‘Friendly-Fire’ Widow, Families Seek Justice Congressional Hearing Into Helicopter Shoot-Downs Opens

The distinguished congressmen had all seen the Army general’s charts. And they had all seen the Air Force general’s charts. Now, Kaye Mounsey said, she wanted to show them hers.

She had a friend place a large color photograph on an easel before the stunned legislators.

“This was my husband,” she announced in a firm voice, “the father of my daughter, the son of Raymond and Sara Mounsey.”

Silence washed over the hearing room. Heads turned and people stood to see. And all eyes fell on the grotesque image of the incinerated remains of Army Warrant Officer Erik S. Mounsey. Here, said the pale, thin Kaye Mounsey, was the reality of a tragedy: What shall we learn?

Sixteen months after Erik Mounsey and 25 other people were slaughtered by American jets over northern Iraq, and six weeks after the only officer court-martialed in the incident was cleared, the infamous Black Hawk “friendly fire” shoot-down case came to Congress Thursday.

Led by Mounsey of Culver City, Calif., a large entourage of victims’ relatives, lawyers and Army, Navy and Air Force officers came before the House Military Personnel Subcommittee to open a window on the case, detailing what had happened and understand why no one was seriously punished for the incident.

It was wrenching testimony, as Mounsey explained how expeditiously the Army’s mortuary affairs department had mailed her the grisly autopsy photo, but how elusive had been real justice in the case.

Retired Air Force Capt. Cleon E. Bass, whose son, Army Sgt. Cornelius Bass, was among the dead, recounted how he had pored over transcripts and reports and had concluded that there had to have been a cover-up: “I don’t know what else to call it,” he said.

Even Air Force Brig. Gen. Jeffrey S. Pilkington, one of the high-ranking officers whom many families hold partly responsible, was moving as he recounted the way the disaster unfolded, despite his diligent efforts to prevent such a thing.

Finally, Frank J. Spinner, a lawyer for one of officers cleared in the case, charged that the Air Force’s prosecution was “manipulated” to make sure that no pilots or senior commanders were court-martialed. None were.

But it was Mounsey who held center stage with her emotional indictment of the Air Force and her appeal for justice and truth.

Her husband had been one of the pilots of two Army Black Hawk helicopters that were ferrying allied officials among Kurdish villages in the no-fly zone set up over northern Iraq. The zone was established to protect Kurdish dissidents after the Gulf War.

As the helicopters were performing their mission on the morning of April 14, 1994, they were discovered by two American F-15 fighters patrolling the no-fly zone.

Through an amazing chain of mistakes and communications lapses, the fighters mistook the helicopters for Iraqi aircraft, attacked them with missiles and destroyed them. Twenty-six people, including 15 Americans, were killed.

The Air Force held a series of hearings and investigations and scrutinized the conduct of nine officers - including the two fighters pilots and the crew of an airborne radar plane (AWACS). One by one, all were cleared except for minor penalties.

The first fighter pilot was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony.

The second fighter pilot was charged with 26 counts of negligent homicide, but cleared after he altered his account of what happened.

Eventually, the only officer to be court-martialed was a young AWACS captain named Jim Wang.

And an Air Force jury acquitted him of all charges in a swift verdict on June 20.

Mounsey told the committee, “The victims, the families, the military, the public and the justice system deserve better.”