virtualpender
09-16-2002, 12:59 AM
WASHINGTON (*******) - Two U.S. F-16 fighter pilots have been charged with manslaughter and assault in the April "friendly fire" bombing of Canadian troops in Afghanistan that killed four soldiers and injured eight, the Air Force said on Friday.
The highly unusual criminal charges by the Air Force against Illinois Air National Guard pilots Maj. Harry Schmidt and Maj. William Umbach followed a long investigation of the April 18 bombing.
Schmidt, who launched a 500-pound (227 kg) laser-guided bomb on Canadian troops conducting a night live fire exercise near the Kandahar airport, and flight leader Umbach each face four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of assault.
Schmidt was also charged with failing to exercise appropriate flight discipline and not complying with the military "rules of engagement" in the area. Umbach was also charged with negligently failing to exercise appropriate flight command and control and ensure compliance with the rules of engagement
Anonymous
09-16-2002, 01:08 AM
yep... as is mentioned many times, if you're being fired on by small arms fire, just fly higher out of reach. his controller specifically told him to wait and not drop his bomb until he received permission and he did it anyway... with all the other friendly fire incidents going on, you'd think they'd be more careful these days... these constituted the first time canadian troops have been killed since the korean war.
virtualpender
09-16-2002, 02:27 AM
I read a letter written by a 101st Abn Div platoon sergeant (in fact, I should post a link to it) in which he said that they feared friendly fire from aircraft more than Al Qaida on the ground.
Anonymous
09-16-2002, 10:02 AM
well, what's different about this one, is that his controller told him not to. It was a direct order which he disobeyed. If you look at other friendly fire incidents, such as the jdam bomb that blew up some of our sf guys and northern alliance guys at mazar e sharif, it was a malfunctioning GPS unit / pilot error that caused it. was a mistake... which obviously shouldn't be a legal issue... this however i don't feel falls into the same group.
[SAB]Grey
09-16-2002, 01:31 PM
The problem with this is it wasn't an accident they were told not to fire and they did it anyway. I am not in the military but I would assume that there would have been some kind of action taken against them even if no one had died or been injured, and rightly so.
[ 09-16-2002, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: [SAB]Grey ]
>these constituted the first time canadian
>troops have been killed since the korean war.
This is true for official wars, but the Canadians have always sent a disproportionately large amount of 'peacekeepers' (I hate the word)
around the world compared to other countries. So far, 150 Canadians have been killed since the 1950s.
Something like the Medak Pocket incident, which was a 15 hour long firefight between the Croat Army and the Canadians can hardly be considered a peacekeeping mission. Incidentally, the number killed in this small battle was Croats - 30, Canadians - 0. More the half of the Canadians were reservists.
Also, roughly 30,000 to 40,000 joined the US Military during the Vietnam War. 103 Canadian names are inscribed on The Wall and there was also one Canadian MOH recipient.
(Includes cockpit transcript)
--
'Bomb's away, cranking left'
National Post
September 14, 2002
Major Harry Schmidt's last day as one of the United States's elite fighter pilots began at 10:30 a.m., when he rolled out of bed to do some laundry.
After cleaning his shirts, the 37-year-old grabbed some lunch and headed to the medical clinic at Al Jaber airbase in Kuwait. He needed to pick up some "go-pills" -- slang for dexedrine, a drug commonly used in the military to help soldiers fight fatigue -- to use during a long mission scheduled for later that evening.
While Maj. Schmidt collected his meds, his partner for the April 17 exercise, Major William Umbach, was sneaking in an afternoon nap. The soft-spoken 43-year-old woke up in time for a mandatory 3 p.m. meeting, where he and Maj. Schmidt were briefed on the details of a mission that may well turn out to be their last ride in a U.S. fighter jet.
The F-16 pilots, both members of the 183rd Fighter Wing in Springfield, Ill., were to fly their planes into Afghanistan, where they would act as backup for any ground troops who might run into trouble.
Maj. Umbach, a commercial airline pilot who spent a few weekends a year in the Illinois National Guard, would be the lead pilot. Maj. Schmidt, a former "Top Gun" instructor revered as much for his natural gift for flying as his dedication and professionalism, would serve as the wingman.
