The Pentagon’s official “friendly fire” account has several technical inconsistencies
The U.S. military would have you believe its most devastating day of air combat losses since the Vietnam War stemmed from a “friendly fire” accident. Yet a closer look reveals the story strains credibility.
Three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets were shot down over Kuwait on Monday morning in what U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) described as “an apparent friendly fire incident.” All six crew members — two per aircraft — ejected safely and sustained no serious injuries.
The incident made Monday tied for the U.S. Air Force’s worst day of losses since the Vietnam War. In the five decades following Vietnam, the USAF has only lost three fighter jets in a single day once before: when two F-16s and one F-15 were downed over Iraq on the second day of Operation Desert Storm in 1991.
CENTCOM asserted the F-15s “were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses.” Though this account could be accurate, several problematic gaps imply another party might be to blame.
The Patriot problem
Video footage indicates the F-15s sustained engine hits, suggesting they were downed by heat-seeking missiles.
WATCH: Moment US fighter jet got shot in Kuwait
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper)
Yet none of Kuwait’s surface-to-air missiles function this way. Kuwait possesses 35 M902 Patriot missile batteries, plus a smaller number of HAWK, NASAMS, and Italian-made Spada 2000 systems. All these systems launch radar-guided, not heat-seeking, missiles.
Patriot’s PAC-3 missiles physically collide with the center of incoming jets or ballistic missiles, whereas missiles from Kuwait’s other systems detonate a fragmentation warhead near incoming threats. When used against jets, these typically explode between the target’s fuel tanks and cockpit.
The trails usually left by PAC-3 and comparable missiles were not visible in the sky when the F-15s were downed.
If Kuwait used its most numerous and modern Patriot systems against the F-15s, the survival of all six crew members is a statistical anomaly. No pilot — friend or foe — has ever survived a successful Patriot missile interception. Ukrainian fighter pilot Aleksey Mes died in 2024 when his U.S.-supplied F-16 was downed by a U.S.-supplied PAC-3 missile, while both the pilot and navigator of a British Tornado reconnaissance jet were killed instantly in 2003 when a PAC-3 missile struck their aircraft over Iraq.
Friends and foes
Patriot and other U.S. air defense systems are outfitted with IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) technology. IFF transponders on U.S. warplanes emit an encrypted signal that ground radars can detect, marking the aircraft as friendly and preventing weapons from being fired at it. It is highly unlikely U.S. jets would have operated over Kuwait without an IFF link to Kuwaiti air defenses — though such errors have occurred before: the deaths of Aleksey Mes in 2024 and the British crew in 2003 were attributed to air and ground teams failing to share IFF codes prior to missions.
Scenes from the crash site in Kuwait.
The jet can be seen burning in the distance.
— AMK Mapping 🇳🇿 (@AMK_Mapping_)
Clues in the statements
CENTCOM’s statement contains one potentially significant line: it notes that “attacks from Iranian aircraft” were ongoing at the time of the shootdowns. The mere presence of Iranian jets does not prove they downed the F-15s — only that the possibility cannot be ruled out for now.
CENTCOM stated that “Kuwait has acknowledged this incident,” but the Kuwaiti Defense Ministry’s statement made no reference to friendly fire. Instead, it noted that “several” U.S. aircraft crashed and that there were “a number of hostile aerial targets” in the area at the time.
Who shot down the F-15s?
Two competing theories exist. CENTCOM’s “friendly fire” explanation is not technically foolproof and lacks Kuwait’s support, but it remains plausible. The Pentagon is currently investigating the incident and has pledged that “additional information will be released as it becomes available.”
Conversely, the Iranian military has taken responsibility for downing at least one of the jets. In a Monday statement, the Khatam Al-Anbiya Air Defense Base stated: “An F-15 fighter jet belonging to the invading U.S. military, which intended to attack the country, was targeted by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Air Defense and downed.”
Based in Tehran, the Khatam Al-Anbiya Air Defense Base coordinates air defense operations between Iran’s army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Iranian interceptors could potentially have reached Kuwait’s airspace, but Iran’s medium-to-long-range air defense systems also launch large radar-guided missiles that typically destroy enemy aircraft. Thus, it might seem logical to conclude the jets were downed by short-range heat-seeking missiles like the R-73 or R-74 used by the Iranian Air Force. However, with only official statements from both sides to go on, RT cannot speculate about whether this was the case.
Two wartime constants are that errors occur and militaries lie about their victories and losses. For the U.S., neither explanation is favorable: it either lost three jets in a day due to incompetence and confusion between its personnel and allies, or to an enemy it considers inferior and on the brink of defeat. For now, the truth remains hidden in the fog of war.