Three Senators Put Their Lives On The Line

Yesterday from the AP:

A military cargo plane carrying three senators and a House member was forced to take evasive maneuvers and dispatch flares to avoid ground fire after taking off from Baghdad on Thursday night.

The lawmakers said their plane, a C-130, was under fire from three rocket-propelled grenades over the course of several minutes as they left for Amman, Jordan.

“It was a scary moment,” said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who said he had just taken off his body armor when he saw a bright flash outside the window. “Our pilots were terrific. ... They banked in one direction and then banked the other direction, and they set off the flares.

”Sens. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., as well as Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala., were also on the plane.

Cramer and Martinez said they had just begun to relax about five or 10 minutes after the plane took off under darkness.

Crew members apparently communicated to the pilots as they saw the initial RPG fired from the ground, Cramer said. After the first burst, the pilots maneuvered aggressively and set off flares used for drawing incoming fire away from aircraft.

Once the flares lit up the sky, lawmakers said, two more RPGs were fired as the pilots continued maneuvering.

Martinez said he quickly put back on his body armor.

“We were jostled around pretty good,” said Cramer, who estimated the plane had ascended to about 6,000 feet. “There were a few minutes there where I wondered: 'Have we been hit? Are we OK?'”

Capt. Angel Wallace, a spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command, said she was not aware of the incident, and military public affairs officials in Baghdad could not be reached immediately. [Emphasis added.]

Yeehah! Ride 'em Cowyboys!

But there are a couple of aspects to this story that have a fishy odor about them. All you have to do is sniff a little:

First, Bud Cramer "estimated the plane had ascended to about 6,000 feet."

Second, the Senators claim that their plane had been taken "under fire from three rocket-propelled grenades over the course of several minutes..."

Third, the Senators relate that "after the first burst, the pilots maneuvered aggressively and set off flares used for drawing incoming fire away from aircraft."

But if it was dark, how could these clowns 1) estimate that they were at 6,000 feet, and 2) determine that it was RPGs that were being fired at them?

The RPG is a dumb weapon. It has no guidance system. Therefore, had RPGs indeed been fired at them, the pilots would have had no need to employ countermeasures (the flares). If they did, indeed, employ the flares, it would have been because they suspected some sort of shoulder-fired surface-to-air weapon was being employed against them.

The absolute maximum horizontal range of the RPG-7 is 920 meters (3,018 feet). At that range, the weapon has practically no accuracy and would be used exclusively for harassment purposes against stationary targets. Trying to fire the weapon vertically at a fast-moving target 6,000 feet high would have been a fruitless endeavor. I'm quite sure no insurgent or al-Qaeda member would waste an RPG round in such silly way.

You would think that the media would stop interviewing these idiots and give us all a break.