More USAF friendly fire; a New Jersey school this time

[Darth Wong]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/nyreg ... trafe.html

Warplane Strafes a School in New Jersey

It sounded like somebody running across the roof of the elementary school in a New Jersey township Wednesday night, said the cleaning woman who called the police. No prowler was found. But yesterday, what had seemed a minor item in a police blotter touched off state and federal military investigations after it was disclosed that an F-16 warplane had strafed the school with cannon fire.

The Air National Guard warplane, flying a night training mission out of Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, fired a burst of 27 rounds from its 20-millimeter cannon shortly before 10:15 p.m. as it streaked over Little Egg Harbor Township, 20 miles north of Atlantic City, New Jersey military officials said last night.

Col. Brian Webster, commander of the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard, said that the pilot, who was not identified, fired the cannon inadvertently just as he turned into a dive to strafe a target at the Warren Grove firing range in Ocean County, a sprawling military reservation in the Pine Barrens that has been used for bombing and strafing practice since World War II.

The pilot was to have fired the half-second burst of shells well into the dive, at about 5,000 feet, the colonel said, but instead the cannon went off at an altitude of 7,000 feet, and at least eight of the bullets - non-explosive lead slugs more than 2 inches long - crashed through the roof of Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School, three miles south of the target range. No one was hurt, and the damage was minor.

It was unclear whether any other structures were hit. Five slugs were found in the school parking lot, and 14 others apparently came down harmlessly in the neighborhood, where houses are set far apart and surrounded by woods. Fewer than 16,000 people live in the 50-square-mile township.

"The National Guard takes this situation very seriously," Lt. Col. Roberta Niedt, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said. "The safety of our people and the surrounding communities are our foremost concern."

At the time of the firing, the one-story school on Frog Pond Road, two miles south of the Garden State Parkway, was unoccupied except for four members of the night custodial staff. One of them, a woman cleaning a third-grade classroom who asked not to be identified, thought the shots sounded like scurrying footsteps overhead. Concerned about a possible prowler, she called the police.

"It sounded like someone was running across the roof to her," Lt. John O'Brien, of the township police, recalled in an interview yesterday. Officers were dispatched, but in the darkness they found no one on the roof and no signs of a prowler. The incident was duly recorded in the police log.

Yesterday, however, custodians arriving at the school found 13 cannon slugs - 5 in a parking lot and 8 inside the school in various classrooms and offices, said Fred Zimmerman, the director of instructional services.

The police said there were holes in the roof and in the ceilings and floors of several classrooms, a hallway and an office. At least one desk was hit, ceiling tiles had fallen in some classrooms, and there were scratch marks on the building's brick exterior.

The school's 970 pupils, in grades three through six, had no classes yesterday or today because the state's teachers were at an annual convention in Atlantic City. They will return on Monday, school officials said.

Michael Dupuis, the president of the township school board, said that residents and school officials were concerned over the incident, but not unduly so, and had no misgivings about living near the firing range. "There will be concerns, but I feel confident that the military has done and is doing everything it can to safeguard against any occurrences of this nature," he said.

Colonel Webster said the incident yesterday was under investigation by the Pentagon and state officials. "We have no idea why the gun went off," he said. "This is a very unusual and unique thing." He said the range at Warren Grove had been open for more than 40 years and that this was the first time bullets fired from the air had struck off the range. It was unclear who reported the incident to military officials.

But there have been problems from time to time. In January 2002, a New Jersey Air National Guard jet crashed near the Garden State Parkway, but the pilot parachuted safely, and no one was injured. In June 2001, an F-16 on practice run dropped a 25-pound smoke bomb that burned 1,600 acres of pine forests in Ocean County. And in 1999, another bombing run went awry and 11,000 acres of pine forests burned.

The planes, assigned to the 113th Wing of the District of Columbia Air National Guard, had taken off earlier in the evening from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. The 20-millimeter cannon of an F-16, an M61-A1 Vulcan, normally holds 540 rounds, but on training missions, the colonel said, limiting devices allow only 110 bullets to be fired on a flight.

Colonel Webster said the F-16 was north of the target range and the school and was turning toward the southeast to begin a 30-degree strafing dive when the cannon went off prematurely some 2,000 feet above the normal level for opening fire. "It was not an intentional release," the colonel said. "We do not engage targets unless we're aimed at them. He was aimed at space."

Argh.

[Gandalf]

Fuck.

Do they ever do exercises in daytime?

[Chardok]

Not argh. Ha!

I only say ha because it was at night and no one was hurt. but that's a neat story. I wonder how much worse the damage would have been had the guy used DU slugs! THAT, I believe, would have been argh.

[Col. Crackpot]

wow.

1) what a careless moron
2) why the fuck was a school built so close to a bombing range?

[Darth Wong]

Fuck.

Do they ever do exercises in daytime?

Last time I checked, most public schools are in residential areas. This guy could just as easily have strafed a house, so the fact that it happened at night is not exactly an excuse. It's just good luck that no one was hurt.

[MKSheppard]

From various boards:

I thoguht the KyNG screwed up bad at Ft. Knox when they fired what they thot was a dummy round out of a LAW antitank weapon and it ended up taking a chunk out of the top floor of the base hospital. It wasn't a dummy, but the idiot who fired it without first checking it out was.

**********************88

National Guard folks do some pretty strange things. In 1992 at Fort Stewart, GA, a Tennessee NG Artillery unit landed a round near one of the housing areas. They had their azimuth (or whatever you call them) was way off. Fortunately there were no injuries. Unit commander was relieved of duty.

