Did US Repeat Past Mistakes?

William Umbach, previously an Illinois ANG F-16 pilot, commented on yesterday's friendly-fire incident in Afghanistan where a USAF A-10 killed a Canadian soldier and wounded several others.

Umbach, a retired USAF Major, was the commander of a flight of two F-16 fighters (file photo of type, below)  involved in a similar incident in 2002. Umbach's wingman, Major Harry Schmidt, dropped a bomb on a Canadian position engaged in a live-fire exercise, killing 4 Canadian troops. Umbach and Schmidt said they believed the Canadians were shooting at them.

A report on that previous incident was the focus of Umbach's comments -- he said it did not address the key problem, a communication breakdown between air and ground forces.

In an interview with CanWest News Service Umbach said, "The report did not address why we did not know and where the link got broken. We made that clear in the beginning: If you put the blame on these pilots and ground them so they don't fly again and hope this will prevent it from happening again it won't."

Umbach says he is not confident that the US Air Force learned from the 2002 accident. "I would like to think they made steps in other areas, but certainly nothing in the report would have encouraged them to, other than the people who were at one end or the other of the misinformation, shrugging their shoulders."

Schmidt's attorney Charles Gittins blamed the USAF Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC), claiming they never knew who was on the ground, and never took responsibility for the errors that resulted in the 2002 accident.

Details are still sketchy on this latest fratricide incident and it's unclear what, if any, changes in communication procedures the USAF has made since 2002 -- official inquiries have just begun. Also unknown at this point is whether the USAF will prosecute the pilot involved as they did in Umbach's and Schmidt's cases. Schmidt received non-judicial punishment and Umbach a reprimand when charges in their cases were reduced from manslaughter to dereliction of duty.

"War is a terrible thing and there's always the possibility of somebody dying..." said Umbach, noting that it's "incredibly painful" to accept "you could die by your own forces."

FMI: http://canada.gc.ca/