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http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=56bc3bbc-451e-41e6-b993-cd6fe73231d6&k=82877
ETHAN BARON, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, July 20, 2006

Canadian troops narrowly missed death and serious injury when a U.S. plane
dropped a 225-kilogram laser-guided bomb on their position this month in an
incident frighteningly similar to the friendly fire attack that killed four
Canadian soldiers in 2002.

Soft ground prevented a bloodbath, soldiers said of the incident, which the
military has kept quiet.

Pte. Rob Adams, who was kneeling five metres from where the bomb landed and was
completely engulfed by the fiery flash, received a concussive head injury. He
was airlifted by helicopter to the hospital at the coalition base at Kandahar
airfield.

His condition was assessed as very good and he has been released from the
hospital, Canadian Forces Major Marc Theriault said.

The near catastrophe occurred around 7 a.m. midway through a chaotic 12-hour
battle in Pangawayi, 30 kilometres west of Kandahar. The pilot of the A-10
Warthog ground-attack jet mistook the Canadians for Taliban, a non-commissioned
officer said.

"He's coming in fast, he's coming in low, he's in the middle of a war zone and
he made a wrong call," the NCO said. "That happens. Those guys cover us a lot."

Another soldier was less forgiving. "Pangawayi isn't that big. I don't know why
they were dropping bombs."

Other soldiers questioned the Canadian military's response. "It's kind of funny
that they haven't come to talk to us," one said. "They haven't even sent us to a
doctor. They're going to bury this one deep."

Theriault said the bombing occurred during "complex combat."

"This happens in dangerous situations where you have multiple directions to look
after at the same time. Fire is coming from different directions, and you have
fire also coming from above," he said.

"Fortunately, our soldiers suffered only minor injuries."

An investigation is under way, as in the case of any operation gone wrong, he
said.

The incident was all too similar to an attack by a U.S. F-16 aircraft that
killed four Canadian troops, including a Montrealer, during a training mission
near Kandahar in April 2002. Eight other Canadians were injured.

Seventeen Canadian troops were within 45 metres of this month's blast, and
shrapnel splinters up to a half-metre long littered the farmer's field where the
laser-guided bomb hit. Nearly a dozen soldiers were blown through the air.

One soldier, 25 metres away, hit the ground so hard that the edge of his helmet
was pushed in. He is still suffering severe headaches from the July 8 incident.

The explosion blasted another soldier three metres into a mud hole.

A Canadian soldier who was outside the blast radius saw the bomb hit, and
immediately concluded his comrades were dead.

"I thought for sure that everyone was toast because there's no way you get hit
by a 500-pound bomb and walk away," he said.

Had the ground been harder, the three closest soldiers would be dead, and
several more severely injured, soldiers said.

"It was soft dirt, so (the bomb) went way deeper than it should have, and the
blast went straight up," the NCO said.

Vancouver Province