Dynaverse.net
Off Topic => Ten Forward => Topic started by: EE on November 04, 2004, 04:15:52 pm
-
LITTLE EGG HARBOR, N.J. -- A National Guard F-16 fighter jet on a nighttime training mission Wednesday fired 25 rounds of ammunition that tore through an intermediate school. No one was injured.
The military is investigating the incident that damaged Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School shortly after 11 p.m.
Police were called to the area when a custodian heard what sounded like someone running across the roof of the school. The custodian was the only person in the school at the time.
Police Chief Mark Siino on Thursday said police officers noticed punctures in the roof. Ceiling tiles had fallen into classrooms and there were scratch marks in the asphalt outside the building.
The 2-inch long bullets are made of lead and do not explode, said Col. Brian Webster, commander of the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard.
It was unclear why the shots were fired, Webster said.
Pilot Fired From 7,000 Feet At School
New Jersey public schools were closed Thursday because of a teachers convention. The Ocean County school is scheduled to reopen Monday.
The pilot of the single-seat jet was supposed to fire at a target on the ground three and half miles away from school on the Warren Grove firing range, Webster said.
The military firing range covers parts of Little Egg Harbor, Bass River and Woodland townships in the southern part of the state.
"We don't know what happened that caused the gun to fire," Webster said.
The plane was 7,000 feet in the air when the shots were fired. The gun, an M61-A1 Vulcan cannon, is located in the plane's left wing.
"The National Guard takes this situation very seriously," said Lt. Col. Roberta Niedt, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. "The safety of our people and the surrounding communities are our foremost concern."
The jet that fired the rounds was assigned to the 113th Wing located at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. The fighter jet returned there after firing the shots, Webster said.
Webster would not identify the pilot or detail possible disciplinary measures.
Mike Dupuis, president of the township's Board of Education, said there were no precautions the school district could have taken to prevent such an incident.
School workers are mindful that the range is nearby, he said.
"Being so close to the range, that's always in the back of our minds. It is very scary. I have children in that school and relatives that work there," he said.
The school houses students from grades three to six.
The range has been used by the military since the end of World War II, long before the once-rural area was developed.
-
Who is the DUMBARSE that put the school on the edge of the range?
And the pilot needs a new one ripped and his wings clipped for not checking to make sure that he was over his target!
-
Hey, at 11PM accidents are more prone to occur. At least I would think they'd be more prone to occur seeing it's getting late etc.
Addendum: On the otherhand, you're right...I wouldn't want to fess up if I were the pilot that shot those bullets either. It seems very irresponsible. Perhaps he could do something like they did in Afghanistan? Afterall...perhaps someone was firing at him from the ground?
-
If his gun malfunctioned..it's the BB stackers fault...
If his IFR/VFR said he was where he was...NavAids gets the boot to head, unless they prove thier alignment electronics were bad, then it's the calibration folks...
If he tried to do it visually (unlikely at 2300 hours)..it's his fault...
Knowing how these things go..there will be a full investigation...the optics will be checked..the alignment test equipment will be sent to another base for calibration, with a full report requested..and all the other things that go into it..
Mike
-
I bet there are some kids who have no school because of this that are very very happy.
-
Media is blowing this into a full BS hype as usual. Local radio described it as a "strafing run" on the school, just saw a report on a Philly TV station calling it a "military attack". As if the pilot spotted the school from 7,000 feet and rolled in on it guns blazing!
Local reaction is varied (just about 15 miles SSW of here, can hear A-10s open up if the winds right). Long time locals seem blase about it, figure they've been dealing with the noise and occasional mishap for decades. The newbie locals (most likely transplants from NY and north NJ) are up in arms, "damn the military for putting a practice range there!". The whole site sits on the eastern edge of the National Pinelands Preseve, had plenty of buffer until developers started gazing south. Just to clarify that 3 mile distance is from the school to nearest boundary of the range. Add a few miles to the reported figure. The area is a nice place to live but folks have to keep in mind what is already there before trying to cram residential building into the area.
Hell, all the schools in the county are under the flight paths of Navy aircaraft going to/from Lakehurst NAS, AF cargo lifters and tankers going to/from MacGuire AFB, and commercial stuff going to/from and orbiting Newark, JFK, LaGuardia, Philly, and Atlantic City. Relax people, we play the odds every day!
