Radar Officer Acquitted in Downing of 2 Copters : Military: Verdict ends only court-martial in tragic error over Iraq. Some relatives of 26 victims are bitter.

The only member of the U.S. military to be court-martialed in one of the nation’s worst friendly fire tragedies was acquitted Tuesday of charges that he failed to warn two Air Force pilots before they mistakenly shot down a pair of U.S. Army helicopters over Iraq.

Air Force Capt. Jim Wang was found not guilty by a military jury on three criminal charges of dereliction of duty in the accident last year, which killed 26 people. Had he been convicted, Wang could have spent nine months in prison and been stripped of his commission.

The Air Force, in a three-week court-martial proceeding here, contended that Wang had failed in his duties as a supervisor aboard a radar plane to realize that the two helicopters were U.S. Army Black Hawks and not Iraqi Hinds attempting to penetrate a no-fly zone in northern Iraq.

Even with the acquittal, Wang said, his reputation as an Air Force officer has been devastated. And, even if he remains in the service, he no longer will work as a supervisor in the Airborne Warning and Control System operation based here.

Many relatives of those who died in the incident were angry and embittered because, of the six airmen once charged, only Wang was ordered to face court-martial.

His acquittal Tuesday renewed calls for further review of what went wrong in the April 14, 1994, tragedy and for determining how accidents can be avoided when U.S. forces are involved in complex, multinational military operations.

“The fight’s nowhere near over for me,” Wang predicted after the verdict. “This is just victory in one battle. There’s still a whole war to be fought.

“The Air Force,” he added, “needs to have another investigation. If that doesn’t happen, then Congress needs to have a congressional hearing.”

Ironically, family members of the victims, among them 15 Americans, agreed with Wang that Congress should step into the controversy. But they also strongly asserted that Wang, his radar plane crew and the F-15C pilots all should have been sent to prison for blundering into the tragedy.

Kaye Mounsey, holding a photograph of the charred remains of her husband, Army Warrant Officer Erik Mounsey, lashed out at the military code of justice and, like other family members, decried a system that has not sent a single service member to prison.

“Maybe if the accused could see that,” she said of the photo, “then they could know what their actions did.”

But senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary William J. Perry, said that many officers have been hit with punitive job actions and that some careers have been seriously jeopardized.

The officials said that letters of admonishment were handed down to Brig. Gen. Jeffrey S. Pilkington, who commanded the 86th Air Wing at Ramstein, Germany, at the time of the accident, and Brig. Gen. Curtis H. Emery II, then the air component commander.

In addition, letters of reprimand were sent to the two F-15C pilots who shot down the helicopters. They are Lt. Col. Randy W. May and Capt. Eric A. Wickson. Four other airmen received non-judicial punishments or reprimands.

“There have been many officers held accountable,” Perry said at the Pentagon. “Administrative actions have been taken against them. . . . Many officers’ careers were very adversely affected by this.”

Maj. Gen. Nolan Sklute said that there have been numerous investigations and that a 24-volume report was compiled listing a number of operational changes that will be put into effect.

“My heart, and I’m sure all of our hearts, go out to the families involved in this incident,” said Sklute, judge advocate general of the Air Force.

“But an incident like this does not necessarily mean that the conduct of all those involved rises to the level of criminal culpability.”

After the downings, senior Pentagon leaders promised that everyone at fault would be held responsible and the government agreed to pay reparations to the families of the dead.

The downings occurred because the F-15C pilots believed the helicopters were Iraqi Hinds.

To their horror, they later learned that the helicopters were U.S. Army aircraft carrying a multinational inspection group. Among the dead were U.S., British, French and Turkish citizens, as well as Kurdish leaders who were supposed to be protected by the no-fly zone called Operation Provide Comfort.

Wang, 29, is a 1988 graduate of the Air Force Academy. He was charged with failing to warn the F-15C pilots that the helicopters were friendly, failing to supervise two of his crew members and failing to maintain an accurate tactical picture of the situation.

At the court-martial, Air Force prosecutors argued that a recording and a videotape showed radar symbols that the AWACS crew should have interpreted as meaning that the helicopters were not enemy aircraft. In addition, Maj. Robert Coacher, the lead prosecutor, said that a 1992 training evaluation noted that Wang once fell asleep when he was supposed to be providing radar support for fighter pilots.

“This officer will do whatever it takes in a situation to promote his own self-interest,” Coacher told the 10-member jury of Air Force majors and lieutenant colonels.

But Maj. Donald Holtz, Wang’s attorney, countered that the radar system misidentified the aircraft that day. He also told the jury that Wang and his crew would have been a “ship of fools” to have carelessly misread their radar screens.

Wang testified that he and his crew saw only brown dots on their screens. Had the dots been green, he said, he would have been able to determine whether the helicopters were friend or foe.

The verdict was delivered after less than five hours of deliberations. Wang said the pilots--and not the radar crew--were responsible for the mistake.

“The pilots made the decision to fire,” he said. “And they didn’t make that decision based on any input from us. We didn’t give the order to fire.”

But some of the victims’ relatives were not satisfied.

“The families have been lied to by the government from the beginning that there would be accountability and answers to our questions,” Mounsey said. “And yet I am still baffled how 26 people could be brutally killed and yet not one person held accountable.”

Times staff writer Art Pine in Washington contributed to this story.