Human Error Caused False Alarm at Camp Casey
Whenever an alert drill happens there are procedures each unit runs through. Each unit likely did not get very far in their alert procedures before the all clear was given as a false alarm. This is much to do about nothing other than making sure it is harder for someone to make a user error mistake like this again:
A U.S. Army base in South Korea accidentally sounded an emergency siren Thursday night, sending some soldiers into a frenzy amid threats of an unwanted “Christmas gift” from North Korea, news reports said.
The incident occurred at Camp Casey in Dongducheon, 40 kilometers north of Seoul, the closest U.S. Army base to the North Korean border.
The Washington Post reported that the siren went off around 10 p.m. instead of taps, the bugle call played at military funerals and on military bases to mark the end of the day.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
When my spouse was an Lt, he was new to Osan and took a wrong turn on the runway. He thought he’d be able to get back to where he was supposed to be gracefully and no one would know…so he ignored the many radio calls from his flight lead.
By the time he got to the A10 area, he found that portion of the runway was under construction and he couldn’t turn around.
The alarms sounded, cops came, whole base was on alert as they thought he was a DPRK agent stealing an F16. Anyway, he was working in the tower at Langely years later and overheard a conversation one air traffic controller was telling another about the “stupidest thing he’d ever seen a pilot do” and it was his story! 😆 Anyway…they were incorrect on some details so he told them the whole version.
@Liz, this explains a lot! Thanks!! And BTW, if GI ever brings us all together for a RoKDrop gathering, there are SAC stories I’ll tell but won’t type…
“And BTW, if GI ever brings us all together for a RoKDrop gathering, there are SAC stories I’ll tell but won’t type…”
I’d love to hear them, Setnaffa! 🙂
I should probably add…his flight lead later wrote on his OPR (about a year later), he was the most talented pilot he’d ever seen.
So it’s possible to mess up really really badly, and still totally redeem oneself. 😆
(that was Baba Rand, recently retired General Rand…he was a lt colonel then)