The raid of the International Coalition fighters that the September 17 accidentally hit Syrian government forces stationed at Deir Ezzor is the result of human error. This is what was revealed by the Pentagon's investigation that regarding the incident he stated that: On September 17, a chain of human error resulted in a mixed formation consisting of the US Navy's F / A 18 F Super Hornet, and unidentified fighter aircraft from Denmark, Australia and Great Britain to strike Syrian government forces causing the death of more than 60 soldiers, according to Russian sources, 15 according to American sources. For the families of the Syrian victims who Online Defense met last December the fallen would be 84.
The gen. Richard "Tex" Coe, an officer in charge of the investigation, told journalists that intelligence activities were confusing - for lack of uniforms and characteristic signs that are well recognizable - a convoy of vehicles believed to belong to ISIS, with what turned out to be a convoy of the Syrian government army.
At the raid they would take part of the F-16 Fighting Falcon (probably belonging to the Royal Danish Air Force), of the F-18 Super Hornet (probably belonging to the US Navy), armed UAV (probably belonging to the RAF) and A-10 ground attack aircraft Thunderbolt II (probably belonging to the USAF). The training employed 34 precision guided ammunition (laserguidata or teleguidata) and fired 380 shots from 30mm: ammunition fired with good chance from the GAU-8 Avenger rotating gun cannons mounted by the A-10.
The target error was immediately reported by the Russian Intelligence to the US counterparts but the answer they received was that "The information they owned was not accurate".
According to General Coe, the Russians still waited for 27 minutes before reporting the target error to their US counterparts. The operation lasted throughout 60 minutes. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov immediately invoked the opening of an investigation to shed light on a not inconsiderable error.
After this unfortunate event, Lieutenant General Jeff Harrigian, commander of the US Air Force in the region, ordered a series of 'improvements' to be made in the 'targeting' process, including a more effective exchange of information between the various analysts in the Combined Air Operations Center, known as the CAOC, a more effective use of the direct line with Russian counterparts is recommended.
(Read also our meeting with one of the victims' families)
(photo: US Air Force)
