The audacious US operation to take away Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro got here down to an intense remaining firefight through which US helicopters have been uncovered to an extraordinary degree of threat as they descended into a closely fortified compound in Caracas, in accordance to key eyewitness movies analyzed by NCS.
NCS has reconstructed the January 3 mission, analyzing greater than 50 movies and pictures filmed by eyewitnesses and mapping the flight paths of US helicopters to deal with these vital remaining moments. They unfolded at a location NCS has pinpointed as Maduro’s doubtless extraction level, a compound contained in the army complicated of Fort Tiuna.
Footage reveals that within the moments main up to the descent into this space there was fierce crossfire between American assault plane hovering overhead and Venezuelan air defenses.
NCS’s analysis reveals there have been two essential minutes between a transport helicopter touchdown on the bottom and taking off, as crossfire continued unabated.
This interval was probably the most harmful of your entire operation, consultants mentioned, as it will have been when the plane was shifting slowly and at low altitude, making it a lot simpler for less complicated weapons to goal it. This was heightened by the very fact US forces had chosen the riskiest touchdown spot – proper at Maduro’s compound.
‘Organized chaos’: Watch NCS’s forensic reconstruction of the US raid to seize Maduro
The raid at Fort Tiuna, one in every of Venezuela’s largest army complexes, had been ready properly upfront.
At the start of the US assault within the early hours of January 3, a collection of strikes hit targets throughout the nation. Radar, communications and air protection infrastructure was knocked out, in accordance to NCS’s assessment of movies and satellite tv for pc imagery, clearing a path for the particular operations helicopters.
More than 150 plane – together with bombers, fighters, intelligence and surveillance platforms – have been launched from 20 bases on land and sea, in accordance to Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Around 1:30 a.m. native time, in accordance to an eyewitness, explosions have been heard within the coastal metropolis of Higuerote, about 50 miles east of Caracas.
NCS geolocated movies of those preliminary strikes to Higuerote airport, residence to Venezuelan air protection methods, together with a Russian-made Buk-M2 surface-to-air missile system designed to goal plane.
A video shared by a local journalist when daylight broke additionally seems to present a Buk-M2 launcher nonetheless smoldering.
“We heard a whistling sound in the air, like something was falling, then the explosion,” one Higuerote resident instructed NCS. The witness, who spoke anonymously due to safety considerations, mentioned the blast shook the home windows of his residence.
N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, instructed NCS the footage from Higuerote steered the usage of one-way assault drones. These might embody “Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack Systems,” which the US army has been rapidly developing because the proliferation of comparable know-how throughout Russia’s struggle on Ukraine.
Over in Caracas, at 1:58 a.m. two US MH-47 Chinook transport helicopters are seen flying low towards Fort Tiuna, skirting the slender valley through which the army base lies, in accordance to an eyewitness video.
Wes Bryant, a retired US Air Force grasp sergeant and former particular operations tactical air controller, described the US technique to pre-emptively strike the world earlier than the helicopters descended to the bottom as “organized chaos.”
Footage reveals at the very least two helicopters touchdown on the compound amid fireplace from the bottom then leaving shortly afterwards. These plane would have shaped a part of the primary part of the operation, unloading US troops close to Maduro’s compound and battling floor forces, army consultants instructed NCS.
Caine later said that US forces first arrived at Maduro’s compound at 2:01 a.m.
Then, US troops searched the compound and captured the Venezuelan chief.
NCS synchronized 10 further movies over a six-minute interval exhibiting the second part of the mission. They present US assault helicopters offering protecting overhead cowl, preventing Venezuelan air defenses, as US transport helicopters eliminated Maduro and the forces that captured him from his compound.
With the component of shock now gone, the extraction drive navigated an intense firefight between US assault helicopters and Venezuelan forces.
Sustained gunfire erupts within the movies. The sound is per Direct Action Penetrator (DAP) MH-60 Black Hawks, a sort of American assault helicopter, firing 30-millimeter autocannons, in accordance to weapons consultants.
Next, what seems to be retaliatory anti-aircraft fireplace blazes by means of the night time because the assault helicopters proceed firing.
Twenty seconds after this, a video uncovered by online researcher MPGeoint and synchronized by NCS reveals a US transport helicopter decreasing towards Maduro’s fortified compound.
This was the purpose of highest vulnerability, in accordance to army consultants.
“Any (helicopter) is most vulnerable one minute out from landing and one minute after takeoff,” Bryant defined.
Steffan Watkins, an open-source analysis advisor who tracks plane, instructed NCS that whereas a shifting goal is tougher to hit – partly due to army countermeasures – when a helicopter lands it turns into a “sitting duck.”
