A NORTH-EAST soldier died in Afghanistan after being hit by fire from a US Apache helicopter which had wrongly identified his base as a Taliban compound, an inquest heard yesterday.
Lance Corporal Christopher Roney, 23, of 3rd Battalion The Rifles, died from head injuries sustained during a “friendly fire” attack on Patrol Base Almas, in Sangin district, Helmand province, on December 21, 2009.
Almas had been established in an area previously known as the Taliban’s playground just a month earlier and was not yet printed on official maps, the inquest heard.
The compound, a few buildings inside mud walls, had come under attack from insurgents and a firefight was raging when an air attack was ordered, Sunderland Coroner Derek Winter said.
A drone fitted with a camera and two US Apaches flew to Almas, but British troops on the ground – who by this stage were fighting back their attackers – were wrongly identified as the enemy and hit by 30mm chain-gun rounds.
Two hundred rounds were fired before military commanders spotted the mistake, leaving 12 injured.
L/Cpl Roney, a married former drayman from Sunderland, was taken to Camp Bastion and then Kandahar Airfield for emergency treatment, but died of his injuries the next day.
Yesterday, an inquest into his death, expected to last five days, opened at Sunderland Coroner’s Court.
Mr Winter said the sequence of events was highly complex, but he would be exploring why the base was attacked despite having barbed wire, mortar illumination rounds coming from inside, a flagpole, a machine gun and a washing line.
It was a tragic incident, he said, and he would consider the relevant practices and pro-cedures and look very carefully at the lessons learnt.
Throughout the incident, the helicopter crews were not informed, nor did they ask for, the exact location of Almas, Mr Winter said.
Now-retired Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Kitson, who watched live pictures of the attack, said he only realised it was “highly likely” Almas was being engaged after it had begun, when the camera zoomed out.
He did not say who had ordered the attack – only that he was aware authorisation had been given.
He said: “I was the victim of my assumptions in this case and assumed we had vectored onto an enemy position that attacked the patrol base.
“Many of us thought we had a great opportunity to inflict some damage on the enemy.
It’s very tragic that it was far from the case.”
Captain Palmer Winstanley, who was commanding L/Cpl Roney’s platoon, said he was not told a helicopter was in the area. He said the platoon was “okay” and could have won the firefight without support.
When the mistake was realised, fire was called off. However, the insurgents, seeing what had happened, renewed their assault and got to within 30 metres of the base. The incident ended after a 500lb bomb was dropped on the enemy location.
Statements from US pilots will be read to the hearing, which continues today.
Soldier first on scene killed a month later
CORPORAL Lee Brownson was the first man on the scene to provide emergency first aid after Lance Corporal Christopher Roney was fatally shot by the US Apache helicopter crew.
Cpl Brownson, of Bishop Auckland, who was based with L/Cpl Roney at Patrol Base Almas, quickly became aware the attack was friendly fire, yesterday’s inquest heard.
Captain Palmer Winstanley, the platoon commander, expressed his amazement that his colleague had worked this out, particularly without the benefit of radio contact with headquarters – which he himself had.
Tragically, Cpl Brownson, a 30-year-old father-of-three, was killed less than a month later in a blast from an improvised explosive device while leading a night patrol near Sangin.
Thousands of people lined the streets of Bishop Auckland to pay tribute on the day of his funeral and he was posthumously awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross in recognition of his bravery during the attack that claimed L/Cpl Roney’s life. Last year, an £8m Army accommodation block at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, was named in his honour.
A written statement by Cpl Brownson on the circumstances of the incident which claimed L/Cpl Roney’s life is due to be read to the inquest later this week.
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