SEAL's first-hand account of bin Laden killing

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Mark Owen: They're under 30 seconds. They're running down. The team leader in charge of the demo team, gets a hold of the commanding officer, gets him on the radio talking to the 47. Tells the 47 to do a go around. As he's doing the go around to the south, boom, the charge goes. Our Black Hawk's already gone. This explodes. Big, huge explosion. The 47 comes right back around. Lands. The guys load on, and now they're airborne. And we're done. We're clean from the target.

That glow at the compound was the helicopter on fire. The SEALs were on the ground 38 minutes, which meant their Black Hawk had been in the air, waiting, a little longer than planned.

Mark Owen: Sure enough. I'm sitting in the helicopter. And I turn around and look in the cockpit. I see flashing red lights. Well, I'm not a pilot, but anything flashing red in a vehicle is typically not good. It was gas gauges. We're about to run out of fuel.

During their escape the SEALs were forced to land in Pakistan. One of the CH-47s was waiting on the ground and refueled their Black Hawk.

Scott Pelley: The Pakistanis didn't get you on the way in, but you're concerned they're gonna get you on the way out?

Mark Owen: Sure. We got to get out of here.

Scott Pelley: When did you know that you were out of Pakistan?

Mark Owen: They radioed over. Came on over the radio said, "Hey, we're back in Afghanistan."

Scott Pelley: And you thought what?

Mark Owen: Big sigh of relief and, "Wow, we might have actually pulled this off. This is crazy."

Scott Pelley: Was there ever a point, Mark, in which you shook hands with each other, slapped each other on the back?

Mark Owen: Yeah, once we landed. Everybody kind of hugged and high-fived and took a couple photos. And, you know, it was our five minutes, "Hey, cool, we pulled this off. Good job." And then it was back to work.

In his book, Owen describes how they loaded the body onto a pickup truck and brought it to a hangar where Vice Admiral McRaven, head of Joint Special Operations Command was waiting. They unzipped the bag. Standing nearby was that CIA analyst who had spent years on bin Laden's trail.

Scott Pelley: Miss 100 percent, the woman who told you that she was 100 percent certain that they had Osama bin Laden?

Mark Owen: Right. So we're all in the hangar, immediately, we saw her. And, you know, she started crying. And it was a pretty significant event in her life, I'm sure.

Six hours later the president announced it to the world.

[President Barack Obama: Tonight, I can report to the American people and the world that the United States has conducted an operation that has killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda.]

Mark Owen: Yeah, we watched it live. It was-- they had some TVs set up in the hangar that we were at. And, literally still in your camouflage uniform, our gear kind of set to the side, and we heard it was coming on. We went and gathered around and watched the address.

Scott Pelley: What did you think?

Mark Owen: Now the world knows that we've got him.