Dangerous Sky

Thursday, September 3, 1992, was a perfectly clear summer day, ideal for flying. An Italian G 222 turbo-propelled, twin-engined, nine-ton transport aircraft took off at noon from the Adriatic city of Split, with a five-ton shipment of blankets intended for Sarajevo, and with four crew (Italians) and four passengers (French citizens) on board. Since this was a flight over a dangerous territory, without standard navigation procedures, the role of Forward Air Control (FAC) was assumed by an AWACS (Airborne Warning System) plane on its routine patrol above Adriatics.

Although the corridor used by the G 222 from split to Sarajevo is unknown at the time of writing this text, it seems to be the shortest cut, via the Duvansko Polje mountain valley and the uplands north of Konjic.

The AWACS was monitoring the transport plane on its radar and was in radio contact with it according to usual procedures for such flights. But, as VREME has learned, during this flight something difficult to explain did happen. The AWACS reported to its base in Napoli (according to our source) that it had lost radar contact with the Italian plane for some twenty minutes. When the contact was recovered, the G 222 had already been near the tragic end of its flight, somewhere north of Konjic. Shortly later, at 1. 24 p.m. local time (11. 24 GMT), the AWCS reported another loss of contact with the Italian plane; it was at 1. 26 p.m. that the last contact between Sarajevo airport and G 222 was recorded. Afterwards (the last contact was only at an eight-minute distance from Sarajevo), alarm was sounded. The Italian crew, in none of their reporting, had mentioned any threat of fire from the ground.

The earliest reliable information that the plane had crashed came from the American reconnaissance and rescue CH 47 helicopters from the US Carrier Iwo Jima in the Adriatic. Four CH 47s (escorted by F 18 Hornet fighter-bombers from the US Aircraft Carrier Sara toga) had sighted the location of crash and photographed the plane debris. When they tried to land, they came under small arms fire from the ground, while the AWACS warned the of possible missile attack. According to some reports, an infra-red homing missile was fired on the helicopters which ejected a parachuted magnesium light and performed a dodging maneuver; the missile, attracted to the high-temperature light, allegedly exploded.

The first to arrive at the site of the crash were French members of the UNPROFOR in an armored vehicle (VAB), directed there by data received from the American helicopters. They noted that no one survived the crash and this was an indication that the plane was in one piece when it hit the ground.

This is how the transport plane with humanitarian aid was destroyed - an event that has been feared by all participants in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina since it began. EC envoy Lord Owen reacted promptly, around noon on Friday, threatening that the UN - in case it is proved that the plane was downed - would respond firmly and strongly. What would this response mean is clear, knowing the vocabulary applied in the two infamous resolutions by the UN Security Council. Additional arguments for threats were given undoubtedly aggressive attacks on American helicopters, which are unarmed rescue and transport aircraft, not combat planes. Had some of the helicopters been shot in the air, or had crew members been attacked on the ground, during the first investigation on the site of the accident, the escort fighter-bombers would have evidently fiercely retaliated. This could have easily sparked off changes in the history of the Balkans.

Political exploitation of the disaster began right away; in an old habit, no one waited for the findings of an investigation and speculations came immediately as to how the plane as to how the plane was shot down and who shot it down.

Tales arrived from Zagreb about the different planes that allegedly take advantage of humanitarian transporters in "radar image shadow" behind which they sneak through, carrying munitions to the Serbian side. Such tales do not hold: the Serbian side does not have any problems with communications and it circulates freely in territories it controls; it does not need any aircraft. Accusations that came from the Serbian side said that the arms were being sent to the legal government of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that the UN is "biased" and that humanitarian aid planes are somehow involved in the whole thing. In his letter to British Prime Minister John Major, Dr. Radovan Karadzic (leader of Bosnian Serbs) immediately threatened with the use of force to prevent alleged shipments of arms to the Moslem side.

All the three sides immediately announced their stands. Dr. Karadzic asserted that the plane "was downed" by Moslems; the Serb Army Command asserted it was not downed by its forces; the Command of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina said "it did not"; the Croatian side did not care who did it, and what counted was that it did not shoot the plane down. Also interesting at this point is that Italian side said on Friday afternoon that it "possessed evidence" that the plane was downed "in an action of the missile-attack kind", but it did not go into details. Other foreign factors (UNPROFOR, Americans) refrained from evaluations until after any final conclusions. An Italian team of investigators arrived on the spot of the crash, both the flight recorder and the cabin voice recorder are believed to be recovered soon, while parts of the plane would be tested for trace of explosive particles. The AWACS that monitored the G 222 flight must have also recorded the fired missile and stored the relevant data in its memory as will show up. But, such a routine investigation is naturally needless for those who make premature yet politically useful speculations.

The most interesting blank in the entire case accounts for a period of 20 minutes during the AWACS, as they say, had not had the G 222 on its radar. The first reasonable question to be posed is: had the plane perhaps made the landing during this time? But this is quite unlikely because, in the first place, the cargo specification says the five tones of blankets were on board. The G 222's capacity amounts to nine tones, but blankets are light and take a rather large volume. It is unlikely that the plane had landed to pick up some additional cargo, for it was already filled up. Anyhow, an on-site investigation will show what the cargo contained, just blankets or something else too. Then again, along the Split - Sarajevo road there is hardly a spot where a plane could land, although a G 222 is capable of using difficult and short strips for taking off and landing. To this end, an analysis of flight records would present unambiguous proof.

It is more likely to be presumed that the AWACS radar installation had been out of order during the 20-minute interval. Basically, an AWACS radar scans a plane irrespective of its altitudes. Low-flying planes cannot "hide behind hills" because AWACS fly at ten or more kilometers.

One more presumption may be made, the G 222 should have been about the thousandth plane to land in Sarajevo since the humanitarian relief airlift was opened. hence, in purely statistical terms, its accident may have been due either to some mechanical trouble or human error. G 222s are up-to-date and highly safe planes, equipped with all the necessary navigation installations.