Friendly fire

[Frizbee 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Tovarish @ April 20 2002,01:03)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (IceFire @ April 20 2002,00:59)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Why are you so sure that we was just some cocky pilot who wanted to be a cowboy??  We havn't even heard from the guy yet!<span id='postcolor'>

We've heard a lot from his commanders. I live in Ottawa, I go to school 10 mins away from the Department of National Defense, and this is all our news papers are talking about. He was told twice by his commander not to fire, and he did anyways.<span id='postcolor'>

But how many times over history has a low ranking officer been used as a scapegoat by senior officials just to cover their own backsides.

In Australia alone I can think of several examples, the first that springs to mind being the Black Hawk crash, where 18 SAS soldiers died in a night operation.

The Senior officers were all set to court marshall the Major who flew the number one helicopter, and who was one of the only (two??) pilots who survived.

The only reason they backed down from their statements that the crash was "His fault" and not caused by the NVG's they were wearing, and other problems, was that almost two dozen other officers threatened to quit if they went ahead.

[Tovarish 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Frizbee @ April 20 2002,03:04)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">But its only rarely considered that in honest mistakes, or bad intelligence situations, that the Pilot who commited the Blue-on-Blue engagement will have to live for the rest of their life with the knowledge that they killed friendly forces.<span id='postcolor'>

Granted, and I've expressed that the pilot must be feeling the lowest of his life right now, but still, the fact is that he was told not once but twice to hold his fire by his commander, and he fired anyway...just because of some muzzle flashes in the dark...

[second_draw 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (madmike @ April 20 2002,00:40)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">It happened in the gulf war and ten years later nothing has changed.<span id='postcolor'>

See, another "important" event forgotten. Give me one reason as why this incident (recent bombing of canadians) will be "remembered" and therefore why it will not happen again?

[foxer 0]

If the pilot messed up,it's because he's a hotshot.He screwed up.Just like in the gulf war when usa helicopters were hitting the usa tanks(bradley?) ,the heli pilot messed up ,because he was an hotshot,when i seen it on discovery channel they said he was lead helicopter,but higher ranking guys told him not to fly lead.Soo he mesed up,but kinda funny when he had to follow his waypoints and couldn't return to base,he was saying like " I killed people tonight",then his co pilot(?) said something ,can't remember.

Anyways,I don't think all U.S. pilots are bad,just some are ,if any country had the same amount of aircrafts we do ,i bet you they will have friendly fire also.

This was an accident kinda.If they was fighting someone on the ground and they called in air support and the plane messed up and hit the wrong people,that is an accident.But this guy was just too ready to pull the trigger(drop the bomb).If he would see pictures of what the bombs do when they blow up ,i bet he wouldn't have too much of an trigger finger.

About another friendly fire story.In vietnam they (us soldiers) wascharging up a hill to take it,well they got pin down and VC came in the back of them,anyways they got stuck in the middle and snipers were picking them off and they had lots of dead and wounded,they couldn't get them out soo they had to sit and wait and hold the ground until more guys got to recuse them.Well to guide in bombers on where to shoot ,they pop up flares and the plane will hit what he sees,anyways the flare goes up and the wind blows the flare back on them,soo the bomber sees abunch of people and drops his bomb on it,what the pilot didn't know was thats where the officers ,wounded,medic's were all at,Soo it killed them all but one medic,and some wounded peopl lived.Anyways i don't know the full story.

done .

[scout 0]

ok. all those who think blue-on-blue can be prevented totaly just show their ignorance at how difficult are ops, and how it is difficult to operate under stress condition.

sorry guys, but all u've just said is lab knowledge.

things that are simple in day to day are extremly hard in combat, and thats what happened probably to this pilot, he just handled stress badly.

so i would suggest to hear it all out, before passing judgement, especially if u dont KNOW whats going on in combat ok?

[Assault (CAN) 1]

The four dead are:

*Sgt. Marc D. Leger, 29, of Lancaster, Ontario

*Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, 25, of Montreal, Quebec

*Pvt. Richard A. Green, 22, of Edmonton, Alberta

*Pvt. Nathan Smith, 27, of Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia

The seriously injured have been sent to Rammstein Airbase in Germany and the less injured stayed in Kandahar. The flags at my Armoury (and all others in the forces) have been lowered to half-mast for respect for the dead.

This incedent does not surpise me, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Apparently the pilot in the F-16 saw muzzle flashes from the ground and assumed he was being fired at. I speculate that he might have also seen tracers bouncing up into the air from the live fire excercise, leading him to believe he was under 'attack'.

The pilot radioed that he was being 'fired at' and requested that he be allowed to drop an LGB; request denied. The pilot was only supposed to engage in self defence, since small arms fire is no real threat to an F-16 his request was denied.

He envoked his right of self defence and dropped his bomb anyway.

Both sides were aware that there was a live-fire excercise going on in the area 14 km south of the Kandahar airbase, aparently the pilot forgot about that.

Anyone with a lick of common sense would know that the Taliban are pretty much defeated and would not posses any functional AAA equipment, let alone deploy it. It seems to me that the pilot was a bit action starved and was looking for the smallest excuse to bomb the crap out of something. He did not excersise any restraint, nor give any thought to whom he might be bombing, nor did he bother to check where he was in the first place. I hope he definately loses his wings for life, he should be flying transport aircraft from now on.

