Why was the Air Force plane’s transponder turned off? This is negligence that almost killed a plane full of people and endangered a national security operation. Outrageous.
Even for training they set up restricted/military areas in airspace all the time. Not doing it here, in allied (Curacao is part of the kingdom of the Netherlands) airspace is unacceptable. They could have coordinated this in the normal ways so ATC would route civilian traffic around the military operations or talk to the military controllers (who can see both types of traffic) before sending an aircraft through the shared airspace.
This isn't new, it's how military operations are done all the time.
It's been a problem specifically with US military aircraft for years that they just wander into other people's airspace with transponders off and expect to have it all to themselves.
We should just start shooting down anything big enough to need a transponder that is not using one. Doesn't matter who's in it, doesn't matter what it's for.
Maximum destructive, irreversible response.
Even if you think this is sometimes warranted, have you thought of the edge cases? You seem perfectly happy to be shot down yourself, sitting in your airplane with a failed transponder.
What's gotten into you to want to kill people so much?
It's bad enough that the US already deliberately shoot at their allies (look at all the "friendly fire" incidents the US cause) without them sneaking about in protected airspace without identifying themselves.
If there's a military plane flying around without any identification, it's either a Russian flight up to no good or an American one up to no good.
indistinguishable from what someone in the current administration would come up with
So what's the plan? Just expect everyone to get out of their way?
With effectively no military and the Dutch government being an American lapdog, I doubt the people in charge need to care. They're already out there with orders to commit war crimes, shooting down an airliner or two that gets too close to their military aircraft wouldn't make much of a difference in the long run.
> shooting down an airliner or two that gets too close to their military aircraft wouldn't make much of a difference in the long run.
Would surely break its back?
Iraq and Iran had been pissant slap-fighting over oil tankers for years. The tanker war ended with the Vincennes incident.
"Ending the Tanker War" is clearly not that. It was the deployment's objective so I fear there are ghouls who would celebrate it.
assuming Lieutenant General Evan Lamar Pettus is in charge
"""
Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering, United States Air Force Academy
Master of Business Administration (MBA), Bellevue University
Master of Science in Logistics Sciences, Air Force Institute of Technology
Master of Strategic Studies, Air War College
Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training
U.S. Air Force Weapons School graduate
Squadron Officer School
Air Command and Staff College
Combined/Joint Forces Land Component Commander Course
Combined Force Air Component Commander Course
Senior Joint Information Operations Applications Course
Combined Force Maritime Component Commander Course
Joint Flag Officer Warfighting Course
Operational and Leadership Training
Qualified as a command pilot with more than 2,700 flight hours in aircraft including the F-15E and A-10, and multiple combat deployments (Operations Northern Watch, Southern Watch, Allied Force, Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, and Inherent Resolve).
Completed F-15E Weapons Instructor Course
"""
but yeah, he probably doesn't know Curacao isn't part of Venezuela.
Trump and Hegseth are.
Be real.
Are you suggesting Lieutenant General Evan Lamar Pettus did that? Or Hegseth and Trump? Because that's clearly what hte parent was referencing. So, please, explain to me how Lieutenant General Pettus deemed the entire ocean north of Venezuela as military operations on their own without the involvement of Hegseth or Trump. Or admit you are wrong.
(Hegseth may've accidentally texted it to a reporter, though. That'd be on brand.)
It's very clear that the upthread comment was referring to the administration - headed by a guy prone to word salad and outright lies - not the folks way, way down the chain doing the flight plans.
But Maduro ain't no fool.
What people may not know is that Curacao- like many Carribbean islands- is entirely dependent on tourism. Basically they're fucked.
that's misleading.
"The helicopter was part of the Continuity of Government Plan, with the flight being a routine re-training of aircrew in night flight along the corridor. In emergencies, elements of the US government would use it to evacuate the capital." Since the helicopter training flight needs to take place in proximity to the US government, and the airport serves Washington DC, they are of necessity juxtaposed.
the US military does not seek out large civilian "airports" within the USA to run training operations. In this case it's just "airport" that happens to be near where the training needs to take place.
"Police Action" came the terse reply. "We don't talk about that one."
Course by then I'd already signed on the dotted, so...
