Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 15, 1994 TAG: 9404150085
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB DART COX NEWS SERVICE Note: below
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
If high-tech equipment on the U.S. aircraft that downed the copters was working and pilot procedures were followed, ``it's extremely hard'' to understand how such a mistake happened, said retired Navy Capt. James Bush, a military expert at the Center for Defense Information.
The safeguards included:
An electronic ``Identification: Friend or Foe'' system on both the F-15C fighter jets and the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. If engaged, this IFF system would automatically ``squawk'' to tell the F-15 pilots that the helicopters were not enemy aircraft.
An AWACS reconnaissance plane acting as an airborne command post for all U.S. aircraft in the northern Iraq ``no-fly zone." The air traffic controllers aboard the Airborne Warning and Control Systems craft should have known where both the F-15s and Black Hawks were and communicated this to the pilots.
Visual identification. There is ``a substantial visual difference'' between the U.S. Black Hawk helicopter and the Russian-made Hind helicopter flown by the Iraqis, said Bush.
Despite the safeguards, the U.S. fighter pilots mistook the Black Hawks for Iraqi Hinds, shooting them down with missiles and killing all 26 people aboard.
At a Pentagon briefing, the nation's top defense officials seemed perplexed at how the tragedy occurred.
``I don't want to come to conclusions yet about the full details of the misidentification, but it is factually correct that this was daylight weather and that the pilots did go in to make a visual identification,'' said Defense Secretary William Perry.
Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the IFF system should have signaled that the helicopters were friendly.
``The helicopters do routinely have `Identification: Friend or Foe,''' he said. ``It is my judgment, if procedures were followed, they in fact would be squawking.''
Both officials also noted the AWACS plane controlling the airspace. Army officials in Europe said tapes of the planes' communications were being flown to Germany for a review.
Despite intensive training and technological safeguards, however, deaths by ``friendly fire'' - accidental attacks on one's own comrades - are still a frequent fact of war. About one-fourth of the allied soldiers killed in combat in Desert Storm, the 43-day war with Iraq in 1991, were slain by such ``friendly fire.''
by CNB