By dinnertime, the two men were well on their way to Afghanistan.
At around the same time, a team of paratroopers from Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry was preparing to conduct a night-time, live-fire training exercise at Tarnak Farm, a former al-Qaeda compound near Kandahar that had been under allied control since just after Christmas.
Over the previous four to six weeks, coalition forces had encountered a series of night-time hit-and-run attacks by enemies equipped with small firearms and rocket-propelled grenades. The April 17 training exercise was supposed to refresh the Princess Pats on how to react to such attacks.
By 3:30 p.m., members of A Company, Third Battalion, had begun preparing the site for the night's planned exercise. Two separate ranges had been set up, one to practise attacking tanks, the other to simulate troops advancing up deep irrigation canals.
Following standard protocol, Canadian commanders notified the Americans that allied troops were in the area.
That message, however, never made it to the American pilots who would soon be flying overhead.
In a report released yesterday, investigators concluded that those responsible for preparing the pilots' pre-flight briefs considered some intelligence to be too "cumbersome and difficult to work with." As a result, some crucial information -- including the whereabouts of the Canadian troops -- was not included.
It would not be the only mistake made that day.
At 9:20 p.m. local time, Majors Schmidt and Umbach had already begun their journey back to Kuwait. The men were manoeuvring their jets toward a nearby refuelling plane when they noticed ground fire below.
Maj. Umbach asked for permission to mark the target. He was told to go ahead.
Three minutes later, Maj. Schmidt -- who along with Maj. Umbach remained hovering in an area they themselves deemed to be a potential threat -- asks the pilot of a nearby AWACS radar plane for "permission to lay down some 20 mike-mike."
"Let's just make sure that, uh, that it's not friendly, that's all," responds Maj. Umbach, who asks for more detail about the position of the target.
The AWACS plane, on orders from the Chief of Combat Operations, immediately denied Maj. Schmidt's request.
A minute later, after Maj. Umbach has asked his partner to check his "sparkles" -- a reference to the target as it's seen through night goggles -- the AWACS plane cuts in again.
"Hold fire, I need details on SAFIRE," says the pilot, referring to surface-to-air fire.
Four seconds after that warning, however, Maj. Schmidt invokes the right of every soldier assigned to a war zone. Convinced that Maj. Umbach has come under fire, the Top Gun pilot swoops in on the offensive.
"OK, I have got some men on the road and it looks like a piece of artillery firing at us," he says. "I am rolling in in self-defence."
Just moments before Maj. Schmidt made his final turn toward Tarnak Farms, 25-year-old Ainsworth Dyer had stood up to take his turn at the live-fire training exercise.
That turn would never come.
Maj. Schmidt, more than a minute after claiming self-defence, unleashed a 225-kg GBU-12 laser-guided bomb directly at the spot where the Montreal native was standing.
"Bomb's away, cranking left," Maj. Schmidt says.
Forty-two seconds later, he confirms his destruction.
"Shack!" he exclaims.
Seconds later, another message comes from the Chief of Combat Operations: "Disengage, friendlies Kandahar."
It was too late. The "shack" had already done its damage.
Corp. Dyer and Private Nathan Smith were killed instantly. Sergeant Marc Leger, who was climbing the west wall of the firing range when the bomb was launched, also perished.
The final casualty was Private Richard Green, who was kneeling at the time of the explosion. The force of the blast was so great, investigators concluded, that it threw the 21-year-old "some distance to the southeast."
The sudden explosion triggered instant mayhem. Not only did the surviving Princess Pats immediately attend to the victims -- eight were injured, including Sergeant Lorne Ford, who likely would have died had a medic not replaced his dressings with a tourniquet -- but questions already began to fly over what went wrong in the air.
Why had the pilots not abandoned the area to properly assess the threat before moving in for attack, the standard practice in such situations?
A U.S. helicopter pilot, who saw the training exercise just minutes before the pilots of the F-16s did, later testified the gunfire was clearly not higher than 1,000 feet. Why couldn't Maj. Schmidt and Maj. Umbach, two experienced pilots, not see that for themselves?
