Video of friendly fire

[nigel99 559]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,11021-10043,00.html

I feel sorry for the pilots. I usually feel that friendly fire where the US is involved is due to a gung-ho, we don't know our arse from our elbow syndrome - as it seems that often it is the allies who get hit (Canadians in Afganistan, Tornado in Iraq and this incident).

The US military should be ashamed of themselves for witholding this video and information from the Coronors office.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[Nick 0]

Think it's pretty ironic that the US military won't release this video considering the number of video's that have been released showing Spectre gunships and the like doing their stuff.

Heard part of the vocals and you could clearly hear the pilot talking about the targets having orange panels (the coalition troops anti friendly fire symbol!!), but command stated that there were no coalition troops in the area and that the attack should go ahead.

This is also the video that the US military denied even existed.

Will also mention that the pilots did show remorse over the attack which made them feel sick and that they would probably go to jail.

Nick
Gravity- It's not just a good idea, it's the LAW!

[Peter_Phile 0]

well done to those fuck-head pilots

yet another example of how the allies have more to fear from the yanks than the eye-rackies

i hope those pilots get hung, drawn and quartered but i suppose there will be lots of people jumping to their defence as usual

i wonder how much speed they had taken to keep awake?

[mr2mk1g 10]

Ok, I watched that intending not to get involved with the thread as I feel that friendly fire is simply something that is just going to happen sometimes in battlefield situations... but frankly that video is pretty appalling.

There are at least half a dozen references to the fact the vehicles are displaying orange panels before the pilot chooses to attack and even after the first attack run they're still asking themselves what it is that they're attacking - so they didn't even bother identifying the targets before opening up on them.

[nigel99 559]

Don't know I really thought that the pilots were quite cautious and asked a number of times for confirmation.

I suppose the scary question out of this is - if the military can't identify an allies vehicles - and not a backwoods 3rd world ally - how many innocent Iraqies are targeted?

What sickens me is that there are drones etc with hi-res imaging that should be able to pick out the Union Jack etc and I would have thought that the US military machine was sophisticated enough to see identify friend or foe.

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[dorbie 0]

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Don't know I really thought that the pilots were quite cautious and asked a number of times for confirmation.

When you ask the question, and the available information indicates "friendly" and you still attack then you've got things very wrong. They were cautious about asking but their conclusions and actions were anything but cautious. They went through the motions, the judgement was lacking, and they saw what they wanted to see.

To recognize a big patch of orange on a vehicle and still attack under those circumstances is another lesson in the falibility of humans. That orange should have been the ultimate red flag for these guys, were they sleeping when they briefed that? This is a repeat of the friendly fire from the previous Gulf War incident when A-10s attacked British armoured vehicles and one of the problems claimed back then was that they attacked from altitude with rockets instead of in a genuinely close air support role using their cannon as designed where they'd have a chance to visually identify the target. So it looks like here they've tried to address that problem and this pair saw the friendly forces marker ignore it then still didn't get adequate clearance from their forward controller. These guys would have been made acutely aware of the earlier friedly fire incident but still managed to duplicate that disaster.

The whole system of communication and location seemed sloppy and vague, but it comes down to a bad decision to attack after inexplicably filtering out a key warning.

[Nick 0]

Saw a newspaper report that showed that in the gulf war 2 (or whatever the hell it's called these days) up to 2003, 20% of all combat deaths of UK troops were caused by friendly fire.

Nick
Gravity- It's not just a good idea, it's the LAW!

[Andy_Copland 0]

It angers me that POPOV36 was being ignored so much. But i think the key points here are that the pilots did ask to confirm friendlies where not in the area and were cleared to fire.

I dont know whether thats real remorse for their actions meaning guilt or if they're thinking of themselves and the trouble they are in, either way its another case of the fog of war.

I generally sympothise with these pilots and dont think they should be prosecuted, they done there job to the best of their ability and we're screwed with dodgy intel, the guys directly responsible should be tried, the ones who confirmed no friendlies.

1338

People aint made of nothin' but water and shit.

Until morale improves, the beatings will continue.

[dorbie 0]

They asked about the wrong area.

They kept switching between reveted vehicles for artillery spotting and targets relative to that location which was not where the targets were.

They ignored the key warning markers on the vehicles. They saw them and filtered the information, which is the most culpable part.

Should they be prosecuted?
Absolutely not.

Should this video be shown to every A-10 pilot (and other close air support guys)? Yes. With a refresher before any action.

It's a tough lesson paid for in bood. It's tragically similar to the one from the last war. Those A10 pilots should have learned from the first incident.

[crozby 0]

They were told there were no friendlies about and they asked several times.

They flew over the the vehicles repeatedly trying to work out what they were.

They were under time pressure - the vehicles were approaching a village.

Someone fucked up, but I don't think it was them. They are only guilty of making a judgement based on incorrect information. I hope they don't get anything more than a severe bollocking for this.

[dorbie 0]

P.S. Attached is a suggestion for all those A10 pilots out there.

I wouldn't want one of those dozy buggers flying over me without a pair.

[dorbie 0]

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They were told there were no friendlies about and they asked several times.

They flew over the the vehicles repeatedly trying to work out what they were.

They were under time pressure - the vehicles were approaching a village.

Someone fucked up, but I don't think it was them. They are only guilty of making a judgement based on incorrect information. I hope they don't get anything more than a severe bollocking for this.

There's about as much chance of you seeing anything wrong with their actions as their is of an A-10 pilot acknowledging that that big bloody patch of orange they see on the thing they're shooting up means it's friendly.

[warpedskydiver 0]

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well done to those fuck-head pilots

yet another example of how the allies have more to fear from the yanks than the eye-rackies

i hope those pilots get hung, drawn and quartered but i suppose there will be lots of people jumping to their defence as usual

i wonder how much speed they had taken to keep awake?

