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The Grdelica train bombing occurred on 12 April 1999, when two missiles fired by US aircraft F-15E Strike Eagle hit a passenger train while it was passing across a railway bridge over the
Južna Morava The South Morava ( Macedonian and Serbian: Јужна Морава, ''Južna Morava'', ; sq, Lumi Morava) is a river in eastern Kosovo and in southern Serbia, which represents the shorter headwater of Great Morava. Today, it is 295 km lon ...
river in the
Grdelica Grdelica () is a town in southern Serbia. It is situated in the Leskovac municipality, in the Jablanica District. The total population of the town was 3,194 people as of the 2011 census. For census purposes, Grdelica is divided into two adjacent ...
gorge, some south of Belgrade, Serbia. At least 20 civilian passengers were killed or declared missing. Estimates of the total death toll run as high as 60. It is considered the deadliest rail disaster in Serbian history. The bombing occurred during
Operation Allied Force The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an a ...
, a NATO operation against the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Serbia and Montenegro ( sr, Cрбија и Црна Гора, translit=Srbija i Crna Gora) was a country in Southeast Europe located in the Balkans that existed from 1992 to 2006, following the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yu ...
(FRY) aimed at forcing the FRY government to end the repression of Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija. The campaign had begun by attacking mainly military targets, but by mid-April the emphasis had changed to strategic and economic targets such as transport links, particularly major bridges.


Events

The bombing occurred at about 11.40 hours local time. An
AGM-130 The AGM-130 was a powered air-to-ground guided missile developed by the United States of America. Developed in 1984, it is effectively a rocket-boosted version of the GBU-15 bomb. It first entered operational service on 11 January 1999, and was ...
missile precision-guided munition released by a US
F-15E Strike Eagle The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15E Strike Eagle is an American all-weather multirole strike fighter derived from the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. The F-15E was designed in the 1980s for long-range, high-speed interdiction without rely ...
struck the centre of the bridge at the exact moment that the No. 393 passenger train, en route from Belgrade to Ristovac, was crossing the bridge. The missile struck the train, causing major damage, but did not destroy the bridge. According to General
Wesley Clark Wesley Kanne Clark (born December 23, 1944) is a retired United States Army officer. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a degree ...
, who was the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) at the time, the train had been traveling too fast and the bomb was too close to the target for it to divert in time. The first missile had been fired from a significant distance from the target, and the pilot was allegedly not able to recognize the train visually. Realizing that the train had been hit but believing that he could still complete the mission by striking the end of the bridge where the train had already passed, the pilot then made another pass and fired a second missile. This one too hit the train. Clark described the second hit as an "uncanny accident" in which the train had continued moving into the target area, obscured by dust and smoke from the first strike, stating that the pilot allegedly had had less than one second to react. A
gun camera Gun cameras are cameras mounted on a gun, used to photograph or record from its perspective. They are typically used on the weapons of military aircraft and operate either when the gun is fired or at the operator's will. Gun cameras are used for ...
video was released by NATO to support its version of the events. The Pentagon and NATO stated that the error had been the result of the video being speeded up for battle damage assessment purposes, but not being slowed again for the press conference. 314]


Controversy

The incident caused an immediate controversy in Serbia and abroad. The Yugoslav state news agency
Tanjug Tanjug (/'tʌnjʊg/) ( sr-cyr, Танјуг; sometimes stylized as TANJUG) was a Serbian state news agency based in Belgrade, which officially ceased to exist in March 2021. Since then, Belgrade based private company Tanjug Tačno, acquired the r ...
released an editorial that accused NATO of performing the attack with the aim of "inflicting suffering on and destroying the Serbian people". In a press conference the day after the attack, General Clark stated that "it was an unfortunate incident which he, and the crew, and all of us very much regret" and "it is one of those regrettable things that happen in a campaign like this and we are all very sorry for it, but we are doing the absolute best we can do to avoid
collateral damage Collateral damage is any death, injury, or other damage inflicted that is an incidental result of an activity. Originally coined by military operations, it is now also used in non-military contexts. Since the development of precision guided ...
." The U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense,
John Hamre John Julian Hamre (born July 3, 1950) is a specialist in international studies, a former Washington government official and President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a position he has held with that think tank since ...
, told the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
a few months later that "We never wanted to destroy that train or kill its occupants. We did want to destroy the bridge and we regret this accident." The German '' Frankfurter Rundschau'' prompted a further controversy during January 2000, when it reported that the NATO video had been shown at three times its real speed, giving a misleading impression of the train's speed. The Pentagon and NATO stated that the error had been the result of the video being speeded up for
battle damage assessment Bomb damage assessment (BDA), also known as battle damage assessment, is the practice of assessing damage inflicted on a target from a stand-off weapon, most typically a bomb or air launched missile. It is part of the larger discipline of combat ...
purposes, but not being slowed again for the press conference. Later investigation by Frankfurter Rundschau asserted that the video was sped up 4.7 times.


