One killed in RAAF plane attack

[Wirraway]

news.com.au

One killed in RAAF plane attack
June 28, 2004

AN American passenger fatally wounded aboard an Australian RAAF C-130 Hercules in Baghdad was hit by the only bullet to penetrate the aircraft, the Australian Defence Force said today.

Casualty ... the C-130 was hit by ground fire about 11pm (AEST).

Defence spokesman Brigadier Mike Hannan said the aircraft was struck by ground fire soon after it took off from Baghdad airport yesterday.

Brigadier Hannan said the aircraft usually carried a crew of four or five Australians comprising two pilots, an engineer and two loadmasters.

Three US passengers were being flown out of Baghdad as part of normal aircraft operations when the attack happened.

An unnamed American civilian contractor was injured in the attack and the Hercules returned to the airport where it was met by medical personnel.

The plane was subsequently deemed airworthy and later flew from Baghdad to its base at an unnamed country in the Persian Gulf.

"The information we have at the moment is that the person was in the cargo area.

"There were only three passengers on board the aircraft at the time so the probability of this individual being hit was extremely remote," Brigadier Hannan said.

"Only one fragment or projectile came through the hull and hit the individual.

"This was just an opportunity move for these three individuals and unfortunately one with tragic consequences."

Brigadier Hannan said the aircraft had transported troops from the north of Iraq and was heading south. He said it was the first time an Australian aircraft had been hit.

"There have been many instances of warnings of ground fire and sightings of ground fire but we haven't had an aircraft hit in the past," he said.

"We review our procedures all the time and we take the best possible precautions that we can. Our training is excellent.

"But this is a dangerous place and these are dangerous operations and there is always a probability or a possibility of this type of incident."

Brigadier Hannan said there would be an appropriate investigation into the incident and decisions made about the best means to reduce the risk.

He said there were US patrols around the airport, but it was difficult to guard against attacks.

"This could have been a heavy machine gun on the back of a truck or something of that nature that can be moved in or out of an area very quickly," he said.

"So it is quite difficult to secure the large areas involved in the flights paths into an airport." 'Deranged butchers'

It was the second attack in recent days on Australian troops.

Last week, a mortar attack was launched on an Australian base near Mosul, where the Australians were training the Iraqi military.

No Australian troops were injured, but Prime Minister John Howard yesterday said the incident was a reminder that Australian soldiers were involved in dangerous work.

"It just brings home to us that this is not a picnic, it's very hard and it's very dangerous and they're very brave," Mr Howard said.

Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson also reinforced the need to keep the troops in Iraq,


"I think you've got to say you can't give in, you can't give in to these sorts of butchers, morally and mentally deranged butchers," he said on Channel 9's Sunday program.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Buster Hyman]

Just read CNN's version. They're saying it was a US cargo aircraft!:rolleyes:

[Wirraway]

Reuters/ABC
Monday, June 28, 2004. 1:08pm (AEST)

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200406/r24149_59701.jpg
A RAAF C-130 Hercules aircraft deploys stores during exercises. (file photo) (ADF)

Attack on RAAF plane in Iraq kills one

An Australian Air Force Hercules C-130 transport plane has been hit by gunfire after take-off from Baghdad airport on Sunday,fatally wounding one person aboard.

The Defence Department confirmed that an RAAF Hercules was hit by small arms fire but said that no Australians were injured.

Prime Minister John Howard says he is relieved.

"This does illustrate yet again just how dangerous is the task being undertaken by the Australians, I mean these pilots, C-130s are in the direct line of fire," he said.

"These incidents involving Australians drive home the fact that there is a job of work to be done."

It is believed to be the first time an Australian aircraft has been hit during an attack in Iraq.

Speaking from Baghdad, the Commander of Australian Forces, Brigadier Peter Hutchinson says he was surprised by the incident.

