The Search Goes On

The funeral motorcade of Capt Scott Speicher departs NAS Jacksonville earlier today (WJXT-TV photo).

Eighteen years after he disappeared in Iraq, Navy Captain Scott Speicher was finally laid to rest this afternoon. The Navy F/A-18 pilot, shot down on the first night of Operation Desert Storm, was listing as "missing" or "captured" for two decades until Marine search teams found his remains in the Iraqi desert. That discovery--made two weeks ago at a location near the wreckage of his downed fighter--set in motion the homecoming that concluded today in Jacksonville.

But, as we note in our new column for Examiner.com, many questions about Scott Speicher's fate remain unanswered. Did he survive ejection from his F/A-18 (as most experts believe)? Did he carve that evasion sign into the desert floor--a symbol known only to Speicher and members of his unit? How did he wind up at the location where his remains were found? Did he die at that spot from combat or ejection-related injuries, or was he executed by Saddam's troops, and deliberately buried at that site?

The Speicher family plans to continue their quest for answers, but the Pentagon seems less determined. Two weeks ago, when DoD announced recovery and identification of the missing pilot's remains, the Speichers said their private inquiry would continue. That suggests that DoD is preparing to close the books on the Speicher file; that action (in our estimation) would be premature.

Coming Home

Eighteen years after he disappeared in the early hours of the Persian Gulf War, Navy Captain Scott Speicher is coming home.

The Defense Department announced early today that remains recovered in the Iraqi desert have been positively identified as those of the F/A-18 pilot, who was shot down on the first night of Operation Desert Storm.

Pentagon officials said that bone fragments were recently recovered in Iraq's western Anbar Province. Investigators used dental records to confirm that the remains were those of Captain Speicher.

According to the AP, a tip from an Iraqi led U.S. forces to the site where Speicher was buried:

Officials said Sunday that they got new information last month from an Iraqi citizen, prompting Marines stationed in Anbar to visit a location in the desert which was believed to be the crash site of Speicher's FA-18 Hornet.

The Iraqi said he knew of two other Iraqis who recalled an American jet crashing and the remains of the pilot being buried in the desert, the Pentagon said.

"One of these Iraqi citizens stated that they were present when Captain Speicher was found dead at the crash site by Bedouins and his remains buried," the Defense Department said in a statement.

The military recovered bones and multiple skeletal fragments and Speicher was positively identified by matching a jawbone and dental records, said Rear Adm. Frank Thorp.

He said the Iraqis told investigators that the Bedouins had buried Speicher. It was unclear whether the military had information on how soon Speicher died after the crash.

Some had said they believed Speicher ejected from the plane and was captured by Iraqi forces, and the initials were seen as a potential clue he might have survived. There also were reports of sightings.

Over the years, the Pentagon (and U.S. intelligence agencies) mounted an intensive effort to determine Speicher's fate. Based on updated information, the pilot's status actually changed in 2001, from "killed in action," to "missing in action." Reportedly, this was the first time a missing military member's status was revised from KIA to MIA.

A year later, Speicher was classified as "missing/captured," and in March 2009, he was listed as "missing in action." Speicher's family resisted military efforts to list him as killed-in-action, allowing them to (essentially) close the book on the missing pilot.

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 yielded new hints on Speicher's fate. In a prison at Hakimyah, searchers found the initials "MSS"--in western hand-writing--inside a cell. That prompted new speculation that Captain Speicher had survived the shoot-down of his F/A-18 and had been held prisoner by Saddam's regime.

Speicher's name also appeared on at least one list of prisoners held by Iraq, but analysts believed the document may have been produced to confuse the U.S.

The Navy pilot disappeared during the first wave of airstrikes against Iraq on the night of January 16, 1991. For years, the service maintained that Speicher was shot down by an enemy surface-to-air missile, most likely an SA-6 Gainful. But more recent analysis suggests that the F/A-18 was downed by an Iraqi MiG-25 Foxbat, firing an AA-6 air-to-air missile.

That assessment is significant, because the U.S. initially believed that none of its aircraft were shot down by Iraqi fighters. While Saddam's air force quickly retreated in the face of coalition air dominance, a few Iraqi pilots tried to engage allied aircraft, particularly in the early stages of the war.