-
Basicly, it comes down to stupidity on whoever put the school on the flight path to a known test range and a little bad luck on the malfunction on the gun.*
*I'm going to give the pilot benifit of the doubt after considering all of what could have gone on. HOwever it is his fault... :ban:
-
Media is blowing this into a full BS hype as usual. Local radio described it as a "strafing run" on the school, just saw a report on a Philly TV station calling it a "military attack". As if the pilot spotted the school from 7,000 feet and rolled in on it guns blazing!
Being facetious, but if that happend when I was a kid, that would have been sooooooooooo cool.
Bet there's kids picking at the bullet holes in hopes of finding a bullet.
-
I think the incident report will be interesting on this. People might be very surprised how much ammo is being hauled around over their heads without their knowledge. A few years ago at Ft Hood, an artillery unit, fired a few off the range, off the post, and into a farmers field. My guess on this one is not that the guy rolled in hot on a school, but more likely had a malfunctioning hot trigger or something as he got ready to go onto the range. Those cannon rounds go pretty far, and from 7000 feet could land about anywhere.
My 2 cents.
Villa
-
So where did the other 50-70 rounds land? How are F16s set up? I mean if you depress the trigger on the Vulcan does it fire a 100 round burst, ie 1 second or is it capable of continuous fire? I read somewhere that in the first second of operation the Vulcan loses about 3 tenths of a second spinning up, therefor only 70 rounds are fired during that duration(1 second).
-
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/arm/arm8.htm
A little bit on the Vulcan
Mike
-
NewsFlash Home | More National News
Strafing of school divides N.J. region
11/27/2004, 10:45 p.m. ET
By WAYNE PARRY
The Associated Press
LITTLE EGG HARBOR, N.J. (AP) ? The strafing of a school by a National Guard F-16 fighter jet has divided residents of the fast-growing region around the Warren Grove Gunnery Range. Some fear for their safety, while others consider it profoundly unpatriotic to question the military during a time of war.
The National Guard is still investigating what it describes as an accidental release of gunfire. Results are expected in about two weeks.
The night custodian of the Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School was going about her rounds when she heard the patter of what sounded like footsteps on the roof. She thought someone might be running atop the building, but police found nothing. The next morning, authorities realized what had made the sound: 20mm rounds fired by the F-16 during a nighttime training flight over a target range four miles away.
"Had it missed the school and hit one of our houses, we'd be talking about dead bodies now," said Township Committeeman Arthur Midgley. "We can't have this. This must never happen again."
But Terry Hickman, a 10-year Army special forces veteran, defended the range and the pilots who train there.
"Let 'em alone; they're over there putting their lives on the line for us," Hickman said as he prepared to hunt deer in Bass River, near the edge of the range. "That guy (the pilot) probably feels so bad about this. He's probably going to get sent overseas and he might not even come back. As long as no one got hurt, this whole thing should just be forgotten."
According to the military, at 9:02 p.m. on Nov. 3, a veteran pilot from the 113th Wing of the District of Columbia National Guard, based at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, was streaking across the sky 7,000 feet above the 9,416-acre range, which abuts parts of Little Egg Harbor, Stafford, Tuckerton and Bass River.
The pilot, a major whose name has not been released and who has been grounded pending the outcome of the inquiry, looked back over his shoulder for a split second, just as the wing-mounted gun fired a burst of 27 rounds. The 20mm cannon fires at a rate of about 6,000 rounds per minute.
The lead rounds followed an arcing trajectory that brought them to the ground four miles away. Eight bullets punched through the roof of the school and at least one lodged in a child's desk.
The pilot immediately radioed the tower that something had gone wrong and headed back to Andrews.
The range is shut down until the investigation is completed.
The pilot's commander, Maj. Gen. David F. Wherley Jr. Wherley, told reporters in Washington there were three possible explanations: plane malfunction, computer error or pilot error.
When the range was opened in 1942 during World War II, there were 2,000 people living nearby; now there are more than 50,000.
Lisamarie Saccomagno's daughter attends the school.
"Because we're at war now, I'm very sensitive to all the military's burdens," she said. "We all want to be safe and secure. But we're also concerned about our children. I'm afraid something's going to go wrong. We really need to know where those bullets are going."
National Guard officials pointedly invoked the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in trying to reassure residents and head off calls for the range to be permanently shut down.
"Think back in your memory to Sept. 11, when all the air traffic was grounded and the only sound you heard was our F-16s flying over New Jersey," Maria Falca-Dodson, the state National Guard's deputy adjutant general, said at a packed public meeting. "Much of the country all felt great comfort in the sounds and sights of those aircraft. What if on Sept. 11, we were all a volunteer group that only flew occasionally or twice a year?"
