ANJ, December 5 - In a heart-stopping friendly fire incident that exposed the razor-thin margin between safety and catastrophe, a U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer mistakenly identified two American F/A-18 Super Hornets as incoming anti-ship missiles and opened fire during a high-intensity night exercise in the Pacific. The warship’s advanced Aegis combat system, designed to counter swarms of supersonic threats, locked onto the jets at close range and unleashed a barrage from its close-in weapon system. What followed was one of the most terrifying moments any naval aviator has ever experienced.
The lead pilot, call sign “Razor,” was returning to his carrier after a routine training sortie when his radar warning receiver suddenly screamed with the unmistakable signature of an active fire-control radar. Seconds later, tracer rounds and 20 mm Phalanx rounds streaked past his cockpit in brilliant orange arcs. “I saw my whole life flash,” he later told investigators. Eject or ride it out? In those split seconds, he yanked the jet into a violent break, dumping chaff and flares while his wingman did the same. Miraculously, neither aircraft was hit, though fragments peppered one Hornet’s fuselage and radar dome.
The investigation revealed a deadly chain of errors: the destroyer’s combat team had been drilled for hours on defending against missile raids and, in the chaos of simulated battle, failed to correlate the returning friendly jets on their tactical display. A single misidentified radar track labeled “hostile” triggered the engagement. The ship’s captain authorized deadly force under “self-defense” rules of engagement, unaware he was firing on his own squadron mates only forty miles away.
This near-tragic blue-on-blue incident has reignited urgent debate about identification-friend-or-foe (IFF) reliability, combat system automation, and the fog of war in an era of hypersonic threats. The Navy has grounded similar live-fire sequences pending a full safety review, while the shaken pilots—hailed as heroes for their instinctive maneuvers—are back flying. One thing is certain: on that dark night over the ocean, two American aviators came within inches and seconds of being shot down by their own side in a mistake that should never have happened.