Iraq's MiG-25s (like the one that downed Speicher's jet) were generally flown by more experienced pilots, although their dog-fighting skills paled in comparison to western aviators. Additionally, the AA-6s carried by their aircraft were poorly-suited for air combat against other fighters. Each AA-6 (NATO nickname: Acrid) weighed as much as a Volkswagen Beetle and can be easily out-maneuvered by fighter aircraft.

Captain Speicher's inability to dodge the AA-6 suggests a number of scenarios. Perhaps he was "heads-down" in the cockpit at the time and didn't see the large exhaust flame from the Russian-built missile. Of course, there were hundreds of aircraft in the skies over Iraq that night; scores of missiles in the air, afterburner plumes and other streaks of light that would make it hard to pick up the in-bound AA-6.

The same holds true for audio and visual cues from the F/A-18's Radar Warning Receiver (RWR). There were countless signals received by the RWR unit, which processes them and provides a visual display (and audio tones) for the pilot. In some cases, even harmless electronic signatures will be interpreted--and depicted--as hostile systems. If a pilot has no reason to believe that a particular threat is active in his area, he may downplay (or even ignore) what he sees on his RWR scope and hears in his helmet.

And that brings us to another, critical element of the Speicher shoot-down. To our knowledge, DoD has never disclosed publicly what activity E-3 AWACS and RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft were showing in the area when the F/A-18 was knocked out of the sky. On the opening night of Desert Storm, those platforms were responsible for producing a melded "picture" of Iraqi threat activity and passing warnings to allied aircraft.

It would be interesting to know if AWACS had a radar track on the Iraqi MiG-25, and its presence was confirmed by associated SIGNINT activity, detected by the RC-135. That, in turn, would raise questions about what threat calls--if any--were issued by either platform in the moments leading up to the shootdown.

There are also unanswered questions on the ground. There was never any confirmation that Speicher (then a Lieutenant Commander) ejected from his aircraft. But satellite imagery of the crash site showed the pilot's escape and evasion (E&E) sign carved into the desert floor.

For obvious reasons, Speicher did not carry a written copy of that information on his person. The presence of the E&E sign suggests that the pilot ejected from his jet and lived long enough to scratch the information into the terrain--a process that would take several minutes. There is also the matter of Speicher's flight suit, found intact at the crash site. That discovery is also inconsistent with claims that he never ejected from the F/A-18. It's also worth noting that the ejection seat from the aircraft has not been recovered.

Bedouins who (reportedly) buried the body of the Navy pilot claim that he was dead when they arrived at the crash site. But how he died--or who killed him--has not been revealed.

Confirmation of Speicher's fate provides some degree of closure for his family, which has waited decades for answers. But the Pentagon still owes more answers to his survivors. We can only hope that forensic evidence from the crash site--and the debrief of Iraqi sources--will shed more light on what happened to Captain Speicher after his jet was shot down.
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ADDENDUM:

Unclassified excerpts from a 2001 Intelligence Community assessment of the Speicher case offer the following conclusions:

(1) The Iraqis "expertly searched" the crash site one month before a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited the location in December, 1995. They excavated the cockpit area of the wreckage and removed all significant debris.

(2) Analysis of the wreckage by US Navy experts concluded that LCDR Speicher initiated the ejection sequence, jettisoned the canopy, and likely ejected from the stricken aircraft prior to the crash. The canopy was located near the crash site; the ejection seat could not be found.

(3) US Navy investigators concluded that the pilot was not incapacitated by the initial incident. Flight surgeons and aircraft life support systems experts believe LCDR Speicher would have had at least 85 to 90 percent chance of surviving (with second-degree burns to exposed skin) the resultant flash heat and fire and aerodynamic forces of the initial impact that brought down his aircraft.

(4) We do not know if LCDR Speicher survived the ejection sequence or subsequent landing, but the lack of crash-site evidence of LCDR Speicher's death, US Navy statistical data associated with F/A 18 incidents, and the condition of the returned flight suit suggest that he probably survived the crash of his F/A-18.

Clearly, there is a high probability that Scott Speicher successfully ejected from his aircraft and was alive when he reached the ground. Confirmation of that E&E letter indicates that he was in good enough shape to scratch that symbol into the ground--a process that cannot be completed in a matter of seconds. Indeed, the presence of the evasion sign suggests that Speicher saw no signs of the enemy when he landed, and felt he had enough time to leave the letter as a clue for rescuers. But Captain Speicher died in the minutes that followed. The circumstances surrounding his demise demand clarification.

Closing the Speicher Case?