The Guard already has made several changes in pilot training, including requiring them to keep a safety on their weapons until they are over the range near their targets, and altering approach routes so any accidental gunfire is likely to land in sparsely populated woods west of the Garden State Parkway.
Many of the range's closest neighbors don't fear its operations. In May, Bill Neil and his family moved into a spacious new home just past the range's western boundary in Stafford. He said he's not concerned for his family's safety.
"It's kind of cool for the kids," he said. "They like hearing the planes."
http://www.masslive.com/newsflash/national/index.ssf?/base/national-34/1101607444163660.xml&storylist=national
-
Good find...and as said before, you build a house near a firing range at your own risk..
Mike
-
People just think the military can up and move anywhere they want and make a military base relocate. They ever think how many jobs are on that base for the locals?
Whether the pilot failed to follow standard procedures (Instrument Flight Rules for location, then Visual Flight Rules for landmarks/Verification of location) will be decided by the military investigators. Of course, the left doubts that the military does thorough investigations. Guess what? The investigations done by the military would scare the hell out of a liberal because you have no rights to ban ANY evidence they come up with.
They will throw the kitchen sink at you and follow it up with the fridge just to be safe.
I will wait for the official report, but one incident in fifty odd years? Good odds.
It could have been as simple as his nose was pitched higher than expected, and he brushed the trigger, and the added elevation sent the bullets farther than expected. 28 from a Vulcan is barely anything. That gun can rattle off some rounds.
-
People lile to blame. People really like to blame. The thing is that this is an easy thing to place blame on. friggin sheeple
-
:lol: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :thumbsup: Sheeple. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Good one Clark+1 for you! :)
-
:lol: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :thumbsup: Sheeple. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Good one Clark+1 for you! :)
Muchos thanks ;D
:multi: :multi: :multi: :multi:
-
Ive been waiting for someone to say this. The pilot was just returning fire. It is Jersey after all. :P
-
"Think back in your memory to Sept. 11, when all the air traffic was grounded and the only sound you heard was our F-16s flying over New Jersey," Maria Falca-Dodson, the state National Guard's deputy adjutant general, said at a packed public meeting. "Much of the country all felt great comfort in the sounds and sights of those aircraft. What if on Sept. 11, we were all a volunteer group that only flew occasionally or twice a year?"
[url]http://www.masslive.com/newsflash/national/index.ssf?/base/national-34/1101607444163660.xml&storylist=national[/url]
DAMN STRAIGHT! :thumbsup:
The NIMBY attitude is bad enough in a state as densely packed as this. But when it involves pre-established institutions and one as important as keeping our military from becoming a paper tiger I want too just go down there and smack some heads around. Said it before and I'll rephrase it, the folks pushing for the closure are new arrivals from metro NY/NJ (9/11 ironic) who want their little slice of 1/8 acre McMansion heaven, regardless of reality, sensability, or malice toward others.
-
Ive been waiting for someone to say this. The pilot was just returning fire. It is Jersey after all. :P
Thems fightin words.
We got several Army bases, an Arsenal, a major Air Force base, a Naval Air Warfare Center (complete with big ass-ed blimp hangers), a Naval Weapons depot (un-confirmed nukes included), and the Iowa class battleship NJ.
If DC wants to get tough they'd better rent an army before they come knocking again. ;)
-
Hey Nick, you could round up all the punks in Newark, arm them, and tell them to invade Philly, then wait for the ghost of Mayor Rizzo to rise ;D
Nick, most folks don't know that most of NJ is very beautiful..I've spent a lot of time in the country..all they see are the squalid city neighborhoods...
Mike
-
... round up all the punks in Newark, arm them,..
Redundant, no ;D?
-
... round up all the punks in Newark, arm them,..
Redundant, no ;D?
O.K. I was cooking dinner, and the hunger dulled me for a second..just think if we could use a giant jigsaw, cut around the NY/Newark area, and let it float out to sea, get caught up in the currents, and float to Europe...interesting conjecture..how much would we save by not supporting some of them..and how much would France suffer if it ran into Calais (we'd anchor Liberty Island down, since it has no native population)
Mike..it's late..and I've been watching the Clapton guitar fesival on Iowa public TV
-
N.J. range to reopen after school strafed
12/15/2004, 12:17 a.m. ET
The Associated Press
LITTLE EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) ? Pilots will resume training Thursday at a military range that has been shut down since an F-16 fighter accidentally fired at an elementary school last month, officials said
Though training will resume at the Warren Grove Gunnery Range, no weapons will be fired for now, and changes have been made to increase safety, Col. Brian Webster said.