**********************88

Long, long ago, in the days when I was a tank gunner, we were on a night firing exercise shooting the main gun [105MM, then] at an illuminated target. The idea is that the tank commander picks the right target and directs the gun into the general area using his override controls, then lets the gunner fine-tune the signt picture and nail the target spot-on. Trouble was, this guy couldn't find the light, and seesawed us back-and-forth nearly to the point of seasickness a couple of times.

Anyway, on this target, representing an enemy tank, he finally picked up a light, and screamed at me over the intercome to fire at it. So I did, though it struck me at the time that the main gun, just to my left side, was at a bit more elevation than usual. Oh well, orders is orders; ON THE WAY!....BOOM!

Happily, the target survived, though they figured that the round impacted some 12 miles away. Shortly thereafter, I became the tank commander, and the less-than-picky-about-his-targets buck sergeant became a motor pool NCO. The planet Venus is still up there.

**********************88

Oh. . .at Seymour-Johnson we had a crew almost drop a BDU-33 on the range tower. The tower was supposed to be the off-set designation point and, well, the back-seater made a little mistake and designated it as the target, not off-set point. The mission was on the Dare Range, at night, and as the crew rolled in and pointed at the "target," what really hosed them was the fact that you could hear the pilot verify the designation, and seen in the FLIR ("Looks good."). Bomb away. . .shortly thereafter the range tower reports a 10 meter bomb from the tower! Needless to say, the guys were in a bit of trouble and there is a plaque embedded in the range tower parking lot. The plague marks the spot where the bomb hit and names the crew.

**********************88

Had a guard unit from AZ show up at Fort Knox when I used to live nearby for some artillery training.

They must have slept through the classrom instruction cause when the lit up the big guns some guy wound up with a crater in his backyard. He was upset as it interrupted his TV watchin as I recall.

They were shipped out before that barrel had a chance to cool down.

When you live near ranges this stuff does happen from time to time.

[Chardok]

2) why the fuck was a school built so close to a bombing range?

Well, depending on the guy's AOA, it may not be "close", 7000 Feet is a long way to fall, and I personally don't know the muzzle velocity of the F-16's cannon, but I surmise that that said, homeboy's career as a fighter pilot is over. Welcome to the C-130 corps, zoomie.

(No offense to our resident Spectre-jock)

[MKSheppard]

2) why the fuck was a school built so close to a bombing range?

Bombing range was built in WW2.

[Gandalf]

2) why the fuck was a school built so close to a bombing range?

Bombing range was built in WW2.

But they'd been using it since then. Still leaves the question as to why would they placed so close together?

[Col. Crackpot]

2) why the fuck was a school built so close to a bombing range?

Bombing range was built in WW2.

obviously the school was built later. Who's bright idea was it to put it nest to the bombing range? Was the spot next to the nitroglycerine factory already taken?

[RedImperator]

2) why the fuck was a school built so close to a bombing range?

Bombing range was built in WW2.

But they'd been using it since then. Still leaves the question as to why would they placed so close together?

I know Little Egg Harbor Township. They can't tell their ass from a hole in the ground. That's why.

[HemlockGrey]

Ha! This is New Jersey! Typical!

[2000AD]

According to one of my friends one of his flat mates father's had his factory bombed by a mock bomb by USAF on training exercises over here. Apaarentl;y he got a shit load of compensation as well.

[LadyTevar]

Sounds to me that the pilot got a bit trigger-happy.

[phongn]

That reminds me of the RTAF incident when an F-16 zoomie strafed some (unoccupied) hotel bungalow.

[Col. Crackpot]

That reminds me of the RTAF incident when an F-16 zoomie strafed some (unoccupied) hotel bungalow.

and who no doubt spent the rest of his career flying rubber dogshit from the factories of Thailand to the flea markets of Los Angeles.

[wautd]

Reminds me of the time in Fort Springfield where mortar rounds misfired and hit a tank station/Quick-E-Mart

No wait, that was in the Simpsons

[Wicked Pilot]

wow.

No shit. Being off course and lost on a training mission usually isn't that big of a deal, that's why we have training missions. But when you unload something off the off the range or the DZ, even by a a foot, heads will roll.

1) what a careless moron

In the extremely unlikely event that the gun went off by accident, then it's not the pilot's fault. I doubt that's gonna be the case though.

2) why the fuck was a school built so close to a bombing range?

It probably has something to do with the population density of that part of the country. Down in south Texas we have a bombing range west of where I live, and there ain't nothing around there except steers and rednecks who do their steers.

[Augustus]

Someone should check to see if the pilot attended school there. He might have been living out an adolesent fantasy

[Durandal]

That reminds me of the RTAF incident when an F-16 zoomie strafed some (unoccupied) hotel bungalow.

and who no doubt spent the rest of his career flying rubber dogshit from the factories of Thailand to the flea markets of Los Angeles.

You mean rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong, don't you?

[Admiral Valdemar]

You mean rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong, don't you?

He has to screw up this much first.

[White Haven]

Hmm...which classrooms and whose offices did he hit?

[Guy N. Cognito]

Does any body know whether attacking a school is a step up or down from attacking your allies? Deja Vu from a bomb dropped on Canadian soldiers in the Middle East.

[Alan Bolte]

I can't help but think of Calvin and Hobbes.

[White Haven]

...Anyone catch that pilot's name? Calvin might be of age soon... *speculates*