Downed Jet Had Been Wrongly Identified

WASHINGTON — A Navy fighter jet accidentally shot down during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq had been misidentified by two Army Patriot missile batteries as an incoming Iraqi missile, a military investigation has found.

Soldiers also violated standard procedures involving the launch of the missiles, the investigation determined, but a summary of the inquiry released Friday provided no more details.

The fighter jet pilot, Lt. Nathan White, 30, of Mesa, Ariz., was killed over Iraq on April 2, 2003, as he flew his F/A-18C Hornet back to the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. A summary of the investigation’s findings was posted on the U.S. Central Command’s website Friday.

It does not say why the Patriot batteries wrongly identified White’s aircraft.

The batteries, which include several radar vehicles and missile launchers, both reported to a command center that they had detected an incoming Iraqi missile.

Based on this, the command center staff “had to quickly launch a countermissile capable of successfully intercepting the Iraqi missile,” the investigative report says.

The Patriots that downed White were defending the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division around Karbala, south of Baghdad.