"This was a one in a million chance in that there was one single bullet hit the aircraft and unfortunately, the Hercules is a huge aircraft, [and] it's hit the passenger," he said.

A United States civilian contractor to the US Department of Defence was injured in the attack and later died of his injuries.

"While there was no significant damage to the aircraft, one person was wounded which caused the aircraft to divert back to Baghdad International Airport for medical treatment," US spokesman Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said in a statement.

The aircraft was crewed by Australian RAAF personnel and there was no significant damage.

Defence is promising a thorough investigation and a review of security procedures but say it is difficult to guard against such attacks.

A spokeswoman for the Defence Minister says Robert Hill and Australian National Commander in Iraq, Brigadier Peter Hutchinson, have offered their condolences to the family of the US contractor .

The Labor Leader Mark Latham has also offered his sympathies to the family of the US civilian and commended the five Australians on board the Hercules.

The attack marked the first time since the fall of Saddam Hussein that guerrillas have mounted a deadly attack on a fixed-wing plane taking off from or landing at Baghdad's airport.

In January, a US Air Force C-5 cargo jet carrying 63 passengers and crew was hit by ground fire and made a safe emergency landing.

Last year a DHL cargo plane also made an emergency landing after being hit by ground fire.

The RAAF has two C-130 Hercules and about 150 personnel from the Richmond base in New South Wales providing logistical support in the Iraq theatre.

-- Reuters/ABC

===========================================

[Pass-A-Frozo]

In a manner of speaking, it essentially is.

[51st state and all]


Yeah.. onya..

:rolleyes:

[OzExpat]

Well, yeah, the term "US cargo aircraft" is correct in the context that the aircraft was designed and built in the US... who'd ever suspect a journalist of getting something wrong eh? :}

[itchybum]

****zoo..... it's their game. It's the only game in town. What would you suggest, become a world player ourselves? Or flounder on our own?

If you want to protest, stop watching Friends (re-runs), eating maccas, drinking coke, wearing levis, using the internet, flying your cessna/beech/boeing, etc, etc...

CNN see a report on a Herc taking fire and automatically assume it is American, like 95% of the rest of the Hercs over there.

I like the "conga line" line.... :ok:

[No Further Requirements]

Let's not turn this into a political debate now!

Our thoughts should be for the family of the deceased man. We should also be thankful that none of the RAAF guys/gals were injured and they brought the old girl back safely.

One bullet hole in the whole C130 - a (un)lucky shot. Cheers,

NFR

[itchybum]

naw go on, do it. I'd like to hear it. If I think it's sensible I'll acknowledge the fact... if not, I'll try to encourage everyone to pull the piss out of you.

[slamer]

Hmmmm..... so you all have to agree with Itchy...........OR ELSE!

[Taildragger67]

Buster,

Just looked at CNN here

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/27/australia.plane.reut/index.html

says it's an Australian Herc.

Are they -Hs or -Js over there?

Often wondered about the benefits of a glass/computerised flight deck when there's lots of small-arms around. A single (un)lucky round into the avionics bay seems like it could jigger things completely on a glass bird, whereas the old dials would keep a-windin', no?

TD67

[HotDog]

Glass has standby basic instruments, you can still fly.

[Buster Hyman]

TD67..yes, it seems they've grabbed a Reuters feed.

[HotDog]

****su, you sound like Michael Moore's understudy.:rolleyes:

[Pass-A-Frozo]

Comrad ****su,

Your a f*cking raving idiot.

:ok:

[Pass-A-Frozo]

Comrad ****su

poisoned dwarf

You're a :mad: raving idiot.

free trade agreement that has no benefit for Australia

Thanks Professor. Try reading an economics text (Even communists read those!).
Can I recommend "comparative advantage", and "dead weight loss" on an economy due to tariffs.

93% of the Citizens don;t even know we are part of the coalition of the willing

So you only do things to get recognition, not because they are the right thing to do. Maybe you could read up on deontological ethics while your reading up on some economics.

vet Australian citizens that may not enter the 'peoples house'

Yeah well they've probably read your posts on Pprune.



