convoy" and got stuck on it. They went back to the base and moved out to rescue everyone. Big oops on the producer/director's part.
Correction: Sgt. Eversman got Blackburn stabilized and evacuated within minutes after they were on the ground, and then he proceeded right to the crash site on foot. He said they were racing Somalis to the site, much like in the movie.
Corrected entry: Hoots delta team has 4 members but later there are only 3.
Correction: The fourth Delta operator was probably killed offscreen some in between. If so, it would presumably be Earl Filmore, as he is the only Delta operator killed that day whose death is not shown onscreen.
Corrected entry: When the officers want some soldiers to rescue the crew of the fallen helicopter, there is one who takes a puff of asthma medication. You can't go in the army if you are asthmatic.
Correction: If you have read the Black Hawk Down book then you would know that a single Ranger was allowed to, even with asthma. You can go through BCT (Basic Combat Training) with Asthma and an inhaler. You can also go through Boot Camp with Asthma, but Boot Camp is for Marines, not ground pounders in the Army. All branches take Asthma sufferers, it just depends on their level of Asthma. My dad had Asthma and went Ranger in December 1970 and I have Asthma while going into the pipeline for AFSOC (CCT).
Corrected entry: Blackburn did not fall from the rope by an RPG almost hitting the Blackhawk helicopter. In actuality he just missed the rope period.
Correction: The pilot tilted the blackhawk for no apparent reason other than that he could not see anything and it was very chaotic. I heard Sgt Eversmann speak this evening and he specifically mentioned that there was no RPG that he saw, but the pilot did bank the heli. That caused Blackburn to fall, as Blackburn was probably 5-10 feet down the rope at that point.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the ODA-D sergeant is cut in half and thrown from the 5-Ton Truck, it first shows one soldier grabbing his shoulders to pick him up. It then cuts away to show two soldiers, one on each side of the sergeant, moving him to a vehicle.
Correction: McKnight calls two soldiers over before the Sergeant is picked up. The soldiers are standing to either side of the body. In the closeup of his face where two hands are seen on his shoulders, one hand is from each person carrying him.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the soldiers fail to tie the artery in the dying soldier's leg, they then perform CPR. Not only do they forget to tilt the dead soldier's head back but when he starts doing compressions he presses on the lower ribs. This really needs to done firmly and directly over the heart to work. (01:55:13)
Correction: Actually, the film is pretty much correct. Having done this with the Coastguard, the correct procedure is to place both hands, knitted together, just below the end of the breastbone. However, what the film does get wrong is the amount of compressions the medic does. He only does a few, then breathes into Smith. It should be 15 compressions to 2 breaths.
Corrected entry: Ewan McGregor pours bottled water to make coffee and the label on the water is "Me Eden" water, which is a company exclusively in Israel. This movie is supposed to take place in Somalia.
Correction: And was filmed in Morocco. If Ewan McGregor in Morocco could get a bottle of Me Eden, it's not inconceivable that his character in Somalia could, too.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the two snipers are defending Durant's downed Black Hawk, both of them get shot up pretty badly, especially the second one, yet in the next scene viewed from overhead one has been stripped and there is no mark on him.
Correction: The body is Durant's co-pilot that died in the crash, not the Delta sniper.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Yurek, Nelson and Twombley are meeting up with chalk 4 you can see Yurek running and no one is shooting at him but you can see the pyros going off at his feet as if there were someone shooting.
Correction: Those weren't pyros, but dirt splashes from the debris lifted from the soldier run.
Corrected entry: When Blackbird falls from the helicopter, Josh Hartnett goes down the rope. You see another soldier immediately grab the rope and start to descend too. However when Hartnett hits the ground, the soldier is nowhere to be seen. (00:43:33)
Correction: As Josh was going down the rope, there are other men in the chopper and one was only holding onto the rope as Josh was descending, but he was not descending himself.
Corrected entry: As the American soldiers run away from Mogadishu, one fires an automatic weapon that side loads a belt of bullets into the breech. The gun shakes as he shoots, and there are muzzle flashes, but the belt of bullets doesn't move. (02:06:20)
Correction: The M249 SAW that he is firing does have a belt of bullets that move, but because of the rate of fire they are blurred.
Corrected entry: When the 2 Delta snipers are defending the 2nd downed Black Hawks, the Delta snipers, Gary Gordan carries a camo-painted M4, and Randy Shughart carries a Vietnam M14 right? When Gary Gordan fires, and then reports "reloading" for the 1st time, it changes to one guy holding a black M16 firing at the crowd. Who is that? Neither one of the Delta snipers carry a black full-size M16.
Correction: A Black Hawk carries small arms on board which include M-16's. Shugart and Gordon utilized all the weapons they could gather to the end. When it got down to only one Delta left he was finally killed after using up all available ammunition despite what was shown in the movie.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the informant parks his car outside the correct building and raises the hood to check the steam etc, an OH-6 Little Bird can be seen in the background. At this point in the movie, the only aircraft over Mog would have been the C2 Black Hawk and the P-3 Orion (not actually shown in the movie). The attacking Black Hawks, MH-6s and OH-6s have not yet taken off.
Correction: Over Mogidishu three helicopters that almost look identical to AH-6 Little Birds, except for the camera equipment, flew surveillance along with the Orion.
Correction: Pilla was promoted to sergeant the same day he was killed. [url=http://www.nightstalkers.com/tfranger/memorial/pilla/default.html]This[/url] explains why they called him specialist the day before and sergeant the next.