Last year I went to Grenada, which we invaded in the 80s. They love us for it and have statues of Reagan on the island. Without us, they probably would have suffered the same fate as Cuba.
Where would South Korea be without our intervention? Etc.
learning something new every day…
We definitely accomplished our objective in Grenada, which we invaded. I’d call it winning a war. There were boots on the ground who did what we sent them to do.
Korea was definitely a war and the ostensible purpose was to repel North Korea, which we and our allies did. If that’s not winning a war, what is it?
Maybe we could write on a legal pad and hold it up in the rear window as we pass them on the highway.
Not always about the right issues, but at least they have the spirit
Are they? Where does that come from?
It's unfair given the reality and importance of the French resistance, but, that's where it comes from.
Also are they in favor to replacing this dictator with another pro-Trump one?
Current US president have a weak spot for every dictator and authoritarian leader in the world: El Salvador, Russia, Hungary, etc.
Might be not the best candidate to deal with dictators...
When your options are being poor, starved to death or dissapeared during the last 25 years, you take any chance for a change
Usually people who end up in power are ones best at shooting others invluding shooting civil politicians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi
That did not quite go according to plan either. Definitely not a dictatorship but not exactly clean and the end result is not so far off from where they started. Venezuela could easily end up worse than it is today.
2. Turn back the clock two decades ago, I'm sure plenty of ex-pat Iraqis wanted Saddam out, but half a million dead and a ten-year civil war and also fucking ISIS may have been a bit above what they were willing to pay. If I were living in a country ruled by a deranged autocrat (...), I too would like to see him removed, but that doesn't mean I'd invite war over it. (And the knives-out-nightly-disappearance repression that will inevitably follow.)
3. Given who Trump sucks up to and appoints, I'm sure he'll find his own monster to replace Maduro with. (The US track record with this in the Americas has been incredibly awful, but I've no doubt that he can set a new lowest bar.) He sure as shit won't be putting some lady who won a peace prize in charge.
Yes, I suppose you have successfully provided a counter-argument to my point, and I have to concede it - there are people with more skin in the game than the average MAGA who want to stick their former neighbours' hands in the fire, to check if it is hot.
Political expats and exiles do tend to favor invasions of their countries more than the people who live in them do, and I've not considered their viewpoints in this.
Over 77 million people voted against Trump.
About 73 million were not old enough to vote.
With the exception of people who have religious beliefs prohibiting voting, it’s saying that you don’t feel strongly enough about the differences between the two candidates to pick one. There are some people who can plead various hardships, but most people don’t have that excuse: it really did come down to thinking their life would be fine either way.
I strongly support national electoral vote reform but it’s important to remember that every election really does matter.
Why did Venezuela become what it is today? Every citizen is responsible for what their country turned into.
Ofcourse I do not expect anyone in the Venezuelan diaspora do any kind of introspection or soul-searching.
Venezuela was a beautiful South American Switzerland and it is all the fault of the evil Cubans.
I'm not saying the rest of the world is in the clear though. I think many countries are headed in a similar direction. Hopefully this is the wakeup call we all need to step up and arrest this slide into authoritarianism that's happening everywhere.
Do you know why?
We don't even elect Presidents based on getting a majority (or even plurality) of all voters who actually vote, though the method actually used usually (but not always) also happens to elect the person who does that.
That Trump is even near the reigns of power is obviously an indictment of many facets of American culture and politics, but it doesn't really wash out to every individual American bearing responsibility the way you're suggesting here.
And its hard to see the nuance from the outside when all you hear are threats of economic turmoil, death, destruction and war. Every action of the american government regarding my country has been hostile so far, so forgive me for loosing my patience with the american public. All that talk about "land of the free, home of the brave", but as soon as their government threatens the "free world" americans fold over like lawnchairs. Its incredibly dissapointing.
We're all stuck with some shared ownership for what our country does even if we detest it.
Many of his ardent supporters are confused as to what we’re doing in Venezuela right now and feel it’s the opposite of what they voted for.
You certainly don’t expect this level of surprises from someone’s second term, but the unprecedented path of his political career has certainly made it much different.
In America one guy can start wars.
I mean, evidently not.
Thanks
The whole "oh yes, our military is active, but we aren't at war, and yes, the president tweeted about that" spiel is just untenable and ridiculous.