US secretary of state publically commenting on the Australian opposition party policies

O.k. So let me get this straight, it's fine for Latham to call Bush "the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory", but the second anyone with a yank accent questions Latham on a policy that's off limits?

I don't endorse US bases on Australian soil

I believe in true patriotism - to Australia

Actually mate, that's called Nationalism. You can proudly take you place next to Pauline. The only difference is the people you are xenophobic towards are white.

But to answer your question: Why?

The well known theory of the 1975 dismissal and its links to Goughs plan to shut down Pine Gap have never been disproven after all

That statement tipped you over the edge to make it into the distinguished class of raving :mad: idiot.

[Buster Hyman]

Gerard Henderson's Column: 31st October 2000
Constitution Conspires Against Conspiracy

Guess who’s no longer maintaining the rage against John Kerr? Gough Whitlam, it seems. Can it be that, a quarter of a century after the dismissal of the Whitlam government and almost a decade since Sir John’s death, the former prime minister is going soft? Or is it time-out for a reassessment of one of the few genuinely interesting events in Australian history? And what will this mean for those who believe that it was all a CIA-initiated conspiracy?

On October 12 Gough Whitlam spoke at a forum in Canberra organised by the Parliamentary Education Office. Among the issues under discussion was the decision of the Malcolm Fraser led Coalition to block supply (i.e. money bills) in late 1975.

When Gough Whitlam refused to break the deadlock by requesting an election, the Governor-General dismissed the Whitlam government on November 11, 1975. Kerr then commissioned Malcolm Fraser as caretaker prime minister, pending an election for both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Gough Whitlam did not present a paper at the Canberra forum. However the proceedings were recorded. According to reports of the function, Whitlam refrained from blaming his predicament in November 1975 on the role played by the Governor-General. Instead the former prime minister sheeted home ultimate responsibility for the 1975 constitutional crisis to the framers of the Australian Constitution. He claimed that "the business in 1975 arose because our founders squibbed the issue of what happens when there is a different political composition of…the Senate and the Lower House".

It is unclear whether Gough Whitlam’s decision not to discuss John Kerr and the dismissal at the same forum indicated a cease-fire. Or just a temporary truce. No doubt we will all find out when the former prime minister addresses the Dismissal Dinner at the Australian National University on November 11.

There is little doubt as to who was primarily responsible for the 1975 constitutional crisis. Namely Malcolm Fraser – who decided to block supply. And Gough Whitlam – who refused to advise the Governor-General to commission an election.

This despite the fact that, when Labor was in opposition in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Gough Whitlam and Senator Lionel Murphy had opined that the Senate could block supply. And that, if this were to occur, the government of the day would be forced to call an election. The relevant quotes are cited in David Smith’s 1991 Nan Phillips Memorial Lecture which is published in the March 1992 issue of the Canberra Historical Journal.

It became John Kerr’s lot to resolve the impasse between two extremely confident and stubborn men. Agree with his actions or not, it was no easy decision. Moreover, subsequent events have delegitimised the most telling criticism of Kerr’s actions on Remembrance Day 1975. Namely that he should have waited for a week or more to see if the Coalition senators would remain as one in continuing to block supply.

In 1993 Poplar Press published Anton Hermann’s important political biography Alan Missen: Liberal Pilgrim. For some time the theory had developed that, in 1975, the late Senator Missen was uncomfortable with his party’s decision to block supply and would have supported Whitlam’s cause. If only the Governor-General had not acted when he did.

Hermann demolished the myth that Missen would have crossed the floor in the Senate to pass supply. The Victorian Senator had decided only to take such a move if he had a solid core of Coalition colleagues to support him. That never eventuated. In the midst of the crisis Missen wrote in his diary that it was "clear" to him that "nobody" among the Coalition was prepared to defy Fraser and cross the floor. In other words, Kerr’s assumption that the constitutional crisis was deadlocked turned out to be correct.