And why did Maj. Schmidt, adamant that his partner was under attack, not warn him to move out of range from the troops on the ground?
It appears that even the two pilots were doubting their own actions while flying back to Kuwait.
Twenty seconds after the bombing, Maj. Umbach asks the AWACS plane to "confirm that they were shooting at us."
Later still, Maj. Schmidt says: "I hope that was the right thing to do."
"Me too," Maj. Umbach says.
RADIO TRANSCRIPT: 'I HOPE THAT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO...'
Transcript excerpts of the air-to-air communication on April 17, 2002, between Major Harry Schmidt (call sign Coffee 52), who dropped the fatal 225-kilogram bomb; Major William Umbach (call sign Coffee 51), his flight commander; and a controller in an AWACS surveillance plane overseeing the airspace.
- - -
21:22:38 Coffee 51: Do you have good co-ordinate for a [target site] or do you need me to roll in?
21:22:42 Coffee 52: Standby. I'll mark it right now
21:22:47 Coffee 52: I'm in from the southeast.
21:22:52 (Coffee 52 marks the target)
21:23:45 Coffee 51: Let's just make sure that ... that it's not friendly, that's all.
21:23:51 Coffee 51: When you got a chance, put on the [censored] if you got a good hack on it. (Coffee 51 requests jet-to-jet transfer of co-ordinates through computers.)
21:24:39 Coffee 52: I'm gonna flow down here to the southwest.
21:24:48 Coffee 51: Check my sparkle, check my sparkle to see if it looks good. (Sensors from both aircraft soon after are synchronized by data link on the same area on the ground.)
21:24:55 Coffee 51: Yeah. I'm contact your sparkle as well. (Pilot confirms that both laser spot trackers are on the same target.)
21:25:00 AWACS: Coffee 51, hold fire. I need details on SAFIRE [Surface-to-air fire] ... (Coffee 52's request to open fire with a 20-millimetre cannon is denied because AWACS requires more information.)
21:25:04 Coffee 52: OK, I have got some men on the road and it looks like a piece of artillery firing at us. I am rolling in self-defence. (At 21:25:11, Coffee 52 initiates a sharp right-hand turn to initiate weapon delivery.)
21:25:17 Coffee 51: Check Master Arm, Laser Arm and check you are not in mark. (Coffee 51 supports Coffee 52's attack by confirming his weapons release settings.)
21:25:23 Coffee 52: I'm in from the southwest.
21:25:37 Coffee 51: Do you show him on a bridge?
21:25:39 Coffee 52: Bomb's away, cranking left.
21:25:49 Coffee 51: Check ... deedle, deedle.
21:25:52 Coffee 52: I am fine.
21:25:54 Coffee 52: Laser's on.
21:26:01 Coffee 52: Shack! (Bomb impact)
21:26:11 AWACS: Coffee 51 disengage. Friendlies Kandahar (Pilot directed to clear the area due to proximity to alliance and friendly troops).
21:26:16 Coffee 52: Copy.... Disengaging south.
21:26:18 AWACS: Coffee 51.... How copy?
21:26:21 Coffee 51: Copy.... Can you confirm that they were shooting at us?
21:26:31 AWACS: Coffee 51.... You are cleared. Self-defence ... wants you to work south ... Kandahar. (The call reflects the confusion in the AWACS over what has transpired since the "self-defence" call. It is worth noting that none of the communications surrounding the weapon setup or release was transmitted on ... the primary AWACS controlling frequency.)
21:27:15 AWACS: Coffee 51 ... I need co-ordinates when able and I need to know if any rounds were fired.
21:27:23 Coffee 51: Go ahead.
21:27:25 Coffee 52: Yeah, I had one bomb dropped ... in the vicinity of ... 31 24 N point 78, 65 43, point 522. That's an estimate ... if you are our general vicinity. (The co-ordinates correspond to a point about eight to 10 kilometres from the Tarnak Farm area.)
21:27:55 AWACS: Coffee 51. Repeat east co-ordinate.
