Word: shooting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...fighter jets took off from another Turkish base, bound for the same Iraqi "no-fly zone." They too had an air-tasking order, but with a fatal difference: they were told to set their friend-or-foe system to frequency 52. When the fighters, under orders to shoot down any Iraqi aircraft they encountered, saw two helicopters on their radar screens, their sophisticated electronics failed to identify the choppers as "friendly." After a hurried, heart-pounding attempt to confirm their suspicions visually, the fighter pilots fired two missiles that destroyed the two Army Black Hawks and killed all 26 people...
This lethal snafu is likely to aggravate charges that the Air Force has tended to distort and cover up information in its investigation of the incident as well as other accidents involving military aircraft. Senior Army pilots flying in Iraq on the day of the shoot-down discovered the coding glitch after they were called as expert witnesses at the court-martial of Air Force Captain Jim Wang. A top officer aboard the AWACS reconnaissance plane coordinating U.S. aircraft in the region, Wang was cleared last week of all charges in connection with the shoot-down. As the Army pilots...
...official Air Force investigation into the shoot-down declared both helicopters were on the wrong frequency but never explained why. The Army pilots said they had kept to a single frequency until five days after the shoot-down, when a revamped Air Force tasking order finally told them to change to a second frequency when entering Iraq. "I'm furious about it," says Chief Warrant Officer Ken Holden, who spent eight months over Iraq. "The Air Force set the stage for this accident to occur...
Peculiar decisions from the top, however, apparently contributed to last week's whimpering climax. Shortly after the shoot-down, the Air Force granted immunity to Captain Eric Wickson, the F-15 pilot believed by many in the Pentagon to be most responsible for the catastrophe. The Air Force used his testimony against the other F-15 pilot, Lieut. Colonel Randy May. While May was senior in rank, Wickson was the so-called flight lead the day of the shoot-down, making Wickson largely responsible for what occurred. In part because of that prosecutorial decision, 26 charges of negligent homicide against...
Child stars lose it once their hormones kick in, nice guys finish last, and you can't shoot a movie in zero gravity. Those are just a few of the show-biz verities broken by Ron Howard, whose assured direction of Apollo 13 may finally help people get past his image as the TV tyke who grew up in our living rooms on The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days...