F-16 Training Accident at Holloman (not a crash)

Not the first time, won't be the last; even with new and innovative marking devices and such for targets, and ID devices for friendly locations. In my day as a FAC when doing it on the ground, all I had was VS17 panels, and radios, with old school talk ons to target and everything done by what I could see with the eyeball. Long before Type I/II/II control types. Planes mostly dropping dumb bombs and usually at altitudes where I could confirm their nose position with a "continue" call in between their "in-hot" and my "Cleared hot" calls. Even when they called in with FAC and target in sight, you still triple checked them before clearing weapons expenditures. Who knows what the details were in this particular case, but if the friendly OP was hit, then it's usually between just a few causal factors.
 
My reaction to the story is surprisingly visceral. I think it's because there is very close to no excuse whatsoever for frat if the CAS 3-09.3 procedures are followed and the aircrew are doing what they're getting paid to do, even (especially) in a Type II control, EVEN if the controllers pass their own position in Line 6 for some stupid reason.
 
Flyinthrew said:
My reaction to the story is surprisingly visceral. I think it's because there is very close to no excuse whatsoever for frat if the CAS 3-09.3 procedures are followed and the aircrew are doing what they're getting paid to do, even (especially) in a Type II control, EVEN if the controllers pass their own position in Line 6 for some stupid reason.
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I have been in two separate squadrons that both were involved in frat incidents on combat deployments: one during Shock And Awe in Iraq in '03 (type 3 control from a US TACP) and another in Afghanistan in 2007 (type 1 control from a UK Royal Marine unit).

In both incidents, the Squadron Weapons Officer (the chief instructor and tactician in the squadron, a USAF Fighter Weapons School graduate) was the flight lead and the one whose weapons fratted.

Having watched the tapes of both incidents, I can say that in both cases I very likely would have done exactly the same thing if I were in their shoes, given the information they were presented with and how events unfolded prior to weapons release.

In the 2003 incident, an ATACMS was attacked when it was mis-identified visually by a ground party as a SAM (it was shooting south, which was an odd direction for a FSCL that was located to the north). Its location pretty closely matched the ELINT hit that the RIVET JOINT had on an active SAM in the area, *and* the ATACMS had moved into a position that had not yet been passed to Battalion.

In the 2007 incident, the Royal Marine group in the TIC passed their own location in the 9-line. The WSO caught it, and read it back to clarify, the the JTAC reiterated the same coords (again, their position) in response. The friendlies and hostiles were located in two compounds among several that all looked visually similar from altitude, and there were no attempts to visually mark friendlies with a beacon, sparkle, VS-17, etc.

In all of these, in hindsight and knowing the facts, you can see where the train jumped the tracks, but obviously the guys in the thick of it didn't have key information they needed.

So in my experience, it is definitely not cut-and-dried, even when adhering to JFIRE and 3-09.3 as best possible in "the fog of war".
 
I agree with you both. There have been heinous incidents that make you just shake your head at how poorly the aircrew performed given the accurate information they had, and there have been a select few that probably would have sufficiently confused most of us with reasonable intelligence and decision making skills. The JP is a great doctrinal reference, but as you probably are well aware, there are certain operators out there who won't give you a 9 line, and don't want to hear you try and read one back, and one of the first things you hear out of their mouth "cleared hot"…….as an example of how fundamentally different some controls can be from the bread and butter most of us are used to. Those are the types of controls where a lot of things can go wrong (not saying this was the case here by any means……just saying for devils advocacy sake)
 
Hacker15e said:
I have been in two separate squadrons that both were involved in frat incidents on combat deployments: one during Shock And Awe in Iraq in '03 (type 3 control from a US TACP) and another in Afghanistan in 2007 (type 1 control from a UK Royal Marine unit).

In both incidents, the Squadron Weapons Officer (the chief instructor and tactician in the squadron, a USAF Fighter Weapons School graduate) was the flight lead and the one whose weapons fratted.

Having watched the tapes of both incidents, I can say that in both cases I very likely would have done exactly the same thing if I were in their shoes, given the information they were presented with and how events unfolded prior to weapons release.

In the 2003 incident, an ATACMS was attacked when it was mis-identified visually by a ground party as a SAM (it was shooting south, which was an odd direction for a FSCL that was located to the north). Its location pretty closely matched the ELINT hit that the RIVET JOINT had on an active SAM in the area, *and* the ATACMS had moved into a position that had not yet been passed to Battalion.

