Posted on 06/14/2008 5:02:10 AM PDT by SLB
Last April 9th, at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, two soldiers were driving a rented SUV about five kilometers from the part of the range used for live firing. It was at night, and an F-16 that thought it was firing at something in the live fire area, lit up the SUV instead. Only 70 20mm rounds were fired. Fortunately, the two people in the SUV were only injured (both from flying glass, the passenger got a dislocated shoulder as he rapidly exited the vehicle when it quickly turned off the road and stopped.) The investigation of how this happen has not been completed.
Comments please.
Toldja not to accept the LDW.
There was a thread posted at the time, perhaps someone has it bookmarked or can search for it.
I did a couple of searches for it and could not find it. If someone has it please link to it for me.
I hope our AF guys keep practicing, albeit not on our own civilians!
This is hopefully what Bin Laden can look forward to one of these days.....if he didn't already bite the dust in Tora Bora way back when....which I think he did.
Leni
Thanks - i did not see any pictures of the SUV in the original post.
wow - just missed the gas tank I guess
Hope they bought the optional damage insurance for the vehicle at the rental agency.
It was a rental car too, sure hope he ponied up for the extra insurance.
I would love to see the look on the managers face when they took it back to the Hertz lot, that would be a keeper.
Yes, but this post has a link to a picture of the SUV.
Think that will be covered?
Hard to explain.......renter "well it was the other pilot's fault", insurance company "other pilot??????"
I think I woulda used a UAV to take that out - F16 is overkill.
SUV’s are evil, they are destroying the planet.
THIS IS YOUR FIRST WARNING.
The eradication campaign starts as soon as the Climate Security Act passes next year and Presedent Obama signs it into law.
THEN we will start targeting ALL SUV’s (unless they belong to politicians or movie stars)
Lucky SOBs. They should load up on lottery tickets.
Probably a CLM for the pilot.
Points up the reason the Army likes having A10s around for the CAS mission.
The Air Force has a tendency to consider everything on the ground a target, at least that’s my observation having been one of their targets once upon a time.
In this case, I can understand a pilot getting confused about where he is in relation to the impact area, but I would think that the real targets were likely static and might not have even had a heat source. So, if I saw a moving hot target, I think I would double check before pressing the trigger.
At the very least, athere should be comprehensive legislation on all SUV’s - F16’s also.
There is a news article on Fox right now about a 16-year-old girl from Michigan who survived being struck by lightning this week. She walked away with a slightly burned hand and a numb arm. Her mom went out and bought her a lottery ticket and the girl won $20.
A little Bondo and a quick trip to MAACO/Earl Scheib and Hertz will never know.
What a horrible screw-up! We really need to work on target recognition.
I mean, what kind of incompetent would mistake a rented Suburban for a VW busload of peaceniks or a media van?
Would CarFax note this incident ?
Almost makes me feel a little sorry for some of the Sheep-lovers we have gone after in Iraq and Afghanistan....but not quite.
I think the main point here is that this picture clearly demonstrates some pretty poor shooting on the part of the F-16 driver. He missed the engine and most of the passenger compartment.
Let’s hope he got some remedial gunnery instruction soon after this happened...
Let's hope this "friendly fire" incident is a lesson to the rest of the squadron. It was almost certainly a career-ender for the pilot
ping
We did lots of sub surface and surface range clearance operations over the years at both Eagle Range halfway between SLC and bendover it’s Wendover. Got hot runs from fighters and bombers all the time yet were lucky enough too get a simple BDU 33 drop on the few occasions that happened and the range control and pilots learned a whole lot of EOD language skills.......aka sonofapeach grabbin idgits pull yer noggin out of your south end sort of bastardized form of different romance languages we picked up on our worldly travels !
Key point we always made was too keep a few HK Flare guns on us and if we even heard a aircraft nearby we popped a few rounds and made a comm check with our location on guard channel and range channels.
These guys were shot at with 20mm TP rounds.....inert slugs vs any HEI or other exotic projos. That is reason they are alive IMO. Anything more or a hit from one of those and they would have been toast !
BDU33 is a simple inert 30 or 40 pound (never thought I’d forget that :o) iron bomb with a small signal / report marker round in the tail that was the only hazard as we did a PUCA process......Pick Up and Carry Away = PUCA in EOD terms. DDOT = Don;t Drop on Toes etc etc ........:o)
It happens......the guys over at Dugway were lucky indeed ! I know this happens at Barry Goldwater down in AZ at Yuma and Avon Park in Florida all the time as well. That is why we get hazardous duty pay ........:o)
Best 125$ a month I ever earned when I was active duty ......LOL !!
The vehicles WE used ALL the time for such operations were ALWAYS rental vehicles ! My team credit card was unlimited and I’d get vehicles like dump trucks for transport of inert UXO, passenger vans for transport too and from and a large number of pickups and SUV’s for running around the range . And of course a big thing too consider was a common spare tire due all the cut tires. If we got SUV’s and pickups it was all same brand and size etc so we could swap spares as needed !
I am suspecting that these soldiers were a security detail or surveying a range during down time . We only did the clearance operations in light of day unless an emergency. I will bet the CID/OSI/NIS types are looking too see if these soldiers were armature gardeners doing a little crop maintenance on those remote ranges. A common crime for DOD troops that did such on the side was too grow a crop of weed in secure areas where THEY ruled. We found that stuff all the time...........not too dishonor these guys just saying it happens and they WILL be looked at in such a manner when they heal up and are interviewed.
Stay safe !
>>The vehicles WE used ALL the time for such operations were ALWAYS rental vehicles !
LOL! I guess it was easier to get operations funds, vs. capital funds, in case of things going south?
Yep.......call it fall out money if ya will ........:o)
Good thing there was only 70 20mm rounds fired.
“Only 70 20mm rounds were fired.”
That is incredibly subjective.
Good thing the round in the front of the back door wasn’t
10” to the left!
Dignitaries and terrorist leaders tend not to ride shotgun. This pilot was right on the money!
70 rounds of 20mm should have done more damage than that. I guess they were firing solid slugs instead of HEI.
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