SO, WHO'S TO BLAME?

By MARK THOMPSON WASHINGTON

IT SEEMED AS ROUTINE AS PUNCHING UP a favorite station on the car radio--the simple push of a button. But this time it would kill them. Before lifting off from southern Turkey, bound for northern Iraq on April 14 of last year, the pilots of two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters activated the "friend-or-foe" system designed to identify them to other U.S. aircraft. They set it to frequency 42. That was the setting prescribed in the top-secret "air-tasking order" they received from the Air Force each day they ventured into the part of Iraq policed by U.S. aircraft.

About an hour later, two U.S. F-15 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 on board.

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 watched the proceedings unfold, they were stunned to see entered into evidence declassified Air Force documents that showed the Black Hawks were supposed to switch to a second frequency when entering Iraq. "They were flying on the only code they were given," says Army Captain Michael Nye, who flew missions over Iraq for nine months. "They'd still be alive if we'd been given both frequencies by the Air Force."

The 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."

Wang's acquittal means that no Air Force officer will face anything but the mildest penalty. "This mishap was not the result of any one individual's actions," Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall says. "The conduct of numerous officers and the system itself contributed."

Some military officers are worried by what they see as a growing and dangerous lack of accountability in the military. "There is less and less risk to careers when you screw up now," says John Shanahan, an ex-vice admiral who is director of the Center for Defense Information. "The guys at the top should be held accountable--somebody has to pay for these things."

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 May were dropped. Furthermore, the top officer responsible for the operation in northern Iraq, Brigadier General Jeffrey Pilkington, was never called to testify in the May proceeding. Yet he did testify at Wang's court-martial, where he said the F-15 pilots violated the rules of engagement when they launched missiles at the two Black Hawks after misidentifying them as Iraqi Hind helicopters. (Just how they violated the rules remains classified.)

The Air Force chief of staff announced last week that he is appointing an outside panel to scrutinize how his service investigates accidents. General Ronald Fogleman said the action was sparked by 18 major accidents so far this year and charges by a former top Air Force safety official, reported in Time in May, that Air Force crash probes often are cover-ups done by "incompetents, charlatans and sycophants."

But some things apparently don't change. The Air Force said last week that Wickson will become a full-fledged instructor of fighter fundamentals at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. This does not please Joan Piper, an Air Force wife whose daughter Laura, 25, died on one of the helicopters. Says Piper: "I don't think he should be a role model for the next generation of young pilots."