CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER 2 THOMAS B. FARRELL
1st Battalion, 14th Aviation Regiment
Fort Rucker, Alabama
Most everyone has heard horror stories involving target fixation, but they don’t believe it will ever happen to them. Typically, Army aviators are Alpha males or females who think they are invincible, the best of the best. Of course, they want to make sure fixation is always discussed during training, but in the back of their minds, they think it is only for the junior aviators.
I was flying as part of a Scout Weapons Team with two OH-58Ds in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2013 when we were called in by the ground forces who were receiving heavy machine-gun fire from multiple locations and were unable to maneuver. I was in the left seat of the trail aircraft, in charge of operating the mast mounted sight to detect targets from a distance as well as communicating with the higher command. My right-seater was a CW4 standardization pilot/instrument examiner who was also acting as the air mission commander that day.
Our lead aircraft had a staff captain who didn’t get much flight time in theater, but he was in the right seat. His left-seater was a CW2 line pilot who flew almost every day while deployed. The abilities of the crewmembers were evenly distributed throughout the team.
While the ground forces continued to receive fire, we moved in to give them immediate air support and hopefully deter the enemy just by showing up on station, which was the case in this particular firefight. However, the ground forces maintained positive identification of one of the enemy shooters and passed off the target to us. We gained visual contact of the shooter and proceeded to track him through fields and grape rows. Our lead aircraft was communicating with the ground force commander, and our team was given the green light to prosecute the target with .50-caliber fire only due to buildings being too close for us to use our 2.75-inch rockets or Hellfire missiles.
At the last minute, my AMC sitting next to me decided he wanted to take the shot first because he felt more confident in his abilities to put rounds on target since the lead aircraft right-seater was the staff captain. So, we took lead and proceeded to set up for diving fire.
We climbed up from 500 feet above ground level to 1,000 feet AGL and bled off some airspeed. Everything was looking good and we were ready to push in. My right seater announced, “Pushing over,” which meant he was starting his dive and we were about to engage. As soon as we nosed the aircraft over, he began firing at the enemy shooter, who was moving down a trail through some grape rows.
My right-seater wasn’t hitting the target but was determined to and didn’t want to let up. As the ground came closer and closer, I began to tell him to cease fire to cue him in on pulling up and away. But he didn’t do that. He continued firing.
When I finally thought it was time to pull up, I safed the gun, grabbed the controls and began to pull off the target. At that point we were both on the controls and pulling up for dear life. Our tail boom went down below and between the 6-foot-tall grape rows. On the other side of the field was a mud wall about 4 feet high. Our skids just grazed the wall, breaking off our skid shoes on each side of the aircraft.
The moral of the story is no matter who you are or what hour level you are at, fixation can happen to you. It happened to one of the best SP/IEs I’ve ever flown with. Of course, he apologized and thanked me for recognizing what was going on. He also went back to the troop when the day was over and made sure everyone knew what happened. He just wanted to make sure everyone was aware that it could happen to any of us. Believe me — fixation happens.