That is why this administration is leaning heavily into calling the drug traffickers "narco-terrorists" and calling fentanyl their "weapon of mass destruction". They're covering their ass legally so they can invade another country without congressional approval.
This is what they're using, the legal theory is basically tren de aragua cartel and their drugs is an "invasion" of the USA and is "sufficiently connected" to the Venezuelan government to trigger the act's wartime powers.
And why would a tanker plane come close to and even enter the hostile airspace?! may be one has to check Hegseth's Signal to get an answer for that, probably it is something like "big plane -> Scary!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mUbmJ1-sNs.
GPS Lat & Long Barometric Altitude Ground speed & track angle Rate of climb/descent
All updated every second or so.
Is that increase in precision much larger than the plane itself? If it's not then it couldn't possibly matter in this application.
Further radar is not a static image. The radar is constantly sweeping the sky, taking multiple measurements, and in some cases using filtering to avoid noise and jitter.
> GPS Lat & Long Barometric Altitude Ground speed & track angle Rate of climb/descent
You get or synthesize every one of those with radar as well.
Military radar is a different beast, but even then you're still trying to figure out what the returns mean. ADS-B explicitly says hey there are two aircraft in a tiny space. Civilian radar is likely not precise enough to identify two aircraft that close.
Although ADS-B is self reported and "vulnerable" to bad/spoofed info.
My CFI and I once saw ADS-B data from one of the startups near Palo Alto airport in California reporting supersonic speeds... at ground level, no less.
Edit: still have it in my email, heh. It was a Kitty Hawk Cora, N306XZ, reporting 933kts at 50'.
Watching Ukraine videos there is new game in town though - relatively cheap IR cameras. Using IR, day or night, you can detect a jet plane from very large distances and just guide missile to the plane computer-game-joystick style.
If our aircaft were flying transponders-on during all these exercises then suddenly went dark, it’d signal imminent attack. This keeps them guessing. Possibly we’re even playing around with having them on some of the time for some aircraft, and off at other times.
We don’t do that with AWACS and such near Russia because we’re not posturing that we may attack them any day now, and want to avoid both accidental and “accidental” encounters with Russian weapons by making them very visible. In this case, an accidental engagement by Venezuelan forces probably isn’t something US leadership would be sad about.
Did you even read the comment thread before responding to GP? You're just spreading misinformation.
I read about this incident in detail even before it was posted on HN.
Maybe you should reflect on why people who have lead others in combat have decided that there should be rules to war before you declare that rules of war are a bad idea.
As far as our modern, temporary notion of “rules of war,” go, it’s because it suited the victor and gives them what they feel is an edge and an air of superiority. I don’t say this to be smug either, just look at how well the Geneva Suggestions worked out for the North Vietnamese or the Taliban. They ignored the and won.
Like it or not, the modern nation-state’s notions of Rules of War are going to quickly become a bygone relic of a simpler time, as was a formal British fighting line.
Had the US somehow magically lost WWII, the firebombing atrocities would almost certainly have had a few Air Corp generals executed by the victor.
We could just as well look at the systemic atrocities committed against the Vietnamese civilian population and yet we still lost that war.
Excepting the Gulf War, how far back to we go to find something America has won (somewhat) cleanly?
Who is this magical war-winning nation that only fights fairly?
I'm not saying one can't win without war crimes, I'm saying it simply doesn't ever seem to happen.
No.
The USA is the strongest military power in the world. They are not the underdog. If they resort to war crimes or unfairness, it's not because they are the underdogs; it's because this is what top dogs do. Let's not make excuses for them.
You answered your own question here.
Military planes doing military things always fly with their transponder off. It would be suicide not to.
Example: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/FORTE10/history/20230821...
A transponder is how civilian planes tell exactly where they are relative to each other. Missiles use IR, radar-bounce, and other methods for the last-mile delivery of explode-y bits, but when launched from afar (e.g. a surface-to-air missile launched from land towards something over the horizon) they need to be pre-loaded with the exact position of the target, as they need to get close to it before switching to a homing mechanism. If the target has a radio transponder, that makes this step trivially easy.
If Venezuela wanted to shoot one of these planes down, with the transponder off the missile is as likely to lock on to a commercial airliner. They're not going to take that risk.