Grow up will you?

Do you for one minute actually think that those pilots intended to kill friendlies?

Go serve, and get back to us all on how easy it is.

[Peter_Phile 0]

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well done to those fuck-head pilots

yet another example of how the allies have more to fear from the yanks than the eye-rackies

i hope those pilots get hung, drawn and quartered but i suppose there will be lots of people jumping to their defence as usual

i wonder how much speed they had taken to keep awake?

Grow up will you?

Do you for one minute actually think that those pilots intended to kill friendlies?

Go serve, and get back to us all on how easy it is.

my heart bleeds for them (not as much as it bleeds for our troops who are on the receiving end YET AGAIN of American dick-head HOOAAA brain dead gung-ho troops though)

Bristish troops seem to manage not to kill allied troops, why is it only the yanks who seem to repeatedly kill friendly soldiers?

may i suggest they take better quality speed to keep them awake?

[dorbie 0]

More bandwidth here so you can watch it without all the pauses:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e06da463d7

[nigel99 559]

I didn't get that the answer indicated "friendly" I thought that it was confirmed that there were none in the area.

You are obviously more clued up on protocol and the likes in these situations than I am (I had no idea that Orange had any relevance) neither did I realise that they were jumping between locations in the conversation.

Isn't this the same friendly fire incident from 2003 - just that the authorities have been exposed for lying (claiming that no such video existed?)

As per one of my earlier posts - it does seem that us "allies" are the biggest victims of US friendly fire incidents. I would be interested in figures to show foreign friendly fire/US friendly fire incident ratios. Also it is surprising that with the over whelming number of US troops that there are to my knowledge no incidents of the US accidently being targeted by allies...

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[Gawain 0]

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my heart bleeds for them (not as much as it bleeds for our troops who are on the receiving end YET AGAIN of American dick-head HOOAAA brain dead gung-ho troops though)

Bristish troops seem to manage not to kill allied troops, why is it only the yanks who seem to repeatedly kill friendly soldiers?

may i suggest they take better quality speed to keep them awake?

Honest attempt to answer your pointed question: It could very well boil down to probability of numbers. We have 20x the number of troops in theater and shouldered the burden of the invasion overall. The UK accepted US air support.

The UK isn't the only country suffering in this. The US has unfortunately managed to kill its own in this campaign.

It's hardly an example of "gung-ho brain dead American dick-head" action, as you so eloquently noted. It seems apparent that you're not familiar with the fog of battle.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[dorbie 0]

If you listen understanding that they're referring to multiple locations you can see the requests w.r.t locations are horribly confused. The controller says things like "Confirm that is 800m North", and even that was relative to artilery fire, but they made several requests.

The friendly forces in this incident had a large orange panel on them to identify them as such. The pilots saw this, then asked for confirmation that there are no friendlies in the area. They were not supposed to attack anything they saw friendly identification markers on, period. The forward controller is not fucking omnipotent.

That orange panel is a last ditch IFF to stop blue on blue when all else fails. After seeing orange panels and calling it an orange panel in the video one of them starts to refer to it as orange rockets. Anything fucking orange should have set alarm bells off.

[Richards 0]

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i hope those pilots get hung, drawn and quartered but i suppose there will be lots of people jumping to their defence as usual

Why not wait until there has been a formal inquiry before jumping to conclusions.

My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

[dorbie 0]

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but i suppose there will be lots of people jumping to their defence as usual

As they should, like it or not those pilots were laying it all on the line to defend British troops in a close air support role, that's not the safest job in the world.

You should develop a better appreciation for their sacrifices instead of focusing on the unfortunate outcome they did not wish.

[livendive 8]

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That orange panel is a last ditch IFF to stop blue on blue when all else fails. After seeing orange panels and calling it an orange panel in the video one of them starts to refer to it as orange rockets. Anything fucking orange should have set alarm bells off.

That's the way I heard it. One sounded reluctant, talked about heading home, and seemed to be discounting them as targets. At that point the other started believing what he wanted to believe and began calling them rocket launchers, and he seemed to convince the other to join him in the mistake.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[Nick 0]

If you read the transcripts of the voice recorder it's about 5 mins between the orange panels first being identified and the attack commencing:

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1336.57 POPOV36:

Hey, I got a four ship. Looks like we got orange panels on them though. Do we have any friendlies up in this area?

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1341.24 POPOV36:

OK, do you see the orange things on top of them?

1341.32 MANILA HOTEL:

POPOV 36 from MANILA HOTEL. Are you able to switch to Crimson?

1341.37 POPOV36:

POPOV 36 is rolling in.

Looks like someone in command screwed up there...

Nick
Gravity- It's not just a good idea, it's the LAW!

[jakee 1,557]

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i hope those pilots get hung, drawn and quartered but i suppose there will be lots of people jumping to their defence as usual

Why not wait until there has been a formal inquiry before jumping to conclusions.

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POPOV36 is known to be a lieutenant colonel, and POPOV35 a major, but their identities have never been released. Neither has the result of a US Air Force inquiry.

Bear in mind the incident took place 4 years ago.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[kallend 2,103]

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i hope those pilots get hung, drawn and quartered but i suppose there will be lots of people jumping to their defence as usual

Why not wait until there has been a formal inquiry before jumping to conclusions.

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POPOV36 is known to be a lieutenant colonel, and POPOV35 a major, but their identities have never been released. Neither has the result of a US Air Force inquiry.

Bear in mind the incident took place 4 years ago.

Why the delay? Cover-up?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[DZJ 0]

More to do with an outrageous backlog in dealing with the coroners' inquests into the deaths of British servicemen, AFAIK.