"We've implemented a number of new operational procedures and guidelines that allow us to safely resume temporary, limited, non-ordnance training," Webster said in a statement. He commands the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard, which supervises the range.
Military officials would not specify exactly what changes are being made.
The range has been closed since Nov. 3, when the F-16 approaching the range accidentally fired 27 rounds of 20mm ammunition from a cannon mounted in the left wing. Some of the spent rounds passed through the roof of the Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School. The incident happened at about 9 p.m., while only custodians were inside the building, and no one was injured.
The results of a recently completed Air Force Accident Investigation Board inquiry are still under review, according to Webster's statement.
Township Committeeman Brian Rumpf said the investigation would be made public by the end of the month and that a public meeting would be held to discuss the investigation.
The 9,400-acre range, located in the southern New Jersey Pine Barrens about 30 miles north of Atlantic City, has been in operation since 1942.
The November incident was the latest of several in recent years that have alarmed residents. Fires caused by errant bombs burned 11,000 acres of nearby woodlands in 1999 and 1,500 acres in 2001. An F-16 training at the range crashed near the Garden State Parkway in June 2002. The pilot ejected and no one was hurt.
http://www.masslive.com/newsflash/national/index.ssf?/base/national-35/1103088844125710.xml&storylist=national
-
I knew NJ was "The Garden State", but I thought it was a Rock Garden. ;D
I used to work for a company that sent me to Boundbrook, Edison, and Carteret on a regular basis.
-
I knew NJ was "The Garden State", but I thought it was a Rock Garden. ;D
I used to work for a company that sent me to Boundbrook, Edison, and Carteret on a regular basis.
Then you need to get down to Ocean and Burlington County my friend.
Heh! I go to Colliers Mills just to sit by the lake and listen to the target practice they usually have on Saturdays. I can't see it, but whatever they are using it's BIG and FAST. :thumbsup:
(http://www.sjca.net/pics/maps/ocean_map.gif)
-
If you want to see it just look for Range Road off the west side of County 539 about halfway between Rt 72 and the Parkway. Pre 9/11 access was allowed for civilians up to the guard shack. Could just sit there and watch them rip the hell out of the pygmy pines. :o
-
Getting to fly but not fire...can you picture a pilot in a multimillion dollar fighter jet flying by at mach 2 making machine gun noises with his mouth as he 'strafes' a target? That is silly.
-
If you want to see it just look for Range Road off the west side of County 539 about halfway between Rt 72 and the Parkway. Pre 9/11 access was allowed for civilians up to the guard shack. Could just sit there and watch them rip the hell out of the pygmy pines. :o
OK! Will Do.
Thanks for the tip NJ. :thumbsup:
-
If you want to see it just look for Range Road off the west side of County 539 about halfway between Rt 72 and the Parkway. Pre 9/11 access was allowed for civilians up to the guard shack. Could just sit there and watch them rip the hell out of the pygmy pines. :o
Doesn't County 539 go through Ft. Dix? That's one road I don't want to be stranded on in the middle of the night! :o
-
Doesn't County 539 go through Ft. Dix? That's one road I don't want to be stranded on in the middle of the night! :o
Why not?
I'm sure it gets patrolled quite regularly. ;)
It's not like it's Area 51. :D
-
If you want to see it just look for Range Road off the west side of County 539 about halfway between Rt 72 and the Parkway. Pre 9/11 access was allowed for civilians up to the guard shack. Could just sit there and watch them rip the hell out of the pygmy pines. :o
Doesn't County 539 go through Ft. Dix? That's one road I don't want to be stranded on in the middle of the night! :o
Once upon a time (before the invasion of Northerners looking for mansion in the sticks) that was a creepy road at nite. Now, with all the development, you can make it from one WAWA to the next before the coffee gets cold.
But if you want creepy there is an abandoned BOMARC site complete with old concrete hangers and plutonium contamination along 539. Just look for the only unmarked paved road off the east side of 539, north of Rt 70 about 10 miles. And the stretch of 539 between 70 and the Parkway is practically undeveloped. Pygmy pines get really freaky at nite when the headlights hit them.
:o
-
Nick, we used to go drinking there when I was at school at Ft Monmouth...gets the girls cuddling :D
Mike
-
Pilot error blamed in N.J. school shooting
12/17/2004, 10:32 a.m. ET
By DONNA DE LA CRUZ
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Air Force has concluded that pilot error and a poorly designed aircraft control caused an F-16 pilot to fire rounds into a New Jersey elementary school, according to a report obtained Friday by The Associated Press.
