17
Feb
2019
It was the end of a long Friday evening out with some friends. After a night of partying, my normal routine was to come home and cook something before hitting the sack. This night was no different, and after putting some food on the stove, I decided to lie down for a minute until it was done cooking.
After taking care of some routine tasks around the office and meeting with the departing section leader, I gathered my notes and headed outside to hold morning formation. The day was going smoothly and time seemed to fly by. That was about to change.
It was a warm Sunday in Iraq, and I was at a combat outpost in the far west as the officer in charge of a detachment of construction engineers.
I never gave much thought to off-duty safety. For me, it was just something I always had to hear about before being released for a long weekend.
Are human error mishaps on the rise in the Army’s unmanned aircraft systems force? From 2011-16, there was an encouraging downward trend in human error mishaps for the RQ-7B Shadow UAS.
It happened at Camp Humphries, Korea, within the last three years. I was an extremely new Readiness Level 1 pilot, flying with a 15-plus-year maintenance test pilot who was known for being either great as a trainer or for creating the most hostile cockpit you can imagine.