21:28:01 Coffee 52: Yeah. I am not so sure it's that accurate. I don't have an accurate co-ordinate right now. Do you want me to go back and get you one?
21:28:07 AWACS: ... negative.
21:28:13 Coffee 51: Let's go back safe.
21:28:26 Coffee 52: Yeah! They were definitely shooting at you.
21:28:29 Coffee 52: It sure seemed that they were tracking around and everything, and, trying to lead.
21:28:35 Coffee 51: Yeah. We had our lights on and it wasn't helping I don't think.
21:28:42 Coffee 52: I had a group of guys on a road around a gun and it did not look organized like it would be our guys.
21:28:49 Coffee 51: It seems like it was right on a bridge. That's kind of where I was at.
21:28:52 Coffee 52: Yeah, not quite. (Pause) I hope that was the right thing to do.
21:28:53 Coffee 51: Me too...
21:29:02 AWACS: Coffee 51...
21:29:03 Coffee 51: Go ahead.
21:29:04 AWACS: Yeah, I need type of bomb dropped, result, and type of SAFIRE. (Even this late in the engagement Coffee 51 has still not completed the requirements for the SAFIRE report.)
21:29:10 Coffee 51: That was a single GBU-12 dropped. It was a direct hit on ... the artillery piece that was firing. As far as the SAFIRE ... Coffee 52, 51, what do you have on that?
21:29:27 Coffee 52: I'd say the same. It was ... sort of continuous fire and ... it appeared to be leading us as we were flying by and then as we came back around.
21:29:27 AWACS: Do you get a top altitude of the SAFIRE?
21:29:52 Coffee 51: Negative. They were burning out before here.
21:29:55 Coffee 52: I would estimate the top at approximately 10,000 ft. And just to let you know. We split ... sending 51 to the south and 52 went to the northeast. And ... one of the guns turned back around to the east firing at 52 ... as well.
21:30:40 AWACS: Coffee 51, could you just repeat the co-ordinate that you passed earlier?
21:30:43 Coffee 51: He wants the co-ordinate again.
21:30:45 Coffee 52: Yeah, I do not have the proper co-ordinate for that.
21:31:28 Coffee 52: Yeah, standby for the microscope, huh?
21:31:30 Coffee 51: Yeah.
MEDALS:
On Sept. 20, Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson will award the South-West Asia Service Medal with bar to 29 members of the Canadian Forces involved in the fight against terrorism, including four soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
Sgt. Marc Leger, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, Pte. Richard Green and Pte. Nathan Smith will be awarded the medal posthumously.
The others to receive the medal are: Chief Warrant Officer Miles Leslie Barham, Master Seaman Brent Garrett Bethell, Master Seaman Stephen Franklin Birks, Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class Wallace Francis Brake, Master Seaman Terrence Eric Chubbs, Cpl. Lesley Alma Cooper, Cpl. Stephen Joseph de Montbrun, Leading Seaman Annette Noelle Gaucher, Master Cpl. Joseph Gerard Glynn, Ordinary Seaman Julie M. Greer, Petty Officer 1st Class Denysa Larocque, Master Seaman Sean D. Lothian, Sgt. Carol Lynn McCrea, Lt.-Col. John David Mitchell, Lt.-Cmdr. Robert David Monahan, Capt. Jeffrey Alexander Peck, Warrant Officer Jordan Trent Rasmussen,Leading Seaman Troy J. Rutschka, Master Cpl. Eric Joseph Normand Savard, Sgt. James Alan Trask, Cpl. Randolph Turner, Petty Officer 2nd Class David Sydney Tobias, Master Cpl. Mark Alexander Vonkalben, Lt.-Cmdr. Mark Edward White, Warrant Officer William Joseph Woodford.
Anonymous
09-18-2002, 10:50 AM
chilling stuff.. thanks for posting it. as I'm not a trained pilot and neither is that reporter, we can't make a military judgement, but it's obvious that he was told to hold fire until further confirmation. as the canadians weren't firing at the planes, the fire coming up from the ground was obviously not true.
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