Navy F/A-18 pilot Scott Speicher. He disappeared after his jet was shot down over Iraq in January 1991, but his fate has never been determine (DoD photo via Wikipedia).

The Navy will hold a hearing Monday on the status of Captain Scott Speicher, the F/A-18 pilot who disappeared on the opening night of Operation Desert Storm almost 18 years ago.

Members of the Speicher family believe that Navy Secretary Donald Winter is moving toward changing the aviator's status from missing/captured to killed. Speicher was initially listed as killed in the hours after his jet went down over Iraq in January 1991. However, his status was changed to "missing in action," based on an absence of evidence that he died.

A decade later, in October 2002, the service revised Speicher's status again, listing him as "missing/captured," although the Navy never explained the reason for the change. The revision came just months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The fall of Baghdad in April 2003 brought what many believed was a new, tantalizing clue. Inside a prison in the Iraqi capital, investigators found the initials "M.S.S" carved into the wall of a cell. Some believed that the letters stood for "Michael Scott Speicher," the pilot's full name.

However, other officials discounted that possibility, noting that the initials "M.J.N." were found directly above M.S.S. The second set of initials do not correspond to any western POW known to be held by the former Iraqi regime. Speicher's name appeared on a list of prisoners held by Saddam's government, dated January 2003, but the document did not detail his location, or whether he was still alive.

This much we know: in the early hours of Desert Storm, then-Lieutenant Commander Speicher was part of an F/A-18 formation that launched from the carrier USS Saratoga. His Hornet went down in a fireball west of Baghdad. Originally, intel analysts believed that a surface-to-air missile was responsible for the shoot down, but later assessments attribute the kill to an Iraqi Air Force MiG-25. It was the only American loss on the first night of the air war.

But there is strong evidence that Speicher survived the engagement. The wreckage of his F/A-18 was found in the Iraqi desert, and examined by U.S. experts. No human remains were found at the site, and it appears that Speicher ejected from his aircraft. Additionally, the pilot's escape and evasion "letter" was found carved into the desert near the crash site. The sign is unique to each pilot or aircrew member and is used to signal that the missing airman survived the shootdown, and is attempting to evade the enemy.

At that point, the trail grows cold, except for those clues recovered in Baghdad five years ago, and occasional human intelligence reports that claimed Speicher was alive, and being held by Saddam. In other words, enough evidence to suggest that the Navy pilot might be alive, but not enough to prove it conclusively.

Officially, the Navy hasn't said if it plans to change Speicher's status. The Defense Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for tracking (and investigating) POW-MIA cases, completed its last report on the matter six months ago. But the agency hasn't said if it has new, conclusive evidence on what happened to Speicher, who has been promoted to the rank of Captain in his absence.

For years, the Speicher family has been pressing the Pentagon for a more complete accounting of his fate. And, they certainly have a point, because serious errors were made in the early stages of Captain Speicher's disappearance. For example, no rescue team was ever dispatched after his F/A-18 went down, despite robust capabilities that existed in theater. American investigators didn't actually visit the crash site until years later, raising the possibility that critical evidence disappeared, or was possibly removed from that location.

Barring the recent discovery of definitive evidence, we can't understand why the Navy might be pushing to close the Speicher case. In fact, the most obvious rationale is also the most odious: by declaring Captain Speicher dead, the service can officially "wrap up" the matter, and eliminate some aggravating details.

That means no more intelligence collection or analysis related to his disappearance, and the end of monthly pay and allowances for Speicher's family, which totals more than $116,000 a year. Put another way, the military could save a fair amount of money by declaring the Captain dead and the matter resolved. Changing his status could also improve relations with Baghdad, getting them off the hook for solving an issue that began with the previous regime.

Closing the case would also end something of a public relations headache for the Pentagon. Currently, Captain Speicher is the only American service member--from any war--who is still listed as being held by the enemy. It's an issue that always surfaces at Congressional hearings on POW-MIA affairs, and sometimes generates embarrassing questions. Listing Speicher as "dead" would resolve that issue, too.

Sadly, not all MIA cases can be resolved, even in an age of DNA testing and satellite imagery. We may never know what happened to Scott Speicher on that January night in 1991, but the Navy has not presented a definitive case for declaring him dead. As the family's attorney has noted, the Speicher example will set a precedent for future MIA cases, and there's a need for further investigation before considering a status change.

We owe that much to Scott Speicher.