No doubt the controversy about the propriety of Kerr’s 1975 decision will continue. Yet there should be no doubt about what actually happened in the lead-up to, and on, Remembrance Day 1975. We know why Kerr did what he did – it is set out in his autobiography Matters for Judgment (Macmillan 1978). And we know to whom he went for legal advice. Namely (then) Chief Justice Sir Garfield Barwick and (then) Justice Sir Anthony Mason. In a speech at Griffith University in July 1993, Whitlam commented that, for the first time in his own lifetime, the "High Court has in Sir Anthony Mason a Chief Justice who is adequate in both national and international terms".

The revelation that Anthony Mason had agreed with the constitutional propriety of Kerr’s actions at the time of the dismissal (see Herald January 8, 1994) seems to have diminished the anti-Kerr rage somewhat. Except among those who prefer the conspiracy view of history.

To his credit, Gough Whitlam has never claimed that his government was destroyed by United States’ intelligence agencies. In 1984 he was asked by journalist Peter Hastings whether be believed that "the CIA had got to the Governor-General of the time". Whitlam replied: "No I don’t; I never have." (Herald, March 24, 1984).

Yet this has not stopped the conspiracy theorists from spouting their theories. Most recently in the Sunday Age of October 15 where journalist Andrew Clark quoted Bill Morrison (Defence Minister in the Whitlam government) as claiming that Kerr requested, and received, a briefing from the CIA shortly before the dismissal. Morrison did not assert that the (alleged) meeting was "decisive". But suggested that it may have "reinforced his position".

Then there is Phillip Knightley’s Australia: A Biography of a Nation (Random House, 2000). According to the author, in intelligence matters "proof…is hard to come by". So, there is no alternative but to run with theories. Knightley draws some "probable conclusions". Namely that the CIA’s role may have amounted to "an accumulation of minor interventions". Consequently he maintains that Kerr "may have sacked [Whitlam] anyway, but to believe that the CIA…had not the slightest influence on his decision defies logic".

Who’s logic? To accept Knightley’s "probable conclusion" you have to hold the view that without the CIA’s involvement the dismissal would not have happened. But Malcolm Fraser did not block supply to support the US interests in the region. And John Kerr did not seek advice from Justices Barwick and Mason about foreign policy matters.

John Kerr told me in January 1988 that it was "simply not true" that his decision to dismiss the Whitlam government had any connection whatsoever with the CIA or any other Western intelligence agency. There is no plausible evidence to the contrary.

In his appearance at Parliament House earlier this month, Gough Whitlam did not raise the spectre of the CIA. Nor did he bag John Kerr. Instead he drew attention to the fact that the constitutional issues raised in 1975 had not been resolved. As Professor Cheryl Saunders has recently pointed out, the "events that precipitated the 1975 crisis could recur". Even if the Governor-General were much loved and the CIA not extant.

:rolleyes:

[fire wall]

****su.......up until these last posts I have been an avid supporter of your succint and technically robust arguements against airspace change in Australia. In this area I beleive you have much to offer.
However, your recent expose' into Australian Political history have no place on Pprune. It is not hat we are not concerned citizens but more a matter of venue. There are other forums on the net that are more than adequate and I would respectfully ask that you confine your arguements (and those of John Pilger's ....to which you obviously subscribe) to such forums.
This is not the place.

[Shitsu-Tonka]

Fine.

Happy ?

It is impossible to separate aviation from politics - mores the pity

Ex S-T

[Agent86]

AAAWWW..
I just hate it when I can't access PPrune for a few days and someone posts something controversial.

Then by the time I get on all I get is the comments and the original post has gone pssft into thin air.

Be fair...If you are going to post it then be man/woman enough to leave it there for comment/flames to be relevent.

MAx