When Aircraft Get Caught in the Crossfire

Reviewing a "friendly fire" incident on a Navy F/A 18 in 2003

CNN is reporting that Azerbaijan Airlines flight J2-8243 in Kazakhstan, which was traveling from Baku to Grozny before suddenly veering off course towards the Caspian Sea, might have been caused by Russian air defenses mistakenly firing on it.

However, the crash happened at the same time as Ukraine’s armed forces are reportedly conducting drone strikes on targets in Grozny, which has raised concerns the plane may have gotten caught in the crossfire of Russian air defenses firing on Ukrainian drones operating in the same air space. Andrey Kovalenko, who is the head of Ukraine’s “Center for Countering Disinformation,” has stated that “Russia should have closed the airspace over Grozny but failed to do so.”

The incident reminded me of an April 2, 2003 incident when the United States lost its first fighter-jet pilot during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Lt. Nathan D. White, was flying his F/A-18 C Hornet when he was hit by a Patriot missile during a friendly-fire incident over Iraq.

A close friend of mine was flying on the same mission and saw the incident happen. As he told me decades later.

I was flying about ten miles away and initially thought the missile was fired at me. I saw it hit and destroy his aircraft. An investigation revealed that the missile system was operating on an automatic setting that failed to identify the aircraft as a friendly. It became evident that this was a preventable error. A friend of mine conducted the investigation for the Navy, and he was shocked by attitude expressed by the Army—that is, such incidents are simply the cost of doing business.

The pilot’s widow tried to sue the Patriot manufacturer, Raytheon. They subpoenaed a bunch of classified docs from the army for their defense. With a wink and a nod, the army refused to release the requested documents. Because Raytheon was unable to obtain documentation to defend itself, the judge threw the case out. The widow was left to raised 5 kids with his SGLI payout ($25k?).

Akiko White attends funeral of Lt. Nathan White with 2 of her 5 children.

The Azerbaijan Airlines incident is an example of what I have been trying to point out for the last two years—namely, that governments and their militaries ALWAYS fail to predict and control the outcome of wars, which have a nasty way of escalating with unforeseen consequences.