"Fighter jet pilot" is a really cool job.

Guess who gets the cool jobs in these countries? Typically not the most highly motivated individuals, but the children of influential people who pull strings to make it happen.

Guess how easy it's to fire those people when they don't pay that much attention during training?

Cool job? Being ordered to drop bombs on schools filled with children doesn't seems like a cool job..

Scott Purdue has a couple of good videos on the incident https://youtube.com/@flywirescottperdue

A pilot not trained well on visually IDing some of the most common military planes would be quite a training lapse.

The Kuwaiti air force doesn't use F-15E. The F-15E looks quite similar to the Iranian Mig-29 especially from above. I've got no idea how Kuwaiti fast jet pilots are trained but it's not inconceivable that pilot had never seen an F-15E in the flesh before.

>> it's not inconceivable that pilot had never seen an F-15E in the flesh before.

This is such a joke I cant even imagine how you can formulate this thought...

- Exercise Marauder Shield 26.1 (Nov. 2025) "U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft assigned to the 391st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron takeoff during Exercise Marauder Shield in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, Nov. 8, 2025. A key element of the exercise was the sharpening of combined fighter capabilities between the U.S. and Kuwait Air Forces. This included joint training exercises and hot-pit refueling operations."

- CENTCOM Bomber Task Force mission (July 2022)

"..During the BTF, two B-52H Stratofortresses, assigned to the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command, conducted theater integration training and operations with a variety of U.S. Air Force, partner and ally aircraft, including F-15/18, RJ-135, E-3, KC-135/10/46, FGR-4, and A-330..."

"The bombers’ flight originated at Royal Air Force (RAF) Fairford, England, and flew over the Eastern Mediterranean, Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea before departing the region. The mission included fighter escorts from the Royal Air Force and the Air Forces of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia...."

"...“Communication is critical,” said Wong, who also serves as the Deputy Director of Combat Operations, Combined Air Operations Center. “By enhancing lines of communication, we are able to establish a clear and direct line in real time amongst the Air Operations Centers of all nations participating..."

> A key element of the exercise was the sharpening of combined fighter capabilities between the U.S. and Kuwait Air Forces

Well, the Kuwaitis seem pretty sharp? Three shootdowns is a lot in the modern era. The F-22 program only has two air to air kills in its whole history.

> Well, the Kuwaitis seem pretty sharp?

Do they? If they shot down 3 friendly aircraft that would be a catastrophically stupid mistake which would imply they are, in fact, not that sharp (or at least this specific unit and chain of command).

> The F-22 program only has two air to air kills in its whole history

A very poor comparison point given that the F-22 has had limited opportunities for engagement. And just a poor comparison overall.

Given Kuwaiti air force pilots would have dealt with Saudi/US/Iraqi F-15 operators, that seems highly unlikely.

Kuwaiti air force F/A-18 pilots receive most of their training in the USA so most likely they would have seen some F-15 model in flight. That doesn't rule out a case of target misidentification but it's very odd and suspicious.

That would be a pretty huge GCI failure

I do not know how F-18 controls work but from what I understand lots of jet controls include the equivalent of a "safety" that can be used to prevent the weapon from being launched. Maybe the pilot thought he had it engaged?

The secondary thing here I've realized is that the missiles in question must not have been using active homing. If they were then the pilots of the US aircraft would have taken evasive action as soon as their radar warning receiver lit up.

That could explain one accidental shootdown. It cannot conceivably explain three.

Much of the F-15E fleet is still in relatively good condition. Most other airframes are even older on average. Over the past couple decades most funding went to more urgent GWOT priorities and almost everything else was under capitalized to the point where older aircraft are literally cracking and falling apart.

Because they still work.

What did the videos originally link to? It just shows "Sorry, this post is no longer available."

That’s you ad blocker. They’re still up.

Sometimes it'll show that while the embed is still loading.

How much time elapsed between each aircraft being hit?

Probably testing grok-based targeting system.

@grok is this true? /s

Two more kills and that pilot will be an ace!

> Another fighter pilot’s analysis, seen in video below, questions whether the Kuwaiti pilot might even have gone rogue against an ally. That actually seems possible based on the evidence, but it is hard to believe.

I get the concern, but i would remmeber to attribute it to incompetance rather than malice. And from my understanding, there is no shorten of incompetance among gulf arab militaries

Do not mistake leadership and regular people. Afghanistan president Ghani handed over sovereignty to US too but Afghans disagreed. I am confident that there is significant minority in Kuwait wishing for Iran victory. As a datapoint, there were videos from Bahrain with people cheering for Iranian rockets hitting American bases.

The state religion in Kuwait is Sunni Islam. It's much more nuanced than "Muslim brethren", except perhaps less so when Israel is directly involved, as it is today.

It's also important to note that these are not democracies. The state frequently does things that people aren't entirely happy with, it's only when the people (or religious leaders!) become sufficiently unhappy that it becomes a problem.

Lol most Kuwaitis including the royal family are Sunni and believe Iranian Shia's to be heretics. So no love lost there at all.

Saw some unsubstantiated claims that the planes shot down didn't even have it on

The first could have been a mistake. It happening three times is crazy because ground control should have been in the pilots ear the entire time trying to de-conflict.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Kuwaiti Air Force switches to ground controlled intercept only after this.