USAF miss range in Japan by 5km

[ORAC]

U.S. F-16 drops 230-kg mock bomb on Aomori farmland?The Asahi Shimbun

U.S. F-16 drops 230-kg mock bomb on Aomori farmland

A U.S. F-16 fighter jet accidentally dropped a 230-kilogram mock bomb during training over private land near the Misawa Air Base in Aomori Prefecture at around 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 6, the Defense Ministry said. The fake bomb landed 5 kilometers from the training site at the base. It did not contain explosives, and no damage was reported.

“Such an incident is a huge concern for surrounding residents and should never happen,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a Nov. 7 news conference. “We urge the U.S. military to provide more information and effective measures to prevent a recurrence.”

According to the ministry, the U.S. military around 8:50 a.m. on Nov. 7 informed Japan’s Tohoku Defense Bureau that the F-16 dropped a mock bomb on a range near the base, which straddles the city of Misawa and the village of Rokkasho in the prefecture. The U.S military later found the mock bomb buried in grass on a private farm about 5 kilometers west of the range. U.S. forces also told the ministry that they will refrain from mock-bomb drop training for the time being.

You Tube

[typerated]

That's harsh - got to be a switch F*** up rather than a bad eyechometer.

That said I have some some monumental misses almost exclusively from the USAF!
And a few target identification issues too.

[jolihokistix]

Not going to go into any detail, but that is not the half of the potential story here.

[Background Noise]

Only 5Km? - Don't think the USAF have the monopoly on range misdemeanours - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...r-1143918.html

[jolihokistix]

https://japantoday.com/category/nati...japan#comments

For those interested in what else is in the vicinity, apart from the innocuous 'private farm', read some of the comments here.

[Fonsini]

So they have a bombing range that is only 6,000ish meters from the Rokkasho plutonium reprocessing and storage facility ?!? And they just missed the target...by 5,000 meters ?

Seems like the press has missed the bigger story here.

[ORAC]

Not sure what the actual danger would have been if it the practice bomb (I presume inert and the range does not allow live munitions) had hit the plant - or even if the F16 or any aircraft hit it..

Doing some research the plant is built to exceed nuclear reactor containment levels. The building walls are all 1.5 to 2m thick and the waste cells are additionally buried under up to 9m of earth and aggregate. That thickness of wall is designed to absorb the impact of a crashing jet, it should somfortably handle such an impact.

You Tube

Doubtless some elements of the press will pick up the story and make a near disaster out of it, and the safety design will be ignored.

[jolihokistix]

Orac, thanks for the reassurance.

And strangely no, it seems that few have shown any interest in this.

[PapaDolmio]

ISTR a Jaguar doing something similar at Garvie many years ago?

[Tankertrashnav]

5 kms? Pah!. On the NBS course in 1970 I missed a dam in North Yorkshire and "hit" another 9 miles (15 km) away. Still, it clinched my posting to a very happy 6 years on Victor tankers,instead of Vulcan bombers

ORAC That reminds me of when they set up this 100 mph train smash to prove the integrity of nuclear fuel flasks in the event of a derailment. As I recall the anti-nuclear brigade who were protesting about the movement of this material still weren't satisfied and said that because the flask was angled across the track it somehow invalidated the experiment.

You Tube

[ORAC]

Accident report published.....

https://www.pacaf.af.mil/News/Articl...f-16cm-mishap/

https://www.pacaf.af.mil/Portals/6/1...E%20REPORT.pdf

[GeeRam]

Originally Posted by ORAC

Doing some research the plant is built to exceed nuclear reactor containment levels. The building walls are all 1.5 to 2m thick and the waste cells are additionally buried under up to 9m of earth and aggregate. That thickness of wall is designed to absorb the impact of a crashing jet, it should somfortably handle such an impact.

As were all our Magnox and AGR Nuc Power stations built in the UK in the 60's to 80's.

