Press trivializes downing of U.S. Navy fighter jet with ‘friendly fire’ label

The recent reporting of the downing of one of our U.S. Navy fighters by a U.S. Navy Cruiser in the Red Sea region, and then an apparent second incident that almost downed another aircraft, is disheartening. Our press organs have declared it a “Friendly Fire” incident, trivializing it and overlooking the deeper concerns deriving from this event.

This requires some unpacking with clarification and historical context. When flying in skies that are defended by friendly and/or enemy modern air defenses of massed radars, missiles, and anti-aircraft guns, any fire is “unfriendly” because it is all designed to destroy aircraft and kill the crews. In fact, the missiles and shells fired do not care who they kill. And with the precision now built into our surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles, and radar-controlled anti-aircraft guns, almost any encounter can lead to a shootdown.

For nearly a decade of my Air Force time as a tactical pilot, I was trained to deal with this challenge. We assiduously studied our potential enemy air defenses and prepared to destroy or suppress them to achieve our tactical missions. However, we also had to precisely learn how to fly our aircraft through areas defended by our air defenses and use radio calls, code words, and electronic identification procedures to flag our aircraft as “friendly” to our defending forces. To add emphasis to the danger, we constantly lectured our pilots that, “There is no such a thing as friendly fire. It is all unfriendly and specifically optimized to kill airplanes.”

There are some historical vignettes to reinforce this key point. During Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, a U.S. Army Patriot missile downed a British Tornado on 23 March, killing both crew members. Proper communication, navigation, and traffic-control procedures should have prevented such unfortunate events. A subsequent investigation indicated that the identification, friend, or foe (IFF) system on the Tornado had failed. Since the aircraft had just started to descend as it approached Kuwait and the pilot had not yet made radio contact with the traffic controllers, the aircraft was identified as an inbound antiradiation missile, and the Patriot battery fired in self-defense.

Ten days later, an F-18 launched from the USS Kitty Hawk was shot down by a Patriot missile assigned to an air defense unit supporting the U.S. Army forces advancing toward Baghdad. The pilot was killed. His body was recovered ten days later. Stated one F-18 pilot, “Although I remained wary of the Iraqi SAM (surface-to-air missile) threat, I was actually more afraid of our own Patriot batteries.”

In a stunning role reversal, in late March, a U.S. Air Force flight of four F-16CJs was supporting a large formation of strike aircraft hitting targets in the Baghdad area when a Patriot battery located near An-Najaf, accidentally targeted the flight. Unfortunately for the Patriot unit, these F-16s were equipped to locate, identify, and destroy enemy surface-to-air-missile (SAM) forces. To the detection gear on the F-16, the Patriot radar signal appeared as an enemy missile site, and the F-16 flight lead assumed that the site was an enemy battery trying to shoot them down. Reacting instinctively, he launched a missile, which guided to the site and did considerable damage to the Patriot radar equipment but did not harm the crew.

This event, too, also had a haunting precedent. In the early morning hours of 16 April 1972, a U.S. Air Force strike package, and supporting F-105G Wild Weasels – aircraft specifically modified and optimized to find and destroy enemy SAM sites – was approaching the Hanoi area to bomb targets as part of Operation Linebacker. The mission was being radar monitored by the U.S. Navy’s USS Worden, a guided missile cruiser at a predesignated location in the Gulf of Tonkin and equipped with long-range search and tracking radars and surface-to-air missiles. As the raid was taking place, the Worden was struck by two missiles, which severely damaged the bridge area, killed one sailor, and wounded 13 others.

The ship had to depart the battle line and proceed to Subic Bay for repairs. They discovered that the ship had been hit by two AGM 45 Shrike missiles fired by one of the F-105s protecting the strike flights in the Hanoi raid. The F-105 crews indicated that they had been briefed that North Vietnamese naval forces had put radars aboard some of their ships. Additionally, the radar signals from the Worden were very similar to the signals from the North Vietnamese sites. Consequently, the F-105 crews assumed they were the enemy and attacked with their Shrike missiles. Historical research years later determined a more human twist to this story. The incident investigation determined that the mishap resulted from several factors, number one being a lack of communication between the Air Force and the Navy. The Air Force headquarters failed to inform the other service elements that they planned to have a Wild Weasel with the strike package, just in case one of the North Vietnamese radars came up. On the other hand, the Worden was found to be ten miles north of its scheduled position.

But there was one more very human element to this tragedy. As the bombing raid was happening, a junior Fire Control Technician was performing maintenance on one of the Worden’s two missile illuminators and switched to “Radiate” without coordinating with his crew. This, he was clearly not supposed to do. Using a “steer” from the Worden’s air search radar, he found an aircraft coming off the beach in the vicinity of Haiphong, east of Hanoi, and began tracking it. The tracked target was one of the F-105 Wild Weasels. Once he had a solid track, the young technician went to “lock” on his system. The crew on the F-105 picked up that signal with their radar homing and warning system, which indicated that a North Vietnamese missile was being fired at them, and they fired their Shrike missiles at the signal which was emanating from an antenna just above the bridge on the Worden.

These events highlight a breakdown in coordination between our different service elements. Such occurrences, while small in number, all are costly in terms of lives lost, aircraft/equipment destroyed, and cross-service confidence weakened. We certainly do not need that. These vignettes remind us that, “there is no such a thing as friendly fire.”

Darrel D. Whitcomb graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1969 and went on to serve three tours in Southeast Asia as a cargo pilot and forward air controller. He flew combat missions over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Whitcomb was awarded a Silver Star and two Distinguished Flying Crosses for his service. He retired from the Air Force Reserve as a colonel in 1999; from Delta Airlines as an international captain in 2003; and has published five books on aviation and combat rescue operations.