Newsletters
A Kuwaiti F/A-18 fighter jet mistakenly shot down three American F-15 aircraft on Sunday after an Iranian drone killed six U.S. troops at a commercial port, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing people familiar with initial findings of the incident.
Fox News independently confirmed the account.
One Kuwaiti F/A-18 pilot launched three missiles against the U.S. aircraft, according to a U.S. official cited by the Wall Street Journal.
"All three American jets went down, but their pilots and back-seaters ejected safely," the military said.
The incident occurred shortly after an Iranian drone penetrated Kuwaiti air defenses and struck a tactical operations center at a commercial port in Port Shuaiba, killing six U.S. service members.
"Kuwaiti forces were on high alert when their radars detected the American jets flying in and fired on them," a person familiar with the matter said.
The incident is under investigation, and the official cause of the crash could change.
A second U.S. official underscored that point, adding that Kuwaiti ground-based air defenses might have also played a role.
The friendly fire incident underscored the challenges of fighting a complex air war with a regional patchwork of air defenses, former military officials said.
"It's a busy, busy air environment, and in times of stress, tension, crisis, and, certainly in this case, conflict, even more so," said Mark Gunzinger, a retired Air Force colonel who flew B-52 bombers and is now with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, speaking to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
U.S. Central Command has listed 19 different types of aircraft being used in the Middle East, all flying at different speeds and serving different functions.
The airspace is further congested by Tomahawk cruise missiles and HIMARS-deployed rockets being launched at Iran, along with waves of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones fired in retaliation.
Iran has also launched warplanes of its own. Qatar, on Monday, said it shot down two Iranian Sukhoi Su-24 bombers.
"It's all the more complicated when you have different air defense systems operating on different frequencies that aren't integrated, and some of those systems are actively trying to counter threats such as drones," Gunzinger said.
Dan Karbler, a retired lieutenant general who ran the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command, speaking to WSJ, said a fratricide incident like the one in Kuwait usually happens because of several breakdowns in communication or failures in equipment.
Investigators will examine whether the aircraft friend-or-foe transponders were working properly, whether the Kuwaitis knew the planned flight paths of the American jets, whether the aircraft were flying correct routes, and whether Kuwait was able to communicate with the F-15s electronically or by voice.
The airspace across the Middle East is now far more complex than during the U.S. wars with Iraq in the early 1990s and 2000s, Karbler said, noting that Iran fires not just missiles but low-flying kamikaze drones.
The F-15, a warplane flying since the 1970s, had never been shot down by an enemy aircraft in aerial combat.
Older and newer models boasted a 104-0 record against enemy aircraft.
An F-15E Strike Eagle, as the ones shot down, had a $31.1 million purchase price in the late 1990s, according to a U.S. Air Force fact sheet. Newer F-15EX jets cost about $100 million.
"Attrition is a fact of war, and we do not have attrition built into our calculus," said retired Air Force Col. John "JV" Venable, who spoke to WSJ.
"For the last 30 years, we've been having zero losses in combat. Now, attrition with these high-end weapons systems, whether friendly fire or enemy fire, shows us we need more aircraft."
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
1 min read
1 min read
