The other excuse I have seen...was that they did not want to shoot down friendlies.
Like they can not id the bad guy !
Like they can not id the bad guy !
The problem is they can't always ID the good guys:
CENTCOM SAYS F-18 DOWNED BY PATRIOT
British: Two Killed as U.S. Patriot Shot Down Fighter Jet
No system is perfect. Nobody wants to kill allied pilots and blow multi-million dollar planes out of the sky. And nobody wants to see one of their multi-million dollar warships disabled or sunk.
It looks like this was a judgement call -- with plenty of monday morning quarterbacking.