whitlock stays put while continuing to roll. says it's safe to get out. >> emergency workers stationed at the end of the race course are on the scene within seconds. >> is someone in there? >> amazingly they were all fine without a scratch. >> not a scratch on us. >> whitlock brushes himself off and starts shooting again. >> i wanted to shoot the helicopter i just came down to maybe give myself a bit of a buffer. >> the fire department quickly secures the scene and the leaking fuel is controlled. whitlock is grateful to the pilot whose quick thinking, he says, averted a more serious situation. >> we were coming down right on top of the road where there was a lot of spectators on the road. he put it down on the hill where he did. if he hadn't of done that, there would have been a lot of people hurt. >> certainly a memorable trip. despite the close call, he says, he'd fly again. >> i have my one get out of jail free card. i think statistically i should be good. >>> a giant inflatable slide goes airborne at a children's soccer tour

this is a two-part series by craig whitlock and the first part deals with west africa.guess a major base in wagadugu, and where i have been, incidentally, so don't make fun of it. but, in wagadugu, apparently this is the central point in west africa for maintaining and running spy plane operations with contractors run by the u.s. military special forces operations but using contractors which of course the use of contractors brings with it deny ability in case anything goes wrong and the second piece dealt with west africa. and, the countries in the horn of africa. and, specifically, ethiopia and djibouti and, he goes into another long detailed report on what we're doing in those countries. there's a lot of countries involved. i mean, in the west alone, it is mauratania -- i should say the east and west as far as mauratania, uganda, and djibouti and several more and the interesting thing is, he lists two sources, mr. whitlock in the "washington post" series, two sources, one are public contracts that have been signed between the government and contractors. who are runnin