US pilots in friendly fire case 'were given amphetamines'

Two American fighter pilots, charged with manslaughter over a "friendly fire" incident in which four Canadian soldiers died, were routinely forced by the US Air Force to take amphetamines that might have impaired their judgement, their lawyers said yesterday.

Majors Harry Schmidt and William Umbach, of the Illinois Air National Guard, face possible court martial for dropping a laser-guided bomb near Kandahar in Afghanistan last April. The F-16 pilots said they mistook a group of Canadian soldiers on an exercise as the enemy. In addition to the four soldiers who were killed, eight others were injured.

In August The Independent reported that an inquiry was under way into whether the pilots had been using amphetamines, which are regularly provided by the USAF to help pilots to combat fatigue.

Yesterday the men's lawyers said they would argue at the 13 January hearing that the accident could have been averted if the pilots had been told of the Canadian soldiers' exercises. They also claim the USAF forced the pilots to use "go pills" because they kept them on an erratic schedule, flying missions by day and night, and did not tell them of a warning from the manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, about the drug, Dexedrine.

"The manufacturer specifically counsels doctors to tell patients they should not operate heavy machinery or engage in potentially hazardous activities while using this drug. No pilot was ever told that," said Charles Gittins, a former marine pilot who is Mr Schmidt's lawyer. "My client had to take them every mission to complete the mission. They overtasked the pilots in theatre."

A USAF spokeswoman confirmed that the two pilots had taken dextroamphetamine before the mission but said the drug had long been used to fight fatigue on long missions and there had never been reports of it causing an accident. "These stimulants are strictly voluntary," she said. "No one is forced to take these drugs."

The Independent revealed that senior officers could refuse to let pilots fly if they chose not to take the drug.