The pilot never intended to strafe the Little Egg Harbor Township Intermediate School, according to the report, which called the firing of the aircraft's gun an "unfortunate and unintentional mistake."
The pilot, Maj. Roberto Balzano of the 113th Wing of the District of Columbia National Guard, based at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, was wearing night-vision goggles on the training mission Nov. 3 when the shooting occurred.
Balzano, referred to in the report as the "mishap pilot," or MP, was verifying his aircraft position in relation to his intended target on the Warren Grove Gunnery Range in southern New Jersey. No one was injured.
"This was accomplished by pulling the trigger, commanding the aircraft's targeting pod to emit a laser marker for orientation," the report said. "Unfortunately, the MP forgot that his aircraft's air-to-ground gun mode was selected and armed ready to fire. The MP immediately realized his error when the aircraft gun's discharged."
Balzano has more than 2,000 hours of experience flying planes, 975 hours of which were in the F-16s.
http://www.masslive.com/newsflash/national/index.ssf?/base/national-35/110329644795410.xml&storylist=national
-
This is one of those "Just be grateful nobody was hurt" episodes. I can imagine being in that pilot's place, and the knot that would be in my stomach as those rounds left the plane and I had to wonder for possibly days if I'd accidently killed someone....
-
Nick, we used to go drinking there when I was at school at Ft Monmouth...gets the girls cuddling :D
Mike
The BOMARC site? Did it leave them with an afterglow? ;)
-
Some of those dirt roads near Wrightstown? That's where we'd go..quiet and lonely
Mike
-
I would hope he realises his error when the bloody gun goes off and doesn't let off a couple 500 pound bombs for effect.
-
Updated with more info
Air Force blames pilot in school strafing
12/17/2004, 9:55 p.m. ET
By WAYNE PARRY
The Associated Press
LITTLE EGG HARBOR, N.J. (AP) ? An Air National Guard pilot who accidentally fired on a New Jersey school during a nighttime training exercise was to blame for the incident, but poorly designed controls in the F-16 also played a role, the Air Force concluded Friday.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press, also disclosed there have been three other incidents this year in which an F-16 pilot unintentionally fired during nighttime strafing missions. No one was hurt in any of the incidents.
The report called the Nov. 3 incident in New Jersey an "unfortunate and unintentional mistake." It said the pilot never intended to strafe the Little Egg Harbor Township Intermediate School, and it suggested computer software changes to the aircraft control systems to prevent another incident.
"The last thing he wanted to do, obviously, is have the gun fire and have rounds land off the range," Col. Brian Webster, commander of the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard. "He simply got confused. He had the gun up and armed."
He said the software upgrade being installed on 600 older F-16s nationwide will make it impossible to use the same trigger mechanism to activate the aircraft's laser target marker and fire its 20mm cannon.
The Air Force board that investigated the New Jersey accident recommended the change.
"In my opinion, using the same trigger for both laser marking and firing the aircraft's gun significantly increases the risk of human error and an unintentional gun discharge," the board's head, Col. Kevin W. Bradley, said in the report.
The other accidental firing incidents occurred at the Adirondack firing range in upstate New York and at two ranges in Western states, Webster said; none of them involved projectiles landing outside the range.
The pilot in the New Jersey incident was identified as Maj. Roberto Balzano of the 113th Wing of the District of Columbia National Guard, based at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. The report said his commander will determine if any punitive or administrative action should be taken, and whether any retraining is necessary.
Balzano has more than 2,000 hours of experience flying planes, 975 hours of which were in the F-16s.
Balzano, referred to in the report as the "mishap pilot" or MP, was verifying his aircraft position in relation to his intended ground targets on the Warren Grove range, about 30 miles north of Atlantic City. The school is about four miles from the range.
"Unfortunately, the MP forgot that his aircraft's air-to-ground gun mode was selected and armed ready to fire. The MP immediately realized his error when the aircraft gun's discharged," the report said.
The accident happened as Balzano was flying at approximately 7,000 feet. Twenty-seven rounds of inert 20mm ammunition were discharged. Eight of the 2-inch lead rounds punched through the school's roof, knocking down ceiling tiles. At least one round struck a child's desk, and others scuffed the asphalt in the parking lot.
Balzano immediately told the control tower something had gone wrong, scrapped his mission and returned to Andrews.
http://www.masslive.com/newsflash/washington/index.ssf?/base/politics-5/1103339047297660.xml&storylist=washington