Proximity to the bottom additionally will increase the susceptibility to assault, Jenzen-Jones added.
“During takeoff and landing, helicopters fly slowly, hover in place and are of course closer to the ground. This makes them an easier target for many weapons, especially simpler, direct-fire weapons, like guns,” he mentioned.
The footage then reveals what seems to be Maduro’s removing from Venezuelan soil. One minute and 44 seconds after we see a helicopter touchdown, the video reveals a cloud of mud simply exterior the fortified compound, then a volley of rockets, and a Chinook helicopter takes off. About 20 seconds later, one other follows it.
Bryant mirrored on this stage of the mission: “One of the main tactics we use – it’s a mantra of US special operations – is speed, surprise and violence of action.”
One of the transport helicopters is seen leaving the Fort Tiuna space, flying with out lights, gaining altitude rapidly and hugging the close by foothills, earlier than disappearing into the darkness.
The gunfire and explosions in Caracas had stopped by 3 a.m., a witness instructed NCS. An hour later, the sounds of plane had fully light from the town, he mentioned.
US forces flew out of Venezuelan airspace at round 4.29 a.m., in accordance to Caine. In a video recorded at 4 a.m., in accordance to the eyewitness filming, 5 Chinooks and 7 Black Hawks are seen flying east towards Higuerote. Experts instructed NCS these plane might have been defending the route taken by Maduro’s helicopter because it left the scene.
The actual location inside Fort Tiuna the place Maduro was captured, and the main points of what occurred when US forces landed inside it, haven’t been absolutely revealed.
NCS’s analysis now offers some clues as to the place Maduro might have been based mostly off his earlier social media posts that match the areas the place the US transport helicopter touched down and took off.
The closely fortified nature of this website – which is of course protected by steep hills on three sides and options excessive privateness partitions and a number of safety checkpoints – reveals how dangerous it was for US troops to land there. Residential options of the compound, similar to a massive swimming pool and patio, are additionally a reminder of the extraordinary nature of this mission: to seize a president and his spouse at residence.
In July 2024, Maduro posted footage exhibiting him ingesting espresso along with his spouse, Cilia Flores, beneath a pergola on a patio as he confirmed her movies set to marketing campaign music. NCS geolocated that to the backyard of a massive residence, accomplished in 2016, on the far finish of the compound. The pergola was transformed into a massive white construction final yr, in accordance to satellite tv for pc imagery.
In May and July 2025, Maduro posted two further movies exhibiting him within the car parking zone exterior the identical compound, once more having espresso along with his spouse and different people. The movies have been first geolocated by Arrecho, a pseudonymous open-source researcher.
Satellite pictures taken after the raid present vital injury from an explosion at one other location on this website.
The complicated US operation concerned US personnel and tools throughout air, land and sea – including Delta Force operators and an FBI unit coming into from a number of touchdown zones – sources instructed NCS. But the important thing second to extract Maduro from Caracas occurred inside a very small timeframe.
“Just one small factor could have flipped the coin on this,” Bryant mentioned.
Venezuelan authorities later said the operation claimed 100 lives, individually the Cuban authorities mentioned 32 Cubans from the presidential safety element had died. The Trump administration mentioned no American lives have been misplaced.
Nevertheless, the danger had been flagged by US officers in a Department of Justice document dated December 23, however launched publicly after the raid. The memo warned that US forces have been anticipated to encounter “significant resistance,” together with dozens of anti-aircraft batteries able to downing helicopters.
“This is an attack that could have gone very, very badly,” President Donald Trump mentioned in a information convention following the operation. “We could have lost a lot of people last night,” he added.
In response to NCS’s findings, US Southern Command mentioned they’d nothing additional to add past Caine’s feedback.
Despite the mission’s success, Bryant additionally drew consideration to the extent of threat US troops confronted, referring to the operation as a “ticking time bomb.”
“You’re entering the heart of a sovereign nation, not with the capability of the United States, but still if you parallel it, imagine Russia or China coming in and trying to abduct the US president,” Bryant mentioned.
“Given the amount of resistance we see from the footage, it might have ended up being a no-go operation in any other context.”
Credits:
Reporters: Isaac Yee, Avery Schmitz, Thomas Bordeaux, Katie Polglase, Allegra Goodwin and Alfredo Meza
Investigative Video Editor: Mark Baron
Data & Graphics Editor: Lou Robinson
Supervising Editor, Visual Investigations: Gianluca Mezzofiore
Senior Investigative Editor: Ed Upright
Photojournalists: Christian Streib and Clayton Nagel