Simulation Archives

Anyone who logged on to the Web site of SNCF, the French national rail service, on Tuesday would have read a bulletin that a high-speed TGV train had crashed in Burgundy, killing more than 100 people and injuring nearly 400.

As the Times of London reported:

For more than 40 minutes, panicked members of the public called the disaster helpline that accompanied the announcement and word of the catastrophe flashed around Twitter and other social networks.

But the crash report the Times reported on was part of a disaster exercise, which managed for some unknown reason, to leak onto a public Web site.

This incident followed a March 13 simulation of a Russian attack on the Republic of Georgia on Georgian television, which caused widespread panic in the country and resulted in a similar overload of communications systems.

It's wonderful to live in a world of instant communications -- and I would not want to give it up -- but the SNCF and Georgian mistakes illustrate that sometimes you should not believe what you read - and now see or hear.

Television viewers in the former Soviet republic of Georgia thought for a few panicky moments on March 13 that the country had come under attack by Russia for the second time since 2008.

A prime time news report on the Georgian Imedi TV channel showed Russian troops and tanks surging over the border and Russian planes bombing the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

The channel then switched to the White House, with a shot of President Obama standing next to Vice President Joe Biden. An announcer explained the president was calling for an end to Russian aggression.

But, as my favorite London newspaper The Independent, explained, this was an ill-conceived simulation. The announcer on Imedi explained it was a simulation at the beginning of the broadcast, as well as at the end -- but not during the broadcast. Any Georgian who tuned in after the brief announcement at the beginning thought their country was under attack. The Independent reported:

As the report aired, panicked Georgians called friends and relatives. Mobile phone networks crashed for several minutes, and there were reports of cinemas emptying as frantic parents called their children back home. Local news agencies reported an increased number of calls to the emergency services from people suffering heart attacks.

About the only person who would have appreciated this stunt is Orson Welles, if he were still alive. He managed to panic much of the United States on Halloween in 1938 with his "War of the Worlds" broadcast, which used simulated, but realistic, news broadcasts to depict a not-so-obviously imaginary Martian attack.

Although "hooah" is an Army term not used by the Air Force, in the case of Tech. Sgt. Darrell DeMotta, an Air Force Joint Terminal Attack Controller I had the pleasure to meet this week at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., the term definitely applies.

JTACs are Air Force grunts who call in and direct air strikes and medevac missions, serving with Army infantry units or Special Forces teams. DeMotta has done three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, hauling around a load that would make any infantryman really grunt: three radios, laser gizmos, a computer, body armor, canteens, weapons, and more.

Hero is an overused word, but it definitely applies to DeMotta. During a 2007 tour in Iraq, he was credited with saving the life of an Iraqi policeman shot by a sniper and dragged a soldier out of a house to safety after three of his team members were shot during a raid of a suspected terrorist cell. He then controlled helicopters and fighters while setting up a medical evacuation of injured soldiers.

His boss at the time, Msgt. Timothy Crusing, part of the 2nd Air Support Operations squadron, said DeMotta soldiered on despite the danger during that incident. "He never stopped controlling aircraft during the ordeal, despite the ground threat," he said. "It was an extraordinary act under the circumstances."

Last month DeMotta, a survivor of six attacks by improvised bombs, received a Bronze Star for exemplary service during his 2007 tour in Iraq while he was deployed at Kirtland, where at the moment he runs JTAC missions in cyberspace.

The first JTAC assigned to the Distributed Mission Operations Center, which is run by the 705th Combat Training Wing at Kirtland, DeMotta now deals with digits like a natural computer geek, helping to spearhead development and use of simulators that replicate the JTAC mission.

During a tour of the simulation facility, DeMotta displayed in-depth knowledge of not only the JTAC systems, but also all the aircraft systems, describing each in simple and understandable terms.

DeMotta is the kind of warrior that the public unfortunately rarely meets. And I consider it a privilege to have spent time in his company.