British airmen's deaths 'avoidable'

A coroner has found that the deaths of two British airmen shot down by an American Patriot missile defence system at the beginning of the Iraq war were "entirely avoidable".

Oxfordshire Assistant Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker blamed the blunder on a series of "glaring failures" that led a Patriot battery to label the plane a threatening anti-radiation missile (ARM) instead of recognising it as part of coalition forces.

He singled out for criticism "inadequate" training for staff operating the Patriot missile battery outside the Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait and poor communications between that battery and others.

Pilot Flight Lieutenant Kevin Main, 35, and navigator Flight Lieutenant Dave Williams, 37, were shot down just 16 nautical miles from base as they returned from a successful mission attacking south-west Baghdad as part of the "Shock and Awe" aerial bombardment by coalition forces.

Their Oxford inquest has heard that another battery informed the American airmen - who spotted the suspected missile approaching seconds too late - that it was a British plane.

During his narrative verdict, Mr Walker said the decision to put an autonomous Patriot battery - tasked specifically to shoot down ballistic missiles and not planes or ARMs - in the middle of a busy flightpath was "hard to understand".

He said: "It is very hard when considering an inquest such as this, where these tragic deaths were entirely avoidable. How best can I deal with that? I can't, other than to say this should not have happened."

The evidence from US Air Force staff inside the battery when the incident happened, on March 22, 2003, was read to the inquest in the form of statements with names blanked out since US authorities declined to provide live witnesses.

The tactical control officer in the battery who gave the order to fire on a Tornado GR4 carrying the two airmen, from 9th Squadron based at RAF Marham in Norfolk, explained the plane showed up on her radar as a missile, not a plane.

Asked if she was authorised to shoot down such a missile, she replied: "Yes, if it's something that is threatening you, it's self-defence. I can look back and say that I might have maybe waited longer, maybe I could have done differently. I have made the decision I have made and I have to live with that."