THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 29, 1995 TAG: 9505290082
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Last month, 11-year-old Sean Piper stood before his fifth-grade classmates in San Antonio, Texas, and showed them the Purple Heart medal that had finally been awarded to his deceased big sister.
Sean previously had trouble speaking of his sister's death last year. But the medal made things clearer. When a friend asked what it meant, Sean said: ``It means my sister was a hero.''
This week, though, that may be all that is clear when the deaths of Air Force Lt. Laura A. Piper and 25 others enter a military courtroom in the nation's first ``friendly fire'' court martial since World War II.
The case, in which two American fighter jets shot down two American helicopters last year in the no-fly zone over northern Iraq, is a tangle of accusations that has left the two fighter pilots exonerated and a 29-year-old radar captain the only defendant.
Last week, defendant Jim Wang said that the trial - being held in a borrowed, second-floor logistics room at Tinker Air Force Base, in Oklahoma City - had been ``elevated'' to a crusade. But, said Laura Piper's mother, Joan: ``I don't know if you ever find the truth.''
The court martial stems from the April 14, 1994, shootdown of two American Black Hawk helicopters by two F-15 fighters.
The fighters, piloted by Capt. Eric Wickson and Col. Randy W. May, were patrolling the no-fly zone set up after the Gulf War to protect Iraqi Kurds from attacks by government aircraft. They were being aided by an airborne warning and control plane - AWACS - flying nearby with Wang and a crew of radar controllers aboard.
As the fighters flew patrol their radar picked up the two American helicopters, which had entered the zone earlier to ferry teams of allied officials among Kurdish villages.
The helicopters had checked in with the AWACS plane, but the AWACS crew had not informed the fighters, and still did not mention the Black Hawks when the fighters reported their mysterious radar contacts.
The fighters electronically interrogated the helicopters, but, because of a technical mixup aboard the Black Hawks, the fighters failed to get a friendly response. The F-15s then tried to make visual IDs.
Wickson flew past the helicopters and mistakenly identified them as Russian-built Iraqi Hinds. May also took a closer look. But he was uncertain of what he saw. He deferred to Wickson, who ordered an attack.
Wickson fired a missile that destroyed the trailing helicopter, which carried Laura Piper. May followed with a missile that destroyed the lead helicopter. Both aircraft crashed and burned, killing all aboard.
The Pentagon initially expressed outrage at the case, and the Air Force charged May with negligent homicide and dereliction of duty. The Air Force also charged Wang and four others from the AWACS plane with dereliction of duty.
Wickson, to the distress of the Pipers, was granted immunity and asked to testify. In the end, however, May was cleared. And the only one of the AWACS crew ordered to be court martialed was Wang.
He was held accountable, on three charges, because he was a supervisor and had been lax in his duties, although several high ranking Air Force officers declined to testify about their role in the accident.
KEYWORDS: FRIENDLY FIRE by CNB