Fighter Jet fires on USA School...

What an awful error, luckily no one was injured.

Accidents happen but hopefully this will be closely looked into by the airforce.If his consoles malfunctioned obviously wasnt his fault.But if he made a mistake it isnt like driving a car he had a greater responsibility and should be discharged in my opinion.Imagine if children had been there.

WONT SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!

dude must of been real trigger happy

i thought jets were suppose to be equiped with state of the art equipment?
so they can tell whats from what

But in those circumstances with smoke and fire and sand.....Its bloody hard even from the ground... these guys have to make snap calls because they know if they dont the people they are supporting might die.

Sorry, Ca, usually I like your posts, but not this time.

Read Geoffrey Robertson's book "The Justice Game".

There was no smoke, sandstorm etc.

The mission briefing had clearly given the target co-ordinates and there was a specific "no free-fire zone" order in place.

The US pilot came on the net and gave the co-ordinates of some "target -of-opportunity" T-series tanks he had just hit, miles away from his only target for the day.

The RAF forward controller for that piece of sky immediately screamed at him to cease fire because he knew that those were the co-ordinates of a squadron of Royal Fusiliers (I believe) whose presence on the ground had been covered in the pre-op briefing.

This wasn't a "fog-of-war" mistake, it was negligence by trigger-happy pilots. To top it all off the US protected them from the coroner's inquest in the UK. It wasn't until a cable-car full of Italians went down that a pilot was made to pay for personal negligence.

Thanks Howl.....maybe I was thinking of another incident because when I was in the UK in 1991 I visited the Edinburgh Castle where the Royal Scots are (were?) based, and in the museum wing their was a new exhibit stating they had been involved in a similar incident....or same, must admit I am not sure now.

Still, I think the majority of Blue on Blue must be the result of innocent mistakes under battle duress. I personally get nuts though when you hear about the cowboys who listen to no one but themselves....like that guy who clobbered the Canadians in Afghanistan.

Tragic and Stupid and he and the Air Force should have just copped to accepting responsibility right up for what he did. Last I heard that fella was appealing.

I guess I wouldnt jump to the defence of these guys so fast if it didnt seem 90% of people go for them with an axe a 100% of the time.

And I guess the pilots from the UK don't ever make mistakes?

Originally posted by Strife3025
WONT SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!

I think we all have, well most of us...what are you talking about? Yhank goodness it was at night....

This is just a cover-story.
They couldn`t tell people that the school had actually been invaded by aliens, now could they?

What kind of idiot designates a bombing range near a school? Only in america

And I guess the pilots from the UK don't ever make mistakes?

To be perfectly honest, I cannot recall ever a blue on blue done by the RAF, at least not in any recent conflicts. Our pilots have strict rules of engagement and need auth to even fire their Mausers, let alone let off a few AT rockets at a passing American convoy.

I may be wrong, just cannot think of any example at all.

I guess they have to get practice killing innocent Irqi's from somewhere.