[Petronski]

01:45 Electronic identifying beacon problems on British Tornado fighter may have led U.S. to mistakenly shoot plane down Sun.

I heard this this morning on FoxNews. All Allied aircraft have transponders that are supposed to squawk friendly. When the Patriot system spotted this radar contact, and it did not squawk friendly, it was shot down.

[knak]

interesting, I didn't know how it all worked

[wrench]

I have worked on this type of equipment. Could have been something as simple as a popped circuit breaker, or a bad/broken antenna lead.

Unfortunately, friendly fire does happen in war....