US pilot relieved of post for role in Kuwait bombing deaths

12.00pm

WASHINGTON - The US Navy has relieved a veteran F/A-18 fighter jet pilot of his command of an attack squadron on an aircraft carrier because of his involvement in a Kuwait bombing accident that killed six people, including New Zealand soldier Major John McNutt.

Commander David Zimmerman, 41, was removed as commander of fighter squadron VFA-37 on the carrier Harry Truman yesterday by Rear Admiral Michael Malone, chief of naval air forces in the Atlantic Fleet, according to Mike Maus, a civilian spokesman for the fleet air arm in Norfolk, Virginia.

Maus told Reuters that Zimmerman, a 19-year Navy veteran who has been flying F/A-18s for nine years, was relieved of his command because Malone had "lost confidence in Zimmerman's ability to command."

Zimmerman was piloting an F/A-18 that dropped three 500-pound (227 kg) bombs that ripped into a ground observation post instead of their intended target at the Udairi Training Range in northern Kuwait on March 12.

Major McNutt, a 27-year-old high-flyer in the New Zealand Special Air Service, was with about 20 American and Kuwaiti personnel near the observation post at the time.

Navy officials said Zimmerman was also recently given a letter of reprimand by Admiral Charles Moore, the commander of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain.

A US military investigation of the bombing incident determined that Zimmerman was largely responsible for the deadly accident along with at least two American military air controllers at the range.

Maus said Zimmerman was now on leave and awaiting reassignment to another post.

Navy officials said the formal letter of reprimand and the step to relieve him could effectively end Zimmerman's career.

The accident investigation report recounted a rapid series of blunders on the evening of March 12 that began with Zimmerman mistakenly identifying a staffed observation post as his intended target, which was about 1.6 km away.

At the time, Zimmerman was flying at about 3,000 metres.
It said that at least three other incidents occurred in the months before the March bombing in which pilots dropped bombs in the wrong places at the Udairi Range.

The investigators concluded the targets might be difficult to see from the air, and recommended the Army should improve its management of the range.

The report was prepared for General Tommy Franks, chief of the United States Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Gulf region.

- REUTERS