[phil9560]

They might be missing that range by about 3000 KM if the Chinese carry with their shenanigans 🙄

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...se-Taiwan.html

[Big Pistons Forever]

I wonder if they have convened a naming board for the hapless pilot

My suggestions

-Bullseye
-Nowhere
-Pickle
-Farmbuster
-Right on
-Press to Test

[Airbubba]

None of the over 50 Japanese nuke plants has a cooling tower. They are all built on the coast in an earthquake zone. What can go wrong?

[gums]

Salute!
A few points, then back to my corona cave.
- One of the most poorly written and explained incident/accident/mishap reports I have ever seen. Lookin' at my vita, you can imagine how many boards I have been involved with in various capacities.
- If the pilot was originally gonna drop a LGB by himself ( twice), then the plane must have had some kinda pod for self-designation, huh? So why need a buddy to designate the tgt for the final attempt? I did not find a loadout for the plane, did you?
- I want to know if the point of impact was a "destination" or "waypoint" the pilot had loaded in his nav system. It could have been his IP for a planned release at the range or a RDVZ point. OTOH, if the "point of interest", aka target, intended to be a quick reaction/CAS tgt versus a pre-planned one, I can unnerstan the requirements for assuring the symbology in the HUD or on the REO /MFD reflects the intended tgt and that the range was not selected as a destination/waypoint/etc.
- The report did not describe the confirmation procedure used to ensure the POI was the intended tgt transmitted by the supporting player.
- Hard for me to fathom that the bomb range or another point was not displayed in addition to the tgt. Our dinosaur era Vipers displayed the selected nav destination and a tgt or IP symbol.

I agree with the Board that the mishap was human error, I just think there could have been a more clear sequence of events and better explanation of the tgt ID and coordinate transfer procedure, and equipment/systems used.

Gums sends...

[Easy Street]

Originally Posted by gums

If the pilot was originally gonna drop a LGB by himself ( twice), then the plane must have had some kinda pod for self-designation, huh? So why need a buddy to designate the tgt for the final attempt?

I’ve no idea of the specifics of this occurrence but in general terms it might go something like this. The range orders probably impose constraints on attack direction, altitude and release distance. When the pilot returned to the range, maybe the target was obscured by cloud from the permitted attack directions but remained visible from elsewhere. Or maybe a cloud layer had formed below the minimum permitted release altitude but had a base high enough for a buddy to operate below it. (Damn those coastal ranges!) Either of those situations could have been addressed with an ad-hoc buddy lase provided the bomb gets enough time in clear sight of the target to receive laser returns and guide properly. Dropping LGBs through weather is good sport and good training too; such situations are not unheard of on ops with all GPS weapons expended and restrictions on attack directions for protection of friendlies. The thicker the cloud, the better the initial ballistic aim needs to be due to the limited field of view of the seeker. 5km error is going to challenge the seeker in any weather! This is all speculation on my part but plausible enough; would have been good to have the detail in the report, as you say.

[Pontius Navigator]

Originally Posted by PapaDolmio

ISTR a Jaguar doing something similar at Garvie many years ago?

Nah, this was only 500lb, THAT was 1,000lb and it wasn't a mock bomb.

He hit what he aimed at too.

Mind you we had an F15 hit what he aimed at. The Tornado missed by 200 yards. Sane target, it just wasn't in the danger area.

[typerated]

Originally Posted by Pontius Navigator

Nah, this was only 500lb, THAT was 1,000lb and it wasn't a mock bomb.

He hit what he aimed at too.

Mind you we had an F15 hit what he aimed at. The Tornado missed by 200 yards. Sane target, it just wasn't in the danger area.

And the target was?

a fishing boat out in the wash? Fossdyke Bridge? Boston Stump? Skegness?

[Green Flash]

I believe a Hunter hit what he aimed at too. Cowden Range but drop tanks instead of a practise bomb. 100 yards of the East Riding moved perceptibly closer to Holland, apparently.