
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 15, 1994                   TAG: 9404150091
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press Note: lede
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

U.S. HITS OWN COPTERS

U.S. military officials ordered pilots to take a less aggressive stance in northern Iraq after two American fighter jets shot down two U.S. Army helicopters, killing all 26 people on board.

Defense Secretary William Perry, in an interview with Associated Press Network News, said Thursday he has taken several steps to ensure the incident is not repeated. The jet pilots mistook the choppers for Iraqi aircraft violating the no-fly zone, he said.

``We're continuing the operations in northern Iraq, but we have made some adjustments to our procedures ... which take the hair trigger off to a certain extent,'' Perry said.

The secretary said he could not describe the exact steps taken for security reasons, but presumably guidelines under which pilots attack targets have been made more strict or the authority for firing must come from higher-level officers.

Twenty-one of the dead were military officers from the United States, Britain, France and Turkey supporting the U.N. humanitarian relief operation for the Kurdish minority in northern Iraq. Five Kurd passengers also were killed.

The two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by two F-15C fighters enforcing the ``no-fly zone'' set up to protect the Kurdish minority from attacks by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

President Clinton expressed ``terrible sorrow'' and pledged a thorough investigation. He ordered U.S. flags on public buildings throughout the nation to be flown at half-staff through sunset Monday ``as a mark of respect for those who died as a result of the tragic incident.''

Questioned how such a tragedy could occur, Perry replied, ``There were errors. There were human errors, probably, and there might be process or system errors as well.''

The secretary said he has postponed a trip to Japan and South Korea to make sure two separate investigations of the incident had begun. Perry said he

expects to receive a formal accident investigation report ``within weeks'' from U.S. military officials in Europe charged with probing exactly what happened.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB