Warning To O’Grady Garbled General Says Static Interrupted First Warning; Second Too Late

Air Force Capt. Scott O’Grady was sent two warnings about anti-aircraft missiles in the area over Bosnia he was patrolling last month just before he was shot down.

The first one, sent by radio from an AWACS plane about three minutes before a surface-to-air missile was launched at his fighter, was garbled by static and not understandable, the nation’s top military commander told Congress on Tuesday.

The second warning, from his F-16’s own sensors, came about six seconds before the plane was blown apart, a Pentagon spokesman added.

A Defense Department review shows that radio warnings of missiles in an area previously considered safe were nearly drowned by static, Gen. John Shalikashvili told the House National Securities Committee.

“It had to be repeated several times,” Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. “If that report had gotten through right away, he would have had enough time to get out of that area.”

Pentagon officials later described as “absolutely unfounded” a report in a London newspaper, The Independent, that O’Grady made mistakes which caused him to be shot down, was ill-equipped and was poorly trained.

The newspaper, quoting unnamed sources, said O’Grady continued to circle his position in Bosnia after being warned of missiles.

O’Grady was circling because that was the pattern for his mission, which was to attack any aircraft launched by the Bosnian Serbs, said a Pentagon source who spoke on condition of anonymity. But O’Grady wasn’t in the area long after receiving the warning.

The radio warning from the AWACS plane wasn’t clear until after his F-16 had been struck. His own plane’s attack warning system went off “seconds before the missile struck,” the Pentagon source said.

The newspaper said O’Grady’s attire - a flight suit and T-shirt - was wrong for the climate.

Not true, said the Pentagon source.

“That’s what pilots wear. He was appropriately dressed for the mission and the time of year,” he said. O’Grady’s problems with hypothermia were a result of being soaked by rain, not a lack of clothing, the source added.

The newspaper also reported that O’Grady, who grew up in Spokane and graduated from Lewis and Clark High School, did not know how to use his survival radio, only learning through trial and error.

But another Pentagon source said O’Grady was following proper procedures, using his radio sparingly to conserve its batteries.

“He did everything exactly right,” said the source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

Shalikashvili told Congress that O’Grady’s first concern was avoiding capture. He stuck to low-lying areas and used his radio once each night, but the surrounding hills prevented those signals from being picked up by rescue aircraft.

The military has stepped up the delivery of better survival radios to U.S. pilots and will improve its communications equipment to avoid the garbling of vital transmissions, the general said.

, DataTimes MEMO: Cut in Spokane Edition