Air Force officials are investigating why the pilot of an F-16 fighter from the 388th Fighter Wing at Hill AFB, Utah, mistakenly shot up a vehicle during a close air support training exercise April 8 at the Utah Test and Training Range. Two soldiers in the vehicle who were participating in the exercise from Ft. Lewis, Wash., were slightly injured with scrapes and cuts when they evacuated the vehicle to escape the attack, Salt Lake City’s Deseret News reported April 15. The wing has temporarily halted training in the area of the range where the mishap occurred while it conducts an investigation, which is expected to take a month or two, according to the newspaper. The injured soldiers are back with their unit and have returned to duty, an Army spokesman told the newspaper.
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…