Legal issues

The Yugoslav government and some Western groups characterised the attack as a "crime". Other human rights organisations criticised the way that the attack had been continued after the train had been struck by the first strike. Amnesty International argued that the attack should have been stopped when the train had been struck, and that the second bombing had violated the principle of proportionality. In a post-war report, Amnesty stated that the incident :"appears to have violated Article 57 of Protocol I which requires an attack to 'be cancelled or suspended if it becomes clear that the objective is a not a military one ... or that the attack may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life... which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.' " The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) established a committee during May 1999 to determine whether offences against
international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
had been committed during the NATO campaign. In its final report to the tribunal's Prosecutor,
Carla Del Ponte Carla Del Ponte (born February 9, 1947) is a former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals. A former Swiss attorney general, she was appointed prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former ...
, the committee took the view that the attack had been proportionate: :"It is the opinion of the committee that the bridge was a legitimate military objective. The passenger train was not deliberately targeted. The person controlling the bombs, pilot or WSO, targeted the bridge and, over a very short period of time, failed to recognize the arrival of the train while the first bomb was in flight. The train was on the bridge when the bridge was targeted a second time and the bridge length has been estimated at 50 meters ... It is the opinion of the committee that the information in relation to the attack with the first bomb does not provide a sufficient basis to initiate an investigation."Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, 13 June 2000.
The committee was divided over the question of whether the aircrew had behaved recklessly. It recommended nonetheless "that the attack on the train at Grdelica Gorge should not be investigated by the rosecutor" A.P.V. Rogers comments that the committee "must have considered the first missile strike to be a legitimate action against a military objective, the inference being that any civilian casualties of that strike were not disproportionate, and that the firing of the second missile was an error of judgment in the heat of the moment."


List of killed passengers

* Zoran Jovanović (35) from Niš * Petar (46) and Verka (47) Mladenović, family from Niš * Ana (25) and Ivan Marković (26), family from Leskovac * Jasmina Veljković (28) from Stalać * Vidosav (45), Divna (41) and son Branimir (5) Stanijanović, family from Prćilovica * Simeon Todorov (31) from Stalać * Svetomir Petković (64) from Aleksinac * Radomir Jovanović (45) from Niš Other victims couldn't be identified.


Aftermath

The damaged bridge was repaired and reopened during September 1999. On 12 April 2007 a ceremony was performed at the site to mourn the victims on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of the bombing.SERBIAN RAILWAYS – View Single News
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See also

*
Varvarin bridge bombing The Varvarin bridge bombing was an aerial bombing executed by NATO as part of the Operation Allied Force. Ten people were killed and 17 were severely injured, all of them civilians. Events On 30 May 1999, as part of the NATO bombing of Yugosl ...
*
Lužane bus bombing The Lužane bus bombing occurred on May 1, 1999 during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, when NATO missiles targeting a bridge in Kosovo hit a bus. The bus was hit on the Lužane north of Pristina. On that day, 46 civilians of Serb and Albanian ...
*
Koriša bombing On 15 May 1999, NATO aircraft bombed the village of Koriša, Kosovo during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. At least 87 civilians were killed and 60 wounded. NATO officials affirmed before and after the bombing that the bombing was on a legitim ...
*
NATO bombing of Albanian refugees near Gjakova The Bombing of Albanian refugees near Gjakova occurred on 14 April 1999 during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, when NATO planes bombed refugees on a twelve-mile stretch of road between the towns of Gjakova (Đakovica) and Deçan (Dečani) in wes ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grdelica Train Bombing Aerial operations and battles of the Kosovo War Railway accidents and incidents in Serbia 1999 in Serbia Railway accidents in 1999 Leskovac NATO airstrikes Civilian casualties in the Kosovo War Incidents involving NATO April 1999 events in Europe United States military scandals United States war crimes 1999 disasters in Serbia