Friendly Fire?

Question

What do you think about this leaked video showing a cockpit tape of an American pilot firing and killing British soldier?

(Please can you put your nationality in the answer)

Answer 1

Me just a "Yank", well the child of Welsh parents.

I was a 'recipient" of such in Vietnam, it happens, usually what iot is: a sad msitake, sometimes an over eager pilot, or fool with a map.

It is part of the story of ever war: the US has seldom tried to hide such, but does well keep it close.

The same Cobra Gunships pilots that hit us also saved us before and after the "event" in 1969. No blame from me.

The video, I pray will show emotional remorse and great pain, it seems to do so.

I recall other recent "blue on blue" events, most forgotten,
some jet pilots shooting down American helicopters a few wars ago, rather deadly and sick bast*rd's.

But if I could tell you of the fear and all that one has, well, such will always happen, it happens in the infantry all to often. I also saw such, "rare" but not enough.

We had a youth, a new soldiers, go out into the "bush" to relieve himself, he was blasted when he returned, nothing but grief but no "blame" except what he must have lived.

Judge not the soldier but those who placed them in "Harm's Way"

Thank You

Answer 2

What bothers me is that I get the impression that the videos are being used to conceal the fact that the British had told the pilot the area was clear of friendly forces.

Instead of trying to learn from the tragedy - the British seem to be trying to try to make sure that somebody else gets the blame.

This is even more worrisome as the same British mistake resulted in a similar tragedy in the first Gulf war. Our pilots were told by the British Forward Air Controllers that 'no friendlies' were in the area both times.

Do the British have a formal AAR process or an office similar to the US Army's CALL (Center for Army Lessons Learned)? In the US military there are always procedural (and frequently doctrinal and equipment) changes that are made to prevent the re-occurrence of adverse incidents. I really hope the British leadership is sitting down and asking themselves: "How can we provide the Americans with accurate locations for our forces?"

Answer 3

I agree with what someone above said, these guys have split seconds to decide whether to fire or not. You hear on the cockpit tape the pilot asking if there are any allied units in the area ... he gets a negative responce ... so to him these are foe's ... not friendly ... now if he doesn't take the shot ... and they WERE hostiles then they could have caused more damage to our boys in the long term.

Its just like those police officers who shot that innocent on the tube a few months ago - their inteligence told them he was a terrorist and could potentially blow the train up .... now what if they hadnt take the shot and he had killed 100's of people ?

UK

Answer 4

This happens : it is war !
The zero-dead-war is utopia. We should always consider that for every war there's a price to pay, so that people would be less likely to go to war so easy.
We, the Europeans, know better than others what is that price as we lost millions of people during the XXth century wars.
For these war we are guilty and we have lost our influence on the world, but we know now that war is just the last solution.

P.S. : I'm an exchange French soldier serving in the German military.

Answer 5

Big mistake, those pilots were given faulty information from the ground and acted upon it. They had wanted to take the tank out before it reached a civilian target ( the town). From their words, those pilots felt pretty sick at what they had done. I think the tape should not have been classified though, it's a injustice to the soldiers and families to lie about the circumstances surrounding their death..

-American

Answer 6

English...

In war accidents happen.
I didn't feel that the pilots sounded gung ho! i thought it was an honest mistake! by both pilots and forward air controllers..

Answer 7

I haven't seen it (I'm American-not sure what that matters).

However, although a terrible thing - I'm sure lots of the people over there have seen insurgents in bdus/acus-british uniforms, etc.

I'm unclear if he was given orders to fire - or if he 'jumped the gun'....

Answer 8

USA-- Its one of the tragedies of war ,unfortunately friendly fire accounts for a lot more casualties than people think..
During Desert Storm,more than 75% of the friendly fire casualties occurred in ground-to-ground engagements. Also, 77% of the U.S. armored vehicles damaged in battle were due to friendly fire.During WWII, 45% of all casualties were a result of friendly fire .

Answer 9

Not very friendly was it.
Tape should of been released much sooner.
Sad occurrence but they have to make split second decisions and had duff information that they acted on (No friendlies in this area).
Fortunately they learned quickly that it was a mistake and no further damage was done.

UK

Answer 10

Just seen it on the news. Accidents happen unfortunately. The pictures were not very clear.
Scary stuff
UK