The Edmonton Journal April 19, 2002
'One of worst friendly fire incidents in last decade,' says expert: Pilot would require permission to drop bomb on this area
By Rick Pedersen, Journal Staff Writer
DATELINE: Edmonton
Pilot error or a communications breakdown might explain how friendly fire killed four Canadian soldiers in a zone where military strikes are restricted, says an independent analyst in Washington, D.C.
The United States military takes incidents like this very seriously, and a prompt investigation will find out what went wrong, John Pike, director for the military policy think-tank Global Security, said in a phone interview on Thursday.
"It is particularly serious because you have Americans killing Canadians," he said. "It is certainly one of the worst friendly fire incidents in the last decade." This area was not a "kill box," a zone where U.S. pilots can fire at will, Pike said. Instead it is an area where military strikes are restricted.
"A restricted area is the opposite of a kill box," he said. "This was a restricted area where, at the minimum, the pilot would have had to have gotten permission to engage a target."
Assuming the Edmonton-based Canadian soldiers were firing light weapons, Pike wondered how the fighter pilot could have confused ground-level tracer fire with heavier weaponry and decided he was under attack.
Light infantry weapons are not normally a threat to fighters, because they fly high, he said, intentionally keeping millions of dollars worth of fighter plane safe from rifles worth a few hundred.
"Did the pilot know where he was?" Pike asked. "Did the pilot know where the restricted area was?"
The pilot should also have been in contact with an air operations centre -- possibly at an air base or on an airborne C-130 -- so the role of staff at the operations centre will be examined, he said. Were procedures faulty? Was there a breakdown between the American command and the Canadians?
"Somewhere there was a failure to communicate," Pike said. "If this was working as intended, something like this would not happen."
Pike said military statements issued after the tragic incident provide the first indication the Air National Guard is fighting in Afghanistan. However, he said this is no surprise, because these well-trained reserve units are normally deployed with the air force, as they were in Korea, Vietnam and Kosovo.
Reggie Saville, spokesman for the Air National Guard in Washington, D.C., said the U.S. military has a firm policy against identifying units or individual pilots serving in Afghanistan, so officials never said National Guard pilots were in Afghanistan.
The policy is necessary to protect families left alone at home, he said, now that the enemy is operating inside the U.S. as well as overseas.
Many Air National Guard pilots are former air force pilots who often fly commercial aircraft during the week and hone their fighter skills on the weekend.
Those without air force experience take exactly the same training as air force pilots over the same four-year period, Saville said.
When conflict erupts, air force commanders sometimes ask to have specific National Guard pilots serve with active units, he said.
"These are people who are considered ready to rock and roll. They are certainly not novices.
"We comprise more than half of the American air force."
Pat Brennan, a University of Calgary military historian active in the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, agrees the Air National Guard are first-rate pilots and the best-trained element of the U.S. military reserve.
"They are respected. They are very highly skilled."
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