In the 2007 incident, the Royal Marine group in the TIC passed their own location in the 9-line. The WSO caught it, and read it back to clarify, the the JTAC reiterated the same coords (again, their position) in response. The friendlies and hostiles were located in two compounds among several that all looked visually similar from altitude, and there were no attempts to visually mark friendlies with a beacon, sparkle, VS-17, etc.

In all of these, in hindsight and knowing the facts, you can see where the train jumped the tracks, but obviously the guys in the thick of it didn't have key information they needed.

So in my experience, it is definitely not cut-and-dried, even when adhering to JFIRE and 3-09.3 as best possible in "the fog of war".
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I'm completely on board with that perspective. Things get really weird in the real battlespace and risk can only be mitigated so far. That's why we are so ridiculously procedural in training. The unfortunate thing here is that the pilots likely stepped with maps or tablets that had the OPs marked, and the controllers have a stack of SDZs/WDZs that the range makes them use to keep them safe from even the most errant weapon effects and it still happened.
 
All of that being said...tough to understand where things would go so sideways on a training range in Arizona.
 
Hacker15e said:
All of that being said...tough to understand where things would go so sideways on a training range in Arizona.
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They were on the Red Rio range NE of HMN, which is not a huge range complex. Never did work with ground parties on that range, only on McGregor range, a much larger range complex south of HMN
 
Bandit_Driver said:
can someone explain 9 line and type !/II/III control us non Mil guys...

Thanks
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9 line is the standard format for a Close Air Support weapons release.

Essentially there are 9 lines of information that are critical to be exchanged between the FAC/JTAC on the ground and the aircraft to insure coordination. They contain information such as type of control, target discription, location, altitude, in and out routes, etc.

The types of control have to do with the level or restriction.

Type I the guy on the ground has to see both the aircraft and the target. This is to ensure that from his perspective the direction and attitude of the aircraft matches the target and he can insure its attacking the right place. This has largely fallen by the way side because for the most part we are dropping weapons that are capable of guidance and maneuver after release so nose position isn't exactly a tell tale that the bomb will go where the jet is pointed.

Type II is the most common and usually means the JTAC doesn't need to see the jet which given today's higher altitude profiles and such is much more difficult. It still allows him to greatly maintain SA on the target to ensure it doesn't move or friendly troops don't wander into a danger close range inadvertently.

Type III is basically clearance in the blind for the ground guy. He is passing a clearance with the expectation the aircraft can identify and discriminate targets (usually from somewhere other than the unit being supported). It also provides the striking aircraft with permission to conduct re attacks without a seprate clearance.


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///AMG said:
Did you seriously just say this? Bro…….BRO………didn't you say that you wear gold wings? :)
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Trust me...I paused before I did it. I figured since I quoted a former AF guy about an AF story, then I might as well. Thanks for pulling me off the slippery slope.
 
First thing you do when you check in with an Army guy, ask him his coordinates before he proceeds with the 9 line
 
The contractor killed was a good friend of mine. Chuck Holbrook retired from the Air Force ~2010 and has remained close to the community in a variety of roles, all helping to improve our tactics or equipment. This incident has impacted a lot of people very deeply.

Night CAS with Live munitions on a controlled range carries a high amount of risk that can be mitigated, but not removed.

It will be interesting to read the report to see what happened. I can think of several scenarios off the top of my head, but won't speculate publicly.
 
Things happen, even with the latest in smart munitions and sensor pods. Mistakes, often basic ones, still occur. In my day we were still dropping both aided as well as unaided underneath/over/nearby LUU-2 parachute flares with dumb munitions. Sometimes with full HUD, sometimes degraded or manual, as we has to keep qualed in those. And they were always high pucker factor.
 
MikeD said:
They were on the Red Rio range NE of HMN, which is not a huge range complex. Never did work with ground parties on that range, only on McGregor range, a much larger range complex south of HMN
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It's been a while so I'm having trouble remembering, but is Red Rio the really skinny east/west (ish) range the 60's out of Kirtland go to? The one with the ibex you had to shoo out of every damn LZ?
 
The Fez said:
It's been a while so I'm having trouble remembering, but is Red Rio the really skinny east/west (ish) range the 60's out of Kirtland go to? The one with the ibex you had to shoo out of every damn LZ?
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That's the one .
 
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