Navy News, news from Iraq - Navy Times

Report: Navy friendly fire killed UK Marine

A Navy F/A-18C pilot was acting in “good faith” and with the “best of intentions” when he mistakenly fired on a friendly position in Afghanistan and killed a British Marine in 2006, according to a recent report from the British and U.S. military.

The Navy pilot, whose name was not disclosed, fired more than 200 rounds on the Royal Marines after visually identifying the target but failing to double-check with his electronic “diamond designator” targeting equipment, according to a Royal Navy Board of Inquiry report released Monday.

The pilot was providing close-air support for a Royal Marine platoon getting pounded by rocket-propelled grenades on Dec. 5, 2006, in Garmsir, Helmand Province. The pilot fired 20mm rounds and mistakenly strafed the Marines, killing Jonathan Wigley, 21, the report said.

The British troops were pinned down in a trench during a day-long battle with Taliban insurgents. A U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber, a British Harrier and two British Apache helicopters also fired on Taliban positions that day.

The pilot was an operations officer for Strike Fighter Squadron 131 operating from the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The friendly and enemy positions looked very similar — both small building compounds with east-west tree lines surrounded by bomb-cratered terrain, the report said.

The pilot “may have been over-confident that he knew where the target was,” since he had successfully fired on the enemy position on three previous passes, the report said.

The correct enemy location was logged into the pilot’s navigation and targeting equipment, but the pilot closed down the “heads up display” that projects targeting information on a cockpit’s canopy. While cutting off the display is standard procedure to reduce clutter in the pilot’s line of sight, the pilot should have doubled-checked the target first, the report said.

The heavy fire raining down on the Marines below likely added a sense of urgency that pushed the pilot “beyond his capacity to assess, evaluate and act correctly,” the report said.

It was unclear whether the Navy imposed any flight restrictions or disciplinary measures on the pilot.

The British joint terminal attack controller, or JTAC, embedded with the Marines on the ground, also contributed to the mistake, the report said.

Under heavy fire, the JTAC gave a “cleared hot” call for fire prematurely in several instances, before the fighter pilot made a final turn into the attack run and before visually confirming the plane’s trajectory to “ensure safe deconfliction,” the report said.

“It is the opinion of this Board of Inquiry that the key players in this event … acted in good faith. Both acted with the best of intentions under very challenging conditions,” the British report concluded.

“Though implementation of all normal peacetime procedures should have prevented it, this was not peacetime. War is a very different environment, where risks must be taken to achieve one’s aims.”

The British report recommended that military officials try to develop ways to better mark and identify friendly and enemy positions on the ground. Another recommendation included creating a lightweight device allowing JTACs to communicate targeting information to pilots electronically rather than over the radio.

The report cited a message that the sergeant major with the Marines on the ground had tried to send to the air crew, saying “had the F-18s not been there, they probably would have lost far more men that day.”