One area expected to receive extensive attention throughout the MEADS programme is the need to reduce the risk of fratricide, or "friendly fire", incidents in future conflicts. Last year's Iraq war highlighted the hazards of high-intensity air campaigns when two coalition fighters were shot down by US Army Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries that had incorrectly identified the aircraft as hostile threats.
Both UK Royal Air Force crew members were killed when a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile destroyed a Panavia Tornado GR4 on 22 March 2003, and a US Navy Boeing F/A-18C and its pilot were lost in a similar incident on 2 April 2003. A US Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16 also fired on a Patriot system's MPQ-53 radar installation after the aircraft was targeted during an operational sortie on 25 March 2003.
A RAF investigation into the loss of the Tornado and its crew concluded that an undetected failure in the aircraft's onboard identification friend or foe (IFF) system was a major factor in its loss, but added that there were serious shortcomings in the operation of the US Army Patriot missile battery (Flight International, 18-24 May).
Vital parts of the Patriot installation's communications system were still in transit to the Gulf region at the time of the incident, restricting it to operating in autonomous mode. This resulted in the system incorrectly classifying the Tornado - which was returning to Kuwait's Ali al Salem airbase after an operational mission - as an incoming Iraqi anti-radiation missile. The unit's newly trained operators destroyed the aircraft from a range of 25km (13.5nm) in "perceived self-defence, in accordance with existing procedures and rules of engagement", according to a separate US Central Command report.
The Patriot installation had successfully engaged an Iraqi ballistic surface-to-surface missile the previous day, and its operators had less than 1min to decide whether to engage the unidentified threat. Its crew was monitoring up to 50 tracks at that time.
The lack of IFF robustness between coalition aircraft and Patriot systems remains a "chink in our armour", says a senior RAF source, adding: "The Patriot missile's targeting is so generic that many coalition aircraft could meet its engagement criteria".
In response to the shoot-down incident, the RAF is to modify its entire fleet of GR4s with Successor IFF equipment by mid-2007, with work on the first 40 to be completed this year.
"The UK will look end-to-end at its own ground-based air defence systems and talk through our rules of engagement with our coalition partners," says the RAF source. "These are issues that people in the Combined Air Operations Centre worry about every day."
Source: Flight International
