A10 "friendly fire"" incident"

I have just watched the footage that The Sun got hold of. Its truly horrifying!! The number of mistakes that were made just beggars belief. I suppose in mitigation the pilots were at 10,000 feet and flying at 400 knots but even so - this is their job!! They even changed radio channel to a frequency the British forces were not transmitting on!!

If you get to see the whole thing then its shocking[:#]

[HighFlyer]

We have been watching the You Tube uploads today in the office.

Thanks,
Sarah

I agree that the images were shocking and disciplinary action needs to be taken against those responsible(not that such action will be of any succour to the famility of the soldier who was killed). BUT, should there not be a long hard look taken at the procedures within the MoD which allowed the film to be 'leaked' to the media?

[Bazz]

I am not defending the action of the American pilots; the outcome was terrible! I do not believe we, on this site, are qualified to judge this. It was, as most Blue on Blue incidents are, extremely tragic. These young American pilots were not "Gung-Ho" "Shoot-'em-up" types and demonstrated genuine remorse when the mistake was realised.

My consolations and deepest sympathy go to the family and friends of the dead soldier and his injured comrades but I also shed a tear for the A10 pilots - they have to live with this for the rest of their lives.

"Only the dead have seen the end of war" Plato.

I have to say that if you have not been in a combat situation and watch it in the comfort of your home /office it comes off as very bad. But in the actual conditions tyhat were going on, it is easy to make those mistakes.
The transcript of the conversations is the telling point.

[HighFlyer]

Well said Barry!

Thanks,
Sarah

[Scrooge]

Ok, I will step up and defend the actions of the pilot, he is being guided on to the target, from his view point he is seeing a truck, that's it.There is an air control officer guiding him the whole way, it's his job to find out if the convoy is friendly or hostile.

Normally the "allied" force carry what can best be described as a transponder, if it gets pinged it sends out a signal saying friendly, why this convoy didn't have one I have no idea, that is the shocking mistake.

Sorry scrooge, thats incorrect. After Gulf War 1 and the mistakes made there, the USA was working on a new electronic system to avoid these problems, but it has been too expensive to fit to all vehicles, so the secondary process was to paint tyhe tops of the allied vehicles. The pilots who are so it seems ANG pilots, mistook the orange markings for orange missiles.

Just watched it again - as with all things that go wrong its not just one thing that causes the incident but a number - Ground control confusing east with west, the orange markers on the vehicles, the change of frequency, the lack of other air support to verify, the wrong information regarding friendly troops - all end, as ever in a catastrophe!!

I think the most annoying thing about this incident (which is 4 years old I think) at this point in time - is the fact that the US military would not release the footage to the inquest - shameful!! And now they will be having an inquest and a witch hunt into their own internal operations to find out who leaked it!!

The MOD also have a lot to answer as well.

The entire blame cannot be put on the pilots. Judging from the video, it seems as though they were suspicious that the vehicles could have been friendlies, or at least one of the pilots was. The ATC kept assuring them that there were no friendlies up in their area. The ATC obviously had no idea what the locations of UK troops were despite the fact that we are allies. That, to me, is totally irresponsible.

[Scrooge]

They don't have it ! holy crap, When I was talking to Nellis this was supposed to be out by 2002 ! we are talking about AGCCS and ASAS systems right ? It's been a while since I worked with them so I figured by now they would be a mature product.

Well in that case I take back what I said, crap I still feel for the pilot, he's following directions, that must be a horrible feeling.

Of course my thoughts go out to the soldiers family

Originally posted by MarkJ
the fact that the US military would not release the footage to the inquest - shameful!! And now they will be having an inquest and a witch hunt into their own internal operations to find out who leaked it!!

You seem to have misunderstood where the 'leak' came from MarkJ. It did not come from the US - they refused to release the footage to a civil court (in this case an Inquest). The so-called 'leak' (or perhaps press manipulation would be a more apt phrase) came from the Ministry of Defence in London.

Originally posted by Treelo
The so-called 'leak' (or perhaps press manipulation would be a more apt phrase) came from the Ministry of Defence in London.

Well good for them I say!!

Why was it such an issue getting this footage in the first place. I tend to agree with some of the sentiments above that it was a terrible accident - but trying to keep the footage secret just makes me think that there was someting to hide!!

Originally posted by MarkJ

Originally posted by Treelo
The so-called 'leak' (or perhaps press manipulation would be a more apt phrase) came from the Ministry of Defence in London.

Well good for them I say!!

Why was it such an issue getting this footage in the first place. I tend to agree with some of the sentiments above that it was a terrible accident - but trying to keep the footage secret just makes me think that there was someting to hide!!

I think the problem comes from a perception that any footage of military equipment (in this case the cockpit + HUD of the aircreaft in question) leaves that equipment open to 'interrogation' by Governments (and others) of countries that are not quite as friendly as the owners of the equipment would like [:w]

Though I have nothing to support this thought, I don't believe that the acquisition of the footage by the MoD was particularly recent.