US F-15 Fighters Shot Down By Kuwaiti F-18 That Launched 3 Missiles: Report

A Kuwaiti jet fighter was the cause of the accidental shootdown of three American F-15s on Monday, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

At least one Kuwaiti F-18 is believed to be responsible, the report said.

According to a US official, the pilot of the F-18 Hornet mistakenly launched three missiles towards the three US jets, which went down over Kuwait.

A Kuwaiti F/A-18 fighter jet

The incident was the first loss of an American aircraft since Operation Epic Fury began February 28 with a massive wave of American and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, which has retaliated with missiles and drones against Kuwait and countries across the Gulf after its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was assassinated in a joint US-Israeli airstrikes on Saturday.

Three US fighter jets, all of them F-15E Strike Eagles, were mistakenly downed in Kuwait - not Iran - by friendly Kuwaiti fire on Monday, according to the US military. The crews parachuted to safety.

A US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle

The F-15E downing is the second known incident of US fighters being taken out by friendly fire in the Middle East in the past 15 months.

Meanwhile, Iran took the claim for shooting down the jets, as the war with the United States-backed Israel rapidly escalated.

The Wall Street Report says that the 'blue-on-blue' incident occurred as multiple Iranian drones were penetrating Kuwaiti airspace. One of these impacted a base that resulted in the death of six Americans.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the incident occurred during "active combat," which included "attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones".

The exact circumstances of the downing of the American warplanes are not yet clear.

The scale and intensity of each side's attacks have escalated over the last four days, with regional, non-state actors like Iran-backed Hezbollah also joining the conflict.

The war has led to widespread disruption to civilian populations in all affected countries.

Visuals shared online showed an F-15 spiralling down in slow motion, with flames from its rear. The plane was flying over Kuwait at the time.

The friendly fire episode did occur at a moment when Kuwaiti forces were on edge. A day before the shootdown of the F-15s, on March 1, six US Army soldiers were killed by an Iranian drone attack on a US tactical operations center at the Shuaiba port in Kuwait.

An ex-Air Force fighter pilot told Air & Space Forces Magazine the incident is "perplexing," given that allied pilots are trained to follow procedures to prevent such dangerous mistakes.

"If you're flying air defense missions, the first thing you do is interrogate using your transponder," the former pilot told the magazine. American pilots, he said, broadcast an Identification Friend or Foe code that identifies them as friendly to allied forces.

It is not clear if the US planes had their IFF systems on. 

"It's pretty hard to mistake an F-15E for an Iranian aircraft, and particularly if they're not maneuvering in any kind of aggressive fashion," the former pilot told the magazine.

Even if the F-15s were flying without transponders turned on, "that's not a basis to engage those aircraft," the former pilot said. 

"They have to be demonstrating some hostile intent. If they're just flying, that's not hostile intent," he added.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Dan Caine acknowledged the "loss" of the three F-15Es in a press briefing at the Pentagon on March 2 and said the US knew the incident "was not from hostile enemy fire." He declined to comment any further.

CENTCOM commander Adm Brad Cooper said March 3 that 200 fighters have participated in the operation, conducting 2,000 strikes. F-15Es are among the aircraft participating in the mission.

Kuwait's Ministry of Defense said in a statement that it "confronted a number of hostile aerial targets" around dawn on the day of the shootdown, before adding a later statement that several US aircraft crashed.