A sandstorm was blowing so fiercely across the Iraqi desert that it was hard to see or even stand upright. A Humvee driver, delivering a flight crew to a helicopter gunship, struggled to steer by compass heading. As the vehicle approached the Apache AH-64, 60-mile-an-hour winds blasted the cockpit windows with grit. Once inside, the two-man crew spun up the chopper’s turbine engines and, at ten minutes past midnight, prepared to lift off. Up front in the gunner’s seat, with the best view of the battlefield and his pilot seated behind him, was Ralph Hayles, a battalion commander with seventeen years of flight experience. He had misgivings about this mission, and not only because of the weather.It was February 1991, days before the start of…The post A Fatal Error Inspired a Plan to Reduce Friendly Fire, but the Military Isn’t Interested appeared first on Texas Monthly.