ACC officials release F-16 accident report

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  • Air Combat Command Public Affairs
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (ACCNS) --  Air Force officials recently completed an investigation of the F-16C Fighting Falcon accident 20 miles northwest of Baghdad Nov. 27, which resulted in the death of the pilot, Maj. Troy Gilbert.

The official cause of the accident was Major Gilbert's "channelized attention manifested by his desire to maintain a constant visual positive identification of targeted enemy vehicles and subsequent target fixation on these vehicles while they were traveling at a high rate of speed," said the report. These two factors, when combined, caused Major Gilbert "to begin, and then press his attack below a recoverable altitude."

In a telephonic press conference April 2, Brig. Gen. David L. Goldfein, commander of the 49th Fighter Wing, Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., and president of the accident investigation board, said Major Gilbert was fully qualified, fully focused and well rested prior to taking part in his final sortie.

The sortie began as a non-traditional intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, or NTISR mission, where pilots use targeting pods and visual means to find, track and potentially target threats to coalition ground troops.

At that point, Major Gilbert found the situation turning from "benign" to "very intense" in a matter of minutes, General Goldfein said.

According to the accident investigation board report released April 2 by Air Combat Command, Major Gilbert led a flight of two F-16s in an aerial combat mission near Taji, Iraq. On the ground, insurgents were unleashing truck-mounted heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, small arms fire and mortars to attack Coalition troops. In addition, a downed Army helicopter crew was in danger of being overrun.

Major Gilbert quickly transitioned his peacetime training to his wartime environment. "I found no fault with his adjustment of the mission plan," General Goldfein said.

The report said Major Gilbert engaged the insurgents, launching a strafing attack against enemy vehicles, striking a truck with the F-16's 20-millimeter Gatling gun.

Major Gilbert then conducted a second strafing pass from an extremely low altitude that was not recoverable, impacting the ground. He died immediately on impact. Operating in a dynamic and stressful environment, Major Gilbert's motivation to succeed saved the lives of the helicopter crew and other Coalition ground forces, said General Goldfein said.

"(Fighter pilots) train to a very strict standard in peacetime in terms of how we execute various attacks, and then we adjust from that point when we get into combat in order to accomplish the mission," he said. "(Major Gilbert) was operating in a very dynamic environment and responding to the requirement to maintain 100 percent positive identification on a very, very difficult target to acquire."

According to a vignette in the Air Force's Portraits in Courage, Major Gilbert, a 12-year Air Force veteran, had already completed 21 combat sorties in the F-16 supporting ground forces under enemy fire. On one mission, he found and identified anti-Iraqi forces, then passed critical targeting information to Coalition forces, who attacked and eliminated the threat. In another time-sensitive mission, he destroyed 10 insurgents concealed in a palm grove with the pinpoint delivery of a laser-guided weapon.

Major Gilbert, who was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor, deployed in September 2006 from Luke AFB, Ariz., to the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, Balad Air Base, Iraq. He was assigned as the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group chief of standardization and evaluation. On the day of the accident, he was flying with the 524th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron.

The aircraft was assigned to the 524th EFS deployed from Cannon AFB, N.M. The aircraft was destroyed on impact.