Friendly Fire Pilots: 'We're Going to Jail, Dude'

Feb. 6, 2007 — -- A leaked video in which an American pilot is heard saying, "We're going to jail, dude," after U.S. troops killed a British soldier during a friendly fire incident in Iraq was released by The Sun newspaper Tuesday. Lance Cpl. Matty Hull died when troops fired on his convoy in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on March 28, 2003.

The incident occurred on the seventh day of the Iraq invasion as two A-10 Tankbusters patrolled the skies north of Basra.

On the cockpit video, the pilots identify four armored vehicles marked with orange panels meant to identify coalition forces. They can be heard saying, "There are no friendlies this far north on the ground." After firing, the pilots quickly realized their mistake.

"I'm going to be sick," they said on the tape. "Did you hear? Yeah, this sucks. We're going to jail, dude. We're going to jail, dude!"

A coroner investigating Hull's death had demanded that the video be released and presented as evidence in the inquest, but U.S. authorities refused. The leak means that the material is now in the public domain, the coroner's office said Tuesday, suggesting it may be shown when the inquest resumes Feb. 16.

U.S. military officials conducted their own investigation, but the findings have not been made public. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack talked about the incident Tuesday morning.

"I've only read parts of the transcript printed in some news media, and my reaction is that these people immediately understood that this was a terrible, terrible mistake, and that they felt an immediate remorse for what happened," he said.

British officials had also asked their U.S. counterparts to release the material to Hull's family but had been rebuffed.

"The main thing to stress is that we have always had a very clear view that what matters is the information should be available to the family and whilst the Americans cannot be legally obliged to help they should do so, bearing in mind they are our allies," said Constitutional Affairs Secretary Harriet Harman, who has had several meetings with U.S. Embassy officials.

The Pentagon declined comment Tuesday, but the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in London, David Johnson, told the BBC it would consider declassifying the video if the military determined it would not put forces at risk.