Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over Northern Iraq

Good case study which introduces the powerful concept of organisational drift. When operations start too often rules are too complex and too restrictive. So operators find work-arounds an informal alternatives. These work until one day circumstances mean that the gaps created allow an accident to occur. Then guess what? - the rules are tightened and the cyle resumes. This is vital reading for any quality and/or safety manager.

I went into this book thinking "how in the world could this happen" and finished it asking "how is it that this didn't occur before." A fascinating book that has significance for all types of emergency responders, who need to understand how such "mistakes" might occur and thus how to potentially prevent such mistakes from occuring in the future.

Friendly Fire is a insightful, intriguing analysis of the 1994 incident that resulted in the needless deaths of 26 peacekeepers in the Iraqi Norther No Fly Zone. Snook presents a compelling tale of a complex system gone awry, an organization operating on the edge of chaos, and the ultimate result of a deterministic system spinning out of control. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of systems theory and organizational behavior, LTC Snook presents his thesis with exceptional clarity and depth of understanding; his conclusions are as disturbing as they are fascinating: a series of rational decisions made by equally rational human beings still failed to prevent the very incident the organization was designed to forestall. A concise, well-written account of and incident with lessons that we should all take to heart.

Friendly Fire is a marvelous analysis of one of the most horrific accidents in recent military history. Snook is unfaltering in his tenacity to get to the root causes of this tragedy. The reader is given a broad perspective of how events, even those occuring years previous, led to the fateful day when 26 peacekeepers lost their lives. His ability to put the reader into the mind of each participant is riveting. More than just a recitation of facts or an outpouring of emotion, this book blends all the elements into a comprehensive understanding of a most complicated event. Friendly Fire should be required reading for all military personnel and anyone whose actions hold the lives of others in their hands.

In this book, Scott A. Snook, Ph.D. provides a thoughtful and readable account of how things can go tragically wrong in normal, healthy organizations. The author creatively applies several key theories in organizational structure and change to develop an understanding of (1) the tragic shootdown of two Army helicopters by U.S. Air Force jet fighters, which occurred in northern Iraq in 1994, and (2) "friendly-fire" events in general and broadly-defined --- or how it is that bad things can happen to good organizations, and there really is no one to blame. The book begins with an impressive, detailed examination of the data surrounding the 1994 Blackhawk shootdown. This includes thousands of hours of transcribed testimony gathered in hearings and court martial proceedings. In addition to official reports, Snook personally interviewed many of the key players in the Blackhawk friendly-fire incident. Using a "grounded-theory" approach, the author allows the data to shape and guide his reconstruction of the event itself, and his subsequent theoretical formulations to explain what happened. His resultant theory of "practical drift" spans multiple levels-of-analysis, from the individual to the cultural, providing dramatic insight into how such seemingly impossible events can be expected to occur in complex organizations. This book sheds the kind of light which both clarifies and disturbs. It should prove of real value not only to military leaders interested in reducing friendly-fire incidents, but also to leaders in non-military organizations who wish to understand, and perhaps avoid, normal disasters.