British and US military planners were conducting an urgent review of their ”friend or foe” identification procedures yesterday after a US Patriot missile battery shot down a Tornado over northern Kuwait: the first serious targeting mistake of the war.
The Tornado, which had a crew of two and was normally based at RAF Marham in Norfolk, was returning from a bombing mission early yesterday morning.
It was the third accident involving British servicemen since the war began.
Six died when two British Sea King helicopters on surveillance missions from the carrier Ark Royal collided over the Gulf on Saturday. Eight members of 3 Commando Brigade died when a US Sea Knight transport helicopter crashed in the desert of northern Kuwait on Friday.
The Patriot attack raises new questions about the reliability of the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) technology, which should prevent coalition aircraft being shot down by their own air defence systems.
IFF failures were blamed for the death of nine British soldiers in the 1991 Gulf war when their Warrior armoured vehicles were hit by tankbuster bombs dropped by US A-10 aircraft in broad daylight.
During that war 35 of the 148 Americans killed died by what the US calls ”blue on blue” or ”fratricide”.
IFF problems were highlighted last year by the national audit office, which criticised the Ministry of Defence for not addressing them quickly enough. It said the system was still not fully compatible with the equipment used by other Nato countries, including the US.
Last month British military commanders made an urgent request for equipment to avoid ”friendly fire” exchanges between US and British forces in the war in Iraq.
British forces found the Tornado wreckage yesterday and will pass the aircraft’s black box to investigators.
”It is very sad. Now we will try to put it behind us as quickly as we can in a military sense and carry on with our operations,” said Air Marshal Brian Burridge, commander of British forces in Iraq, who is based in Qatar.
”A military campaign is the most intimate alliance you can implement. Here we have two nations who share the risks, share the dangers and share the rewards.”
Group Captain Al Lockwood, a representative for the British forces in the Gulf, said a joint UK-US investigation had begun. ”We will get to the bottom of it to make sure there is no repetition,” he said
The defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, said ”urgent reviews” of why the Patriot missile hit the Tornado were being made: ”There is no single technological solution to this problem. It is about having a whole set of procedures in place.”
Major-General Daniel Leaf of the US air force, said RAF jets used the same IFF system as their US allies, and there was no reason why they should be at greater risk from American weapons. The Tornado’s electronic signature should have been recognised by the Patriot.
Patriots were designed for use against aircraft but have been modified to intercept everything from incoming ballistic missiles to low-flying cruise missiles, according to Group Captain Lockwood.
The system is built around computer-guided radar but it can also be operated by human command. – Guardian Unlimited Â