In July 2000, Turkey selected Bell Helicopter Textron s AH-1Z as the ATAK winner. Confusion over the situation arose when, two days later, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reported that the helicopter transfer had been delayed due to bad weather. Ten days after that, the unified military headquarters at Khankala air base in Chechnya announced that two Ka-50 helicopters had been operational for a month and were about to complete combat tests in Chechnya. With an announced operational ceiling of 5,000 meters 1,000 meters more than previously mentioned the Black Sharks were able to reach targets that the Mi-24 Hinds could not. On February 1, television journalists Sergey Semenov and Yevgeniy Kirichenko aired reports on Russian Public TV that involved flying with a Ka-50 mission.
Additional reconnaissance is carried out in the target area.
We make sure that we have the right target, report back to the command post that we are ready to strike, and having obtained the go-ahead, we go into action. On the Hind was Semenov s film crew, while all of the helicopters were flying as low as 15 to 20 meters. The 20-minute flight to the target was scrubbed when fog settled onto the mountain. Because the mujahedin attempted attacks on other Russian airfields, the Black Sharks were constantly restationed. The Russian flight crews said that their new helicopters were being photographed from the ground, based on intercepted radio conversations and camera flashes.