I agree there is no reason the tape shouldn't have been released.
Unfortunatly this has huge reprocussions for the US and UK relations. the MOD and DOD are not exactly on the best of terms as it is. Now I think we can all but kiss good bye to info sharing and thus probably the end fo projects such as the JSF.

Alas this is a case of a genuine mistake. The nine lads killed by the A-10s in '91 in the Gulf was a different matter and the pilots were never called forward or to my knowledge faced a court martial. Viewing the transcripts of that incident they WERE gung-ho (and possibly brain dead). This incident has coloured things ever since... Mind you I still think the best is the RAFs first interception battle of WWII. Spits versus Hurris as I recall
This latest one seems to be a genuine cock-up! Alas as long as we go to war these things will happen. Sometimes it is people who are at fault, other times it is just sheer bad luck
So shoot a pencil neck, tabloid journalist or politician today to help make the world a safer and happier place. Meanwhile I'm going back to making my DIY grenades ready for 3C tomorrow to help make the world a safer and happier place
I get the feeling that this is a case of a cover-up because the USAF have been in so many incidents in both Iraq and Afghanistan! Of course they have a higher number of incidents.... they've got more planes!!! If people stuck to the facts things sure would be a lot easier.

Isak922 wrote on Feb 6^th, 2007 at 2:39pm:

In 2003 an A10 had a friendly fire incident on a UK tank.  The cockpit tape of the encounter was only recently released.  Prior to that its existance was denied (IIRC).

Why?  My opinion: simple mistakes and burocracy.  Sure it COULD be a cover-up, but that would imply that those doing the covering are competent enough to cover-up something for this long.  In my experience the government (military) simply isn't capable.

Chris_F wrote on Feb 6^th, 2007 at 4:01pm:

Probably not widely covered in the US but it's front page news here. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6334769.stm

It was actually a column of vehicles, all clearly carrying bright orange ident strips. There is no doubt that someone in authority has been trying to cover this up for years. At first the existence of the tape was denied. Then it suddenly surfaced at the inquest last week. I don't know where it came from but the coroner watched it. He was not allowed to show it to anyone else as it was still "classified" so he adjourned the inquest until it could be released. Somehow the Sun, one of the the tabloid newspapers, got hold of it. It's also widely available on the Internet but if you want to see it you will have to search for it yourselves. The tape is now in the public domain so there's no point in trying to hide it any longer.

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It's too late now it already HAS been released! Just not through 'official' channels. If anyone was going to be punished they would have been several years ago, when the incident happened...

yes - i know it has been leaked but the proper channels is what im speaking about.

Sometimes governments are like big cats - frantically covering up its own crap, when they need to just do what is right in the first place and settle it properly.

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If you are referring to punishing the pilots or forward ground controllersin this instance I have to disagree. From time to time accidents happen, but in this day and age they are not allowed any more. It does not matter if you cut your finger opening a letter too strafe the wrong people, it is always someone else's fault and they have to pay. Add into this the stress of war and all the factors that go with it, for example lack of sleep (for every hour in the air, how long where those pilots up before with Int briefings etc) the forward ground controller who is directing fire possibly under fire and is trying to keep his own head down. All these things come together and produce a tragic accident. I have already said, I have seen the video and read the full transcript. The pilots spent quite some time trying to identify the target before they attacked. Unfortunately this particular incident has been tarnished by the pilots who got it wrong in the 91 Gulf war (there have been so many we have to identify them with a year now ) and wanted to bomb some Ragheads or Camel Jockies  (I use these words to emphasis the gung ho attitude of that particular incident only, before you start I am married to a foreign national ) To punish the guys in this particular incident would serve no purpose except to add more stress on the next bunch of guys on the front line maybe causing the enemy to be able to strike back. It was an accident, blue on blue is a fact of war life. It is just a question of how long before it happens again. In the past couple of years we have had British troop blue on blue and American soldiers shooting at each other. That does not seem to make the news much and these guys are a matter of meters away from each other. A couple of fighter pilots at X thousand feet and we expect them to have bionic eyes..............Just one persons opinion.

Matt