MOAR INSIGHT TO HELOS IN THE "TRAINING EXERCISE"
Commenting to confirm OPs statements. Just sent the video to a reliable source and received the following…
The Black Hawks had air-to-air refueling probes on them; which means they are aircraft and aircrew from the 160th SOAR. I'm not saying these guys flew the Bin Laden raid, but if you wanted to fly undetected through Pakistani airspace to assault a possibly heavily fortified and defended compound to get Bin Laden, well, these are the guys you'd call. They are the only guys that have air-to-air refueling capability on Black Hawks.
In my 30-years experience in Army Aviation, I've only ever heard of an "exercise" in a metropolitan area…once. The 1st Special Forces group flew a training mission near the outskirts of Seattle in the 1998 timeframe. It was not well coordinated with the civilian population and local law enforcement. Let's just say the poop kinda hit the fan. It was virtually a career ender for those responsible….. and it was nowhere near the downtown metropolitan area.
Guys that do this stuff for a living have suitable training sites away from the civilian populace. There is limited value added, and a huge risk incurred, to conduct such training in a heavily populated area for "realism." The cost-benefit calculus doesn't work out. It's just not worth it. Training for urban operations is conducted at training sites. Sometimes aggressive exercises are conducted in more populated areas overseas, not in the U.S. though.
https://voat.co/v/QRV/3022857