Pilots Acted Properly, Carlucci Says

Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci denied Friday that the American pilots who downed two Libyan fighters last week acted without proper authority.

“In my opinion, those pilots . . . acted prudently,” Carlucci said. “There’s no question that they were in jeopardy.”

The defense secretary was responding to an article in Tuesday’s Washington Post that questioned whether the U.S. F-14 pilots had clearance from their superiors to fire the missiles that knocked down the two Libyan MIG-23s.

The Post story, quoting unnamed F-14 pilots and retired officers who reviewed the publicly released cockpit transcripts on the Jan. 4 incident, noted that one of the Navy jets fired two Sparrow missiles at a Libyan jet while still in a “warning yellow” status. It said that only a “red” condition authorizes a pilot to fire at will.

The article said that the pilot may have been in the process of requesting firing authority from his commander aboard the carrier John F. Kennedy when his back-seat weapons officer fired the two Sparrows. The missiles missed, but a second Navy jet shot down one of the Libyan jets moments later and the first F-14 destroyed the other MIG shortly afterward.

The defense secretary said the pilots did not need authorization from their superiors to defend themselves in an obviously threatening situation. U.S. military rules of engagement (ROE) give servicemen broad authority to use their weapons to protect themselves, their ships and aircraft.

“I think our aircraft have a right to defend themselves whenever they experience hostile intent from aircraft of any country in the world. That’s what the ROE is designed to do,” Carlucci said at a breakfast session for reporters.

The defense secretary suggested that the pilots fired too late, rather than too early, given the speed at which the MIGs were approaching. “I told them (the pilots) they had every right to fire a mile earlier. There’s no question they were in the envelope,” he said, referring to the range of the Libyan missiles.

“It seems to me self-evident that when an aircraft heads at you at 550 miles an hour, accelerating, and when they are armed and when they maneuver five times to put their nose on you, you’ve got every right to interpret that as hostile intent,” he said.

President Reagan, in a strong defense of the pilots’ actions, said Tuesday that speculation about the incident “is ignoring the facts.” Answering questions from reporters during a photo session, Reagan said that “all the evidence in every unit we have--photographic, sound, everything--(showed) they were justified in what they were doing.”