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F-16 Strafes School - Followup
Just as we all suspected. The Air Force (as reported in the Newark
Star-Ledger this morning) now admits that the pilot accidentally hit his trigger button on the stick while changing attack configurations. Guns were hot at the time. As every pilot with a yoke-mounted PTT switch already knew, this was the "unknown cause of the gun discharge". Seems a quarter-second burst (just a quick "Oops!") is pretty close to the 27 rounds on the Vulcan. -- Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways) Air Force cites pilot error in firing on school Probe also blames the design of trigger controls, leading to ban on strafing Saturday, December 18, 2004 BY MARYANN SPOTO Star-Ledger Staff An Air Force investigation has determined that pilot error and poorly designed firing controls on his fighter jet caused the accidental shooting of Little Egg Harbor Elementary School last month, military officials said yesterday. In response, the military has prohibited strafing by pilots using the type of F-16C aircraft involved in the shooting near the Warren Grove Gunnery Range until changes in the jet's computer operating system are made, according to the results of a military investigation into the incident released yesterday. The strafing prohibition has been enacted nationwide and affects 600 F-16Cs built by Lockheed- Martin between 1983 and 1987, officials said last night. The pilot of the single-seat F- 16C, identified as 33-year-old Maj. Roberto Balzano of the 113th Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard based in Washington, D.C., still could face disciplinary action, although the report said that decision will be left to his commanding officer. The report concluded that Balzano, who has logged more than 2,000 hours of flying time, squeezed too hard on the firing trigger, causing the 20mm cannon to spit out 27 rounds of inert ammunition in a quarter-second during the Nov. 3 night training mission. Eight of those rounds hit the school and surrounding ground. Although four custodians were in the school at the time, no one was injured. At Balzano's house in a subdivision of single-family homes in Riva, Md., about 30 miles outside Washington D.C., his wife declined to comment yesterday. Late in the afternoon two National Guard officers arrived and went into the house, and a short time later Balzano drove up and into his garage. He closed the door without commenting. One of the guard officers, Col. Jeff Johnson, emerged from the house and said "Rob and his family will have no comment." He said neither he nor Balzano had seen the report. Balzano, referred to throughout the report as the "mishap pilot," had flown 17 training missions in the previous three months, the report said. "The pilot had no intent of firing at the school -- the firing was an unfortunate and unintentional mistake," military officials said in a release accompanying the report. "Unfortunately, the (pilot) forgot that his aircraft's air-to-ground gun mode was selected and armed, ready to fire," Col. Kevin W. Bradley of the New York Air National Guard, president of the Accident Investigation Board, wrote in the report. In that F-16C, the flight control stick has a trigger that, if squeezed lightly, emits a laser marker to illuminate a target, and when squeezed harder, fires ammunition. Balzano, who was wearing night vision goggles on an evening with low light from the moon, had intended to illuminate the target area, but squeezed too hard on the trigger. Changes will be made to the computer controls of that F-16C model to move the laser-marking capability to another control switch. At their training briefing at Andrews Air Force Base before the sortie, Balzano's instructor pilot, Maj. Kirk Pierce, had warned Balzano not to use the laser marker while the master switch was in the armed position because of the chance for an unintentional firing, the report said. Pierce was in a second plane at Balzano's wing when the incident occurred. Balzano, with the 121st Fighter Squadron, declined to appear before the Accident Investigation Board, according to the report. Three other accidental shootings were reported this year because of this trigger confusion, the report said. None had resulted in any damage. Because of these misfirings, military officials had issued e-mail messages and verbal warnings about the possible problem. And Air Force instructions prohibit pilots from squeezing the trigger until they intend to fire the gun, a rule that was in effect at the time of the Little Egg Harbor incident. Bradley also faulted procedures at Warren Grove, a 9,400-acre range that straddles Ocean and Burlington counties, which allowed pilots to fly in the airspace with their weapons ready to fire. Despite that allowance, many F-16C pilots often kept their weapons in a mode that would prevent them from firing until approaching their target. But that practice came from word of mouth, not by any official written range procedures, Bradley said in the report. Col. Brian Webster, commander of the Air National Guard's 177th Fighter Wing, which operates the range, has said pilots will now be required to disarm their aircraft until approaching their targets. Also, the range has adopted new flight paths to ensure that pilots shoot away from populated areas. In Little Egg Harbor last night, a dozen area residents turned out for a hastily called meeting on the investigation. Military personnel and members of the press outnumbered the residents. Afterward, Little Egg Harbor Mayor Raymond Gormley said he was comfortable with the findings. "For us to be the lead of changing the way of thinking throughout the entire country is something of an honor," he said. "I'm very pleased they changed the flight pattern." Bass River Mayor Richard Bethea said he was confident the shooting would be ruled an accident. "The pilot had an error, he fessed up immediately, and they put the investigation into the (flight) pattern. I knew it had to be an accident of one kind from the beginning. I feel bad for the pilot. It was a mistake." U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, (D-N.J.), who was briefed yesterday by military officials, stressed the importance of the range to military preparedness, but said the final decision about its future would have to come from the surrounding community. "The bottom line is that we must be certain that all that can be done to protect the community is in place," he said in a prepared statement. "Should anything like this happen again, every option, including closing the facility, must be on the table. In the final analysis, the safety of people on the ground that live near the range must be the top priority." |
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