Excargodog

Depending on the perceived threat level, you might have as many as four (4) semiautomatic handguns onboard with maybe sixty (60) rounds of ammunition and since your higher ups have already ordered the evacuation of a military airbase which was under your control, you are now landing at a commercial airport which is SUPPOSED to be under some sort of control.

You are then mobbed by thousands of panicky people trying to get aboard and only manage to get the ramp up after six hundred and forty (640) of the panicky people get aboard most of whom don’t speak English and you make the decision to take off before the thousands of others who are mobbing your aircraft FOD your engines in their attempts to climb into and onto it. As you taxi out you are surrounded by hundreds of others - some climbing up into the gear well while others cling to the exterior fuselage - and wonder of wonders are able to actually take off, losing a few hangers on in the process from maybe 5-6 hundred AGL and crushing one or more when the gear doors close with their feet dangling out.

So faced with this situation - a total $hitshow - some AFOSI guys who weren’t there and aren’t remotely competent to understand the issues involved, and, let’s face it, are worthless as teats on a boar hog even on a good day, are going to review the social media comments and available video recordings to determine THEIR OPINION from the safety of a base thousands of miles away just what the aircrew on the scene could have or should have done differently at the time and no doubt recommend administrative or even criminal charges against the crew for having done something different.


How about instead you go after the military and political higher ups whose foul ups caused the crew to be in this situation to begin with?

Myfingershurt

Or maybe go after the president who failed to verify there was a legitimate plan in place for this pullout and made sure that our assets in Afghanistan were protected and evacuated before abandoning our position in the country?

rickair7777

It's pretty clear that they will be exonerated under the circumstances. They just have to do the process for the optics.

The only time a military-involved fatality doesn't get investigated is when it's the enemy.

Excargodog

yeah, investigated by a mishap board, and I’ve been on my fair share of those. But not by the OSI.

rickair7777

I can guarantee you that mishap boards are not the venue which addresses civilian fatalities. OSI is obviously going to be involved.

Especially since the crew knew that taxiing the aircraft was going to endanger people on the ground (I do agree that they had a good reason to do that).

Excargodog

Which only underlines the fact that they could be facing UCMJ charges.

nor am I saying lessons can’t be learned by investigating this. But I am concerned about these guys being made scapegoats.

it’s sort of like they were ordered to climb a tree, ordered to go out on a limb, and when the limb subsequently broke off, they are being investigated for not flying safely away.

rickair7777

In theory that's true for anything military, including a run of the mill mishap. Dereliction, failure to obey, etc.

jaxsurf

Well, would you rather that nobody investigated when human remains are found in a wheel well? Or when multiple people plummet to their deaths after takeoff?

If civilians are killed, there should always be an investigation, that's part of how we (hopefully) ensure our morality in armed conflict. Whenever CIVCAS occurred from kinetics in Afghanistan, there was always an investigation, of which the casualty-causing aircrew were a part of. However, I never personally heard of anyone (in the USMC, at least) facing UCMJ charges from the unfortunate times that it occurred and the subsequent investigation. It's no different here, but people's hysterics and jumping to conclusions don't help anything.

If and when the aircrew is charged, then we can bring out the pitchforks. Until that point, save the moral outrage

Excargodog

my moral outrage for the superiors putting them in this situation is ENTIRELY justified. Now if you get the OSI to start investigating them…

jaxsurf

Yeah, and I get that, but this specific incident (and all others like it), should still be investigated. It should be open and shut, and until it isn't, I'll save my energy and not get worked up over nothing.

Because, as you point out, there are far better things to get spun up about... like almost every aspect of our military adventure into Afghanistan. None of the politicos or dumb**** generals (or the lifer officers who also enabled it) will likely ever face charges from any of their stupidity/ignorance though.

EDIT: I dunno, maybe I'm just too jaded and cynical about it though.