I wasn't surprised by this because nearly a quarter of U.S. casualties from the Gulf War were caused by 'freindly fire'. I am not saying that this is strictly an American thing, it has happened in other countries too. It's just sad that Canada goes to war and loses more troops to Americans than to the Taliban.

Tyler

[edit] What realy pissed me off is that George Bush didn't even make any mention or apology of the Canadian soldiers who were killed, during his first official speech. All we got was some afterward comments by that Ari Fliesher dick. During some interview later on while he was golfing(or something like that), G.Bush expressed his 'heartfelt sorrow' for what happened. Alot of Canadians feel let down.

Here is a link to the pictures of the deceased soldiers along with a list of the wounded. Go here.

Here is a quote I pulled off CNN.com which seems to confirm what I suspected earlier: The Associated Press reported from Kandahar that Afghan fighters manning a checkpoint near the accident site reported seeing eight or 10 red streaks heading skyward at a 45-degree angle, which they assumed to be tracer bullets from the exercise.

The pilots seemed to have no clue where they were:

None of the pilots' actions indicated they were aware they were in a "Restricted Operating Zone," Pentagon officials said.

Apparently, the pilot made a request to strafe the area with 20mm gunfire but that request was denied because that would require him to go below the 11,000 foot altitude restriction that was placed over the excercise area, I guess he didn't know about that.

This isn't the first incedent where Canadians were killed by American fire. In 1944, 160 Polish and Canadian soldiers were killed when American planes bombed them as they were attacking German lines.

The bodies of the 4 dead soldiers are due back in Canada this Saturday.

Tyler

[scout 0]

okay so maybe some Dumbass forgot to inform its wing about the EX. or the guy was in the toilet, or maybe he is just a hotshot, but this looks to me like a comm-problem, otherwise they would INFORM him while denying shooting.

thats actually the cause of 80% of all blue-on-blue. simple comm problem that the HQ just "forget" about.

the fact that quarter of the casualties of the US in 1991 came from blue-on-blue just indicates how few losses they had in action against the enemy, thats all.

almost in every battle there is a blue-on-blue, ur being told only about those that has casualties

[IceFire 0]

I don't think anyof you can really judge unless you were in that pilots seat yourself.

If he was a hotshot, then I agree that he should be dealt with appropriately.

But if there was anyother reason outside of him being a "cocky hotshot" which I would not at all be surprised if there was, than I honestly think that approprate measures should be made in the future to prevent this.

I really really doubt that he intended to kill Canadian soldier there.

Alot of things can happen in war. Things arn't so black and white.

[Renagade 0]

Yeah but the question u have to ask urself is how many times have u accidently blown ur teammates up in OFP when flying the chopper or plane or vice versa so i guess in real combat it would be ten times as easy for things to go wrong.

[Assault (CAN) 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">okay so maybe some Dumbass forgot to inform its wing about the EX. or the guy was in the toilet, or maybe he is just a hotshot, but this looks to me like a comm-problem, otherwise they would INFORM him while denying shooting.

thats actually the cause of 80% of all blue-on-blue. simple comm problem that the HQ just "forget" about.

<span id='postcolor'>

If it is such a simple problem, why hasn't it been fixed?

I doubt stress or the 'heat of war' is what caused the pilot to overreact. What war? What stress? He was on a standard patrol FFS. What guy would be scared of small arms fire from thousands of feet? The 'war' in Afghanistan is clearly one sided. Far more Taliban have died than American troops. I think the pilot was just looking for an excuse to see some action.

Tyler

[Tovarish 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Renagade @ April 20 2002,07:21)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Yeah but the question u have to ask urself is how many times have u accidently blown ur teammates up in OFP when flying the chopper or plane or vice versa so i guess in real combat it would be ten times as easy for things to go wrong.<span id='postcolor'>

Real life is not a game, there is no "reset" button

[Warin 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Real life is not a game, there is no "reset" button<span id='postcolor'>

I totally agree...

Thing is, these four families will never be the same because of what happened.

You cant eliminate friendly fire. The heat of battle makes it impossible. It's only when the friendly fire is so meaningless that it makes me so angry.

If this had happened during an actual operation, I for one would be asking people to be understanding. After all, shit happens.

But they were training in a designated area.

And that is what makes it unacceptable, and why I will continue to refer to this pilot as a trigger happy cowboy even if I DONT know all the facts. AM I being judgemental? Damn right. But it's my opinion and I have right to it.

Are all American reservist pilots trigger happy cowboys? I doubt it.

[rpc007 0]

Deleted

[madmike 0]

how can this be compared to a game??

In real life you would recieve hundreds of hours of training, theory and practical and many of the Standard operating proceedures are done so many times that they become automatic. Stuff like when to fire etc so it shouldnt happen.

I know there is a weakness in the training that US fighter pilots are recieving atm.

People are saying in here "you wernt there, in war its scary etc", if the SOPs have been rehersed so many times it isnt even on the mind. its like driving a car and anyone can do it.

[Tovarish 0]

0--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (rpc007 @ April 21 2002,010)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">well from that CNN quote that Assault posted earlier it said they were shooting skyward..... why would they shoot skyward<span id='postcolor'>

Assault already explained this

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I speculate that he might have also seen tracers bouncing up into the air from the live fire excercise, leading him to believe he was under 'attack'.

<span id='postcolor'>