Posted on 02/28/2014 7:10:36 AM PST by servo1969
Paktika Province, Afghanistan – After spotting Taliban forces on a distant ridge line, U.S. Army mortar teams engage with 60mm mortars. A simultaneous airstrike is called in which accidentally drops a 500 pound bomb on a U.S. Army infantry outpost, mistaking the position for Taliban fighters.
Luckily there were no friendly casualties in this incident. It is still unclear what caused the pilot to target the wrong position.
INTERVIEW:
Q: What events led up to this bomb drop, and what was going through your mind after the bomb hit?
A: We had been taking harassing sniper fire for a little over a month and could not find out where this guy was, so we were up in the OP, took a few rounds and battalion heard we were in a TIC. Then about a minute prior to being cleared hot we heard they were in route. We heard weapons free, they told us to get small, and I replied with “Yeah, I get small” sarcastically, and then it landed about 15m behind us.
Honestly we had dropped so many bombs up to that point that the thought never even crossed my mind that this could even happen, especially with all the checks put into place. About a half second before impact you could hear the bomb screaming in like I hadn’t ever heard before, and I definitely knew at that point something was off. After the initial realization that it had hit behind us, we were so scatter brained trying to figure out what happened. It hit so close to the guys in the tower it actually knocked the fill out of radios.
Then we went up to check on the rest of the boys. Luckily our First Sergeant called up and put everyone on stand to, inadvertently saving the lives of at least 3 soldiers who would have been in the bay that had shrapnel sent through every inch of it including shearing holes into weapons. Once the smoke had cleared and we realized that no one was seriously injured, we were just sitting there in awe as the anger started to build.
If it hadn’t been for the decision of the First Sergeant to bring everyone to “stand to”, three of our guys would have died in that wood building. His decision saved three of our men.
It is still unknown how this mistake happened or why the friendly location was mistakenly targeted.
Hmmm... would an A-10 have done this?
“Friendly fire” is oxymoronic. There’s nothing friendly about it.
I am more shocked that a 500 pound bomb dropped that close,
did Not injure anyone- I am thinking concussion/over pressure- of the bomb-
And typically.. a plane will pickle 2- these guys are very lucky.
Looks like one guy was down, who was up in the highest nest, there over the crapper.
Yikes!
Scary stuff.
Totally agree. In 1968 in a firefight south of Saigon we called for air support and 3 F100s came and dropped 500lb bombs 200-300 feet from our positons. The blast wave and concussion was tremendous and the bomb fragments sometimes huge rained on our positions unmercifully. A 50 foot away drop even behind sandbagged positions had to have been huge. In watching the video I am surprised any of our guys had enough hearing left to communicate as they did, my ears rang and sounds muffled for days after our bombing runs finished dropping 6 500lbers. HooRah to these guys surviving that drop.
Sounds like a good reason to scrap the entire fleet of A-10s.
</sarc>
Duty first!
The Air Force has been dropping bombs on the U.S. Army since their Air Corps days. It used to be much, much worse. The Marine Corps has always done a much better job at close air support, but even they are not perfect.
Duty First
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