The A-10 pilot was certain he'd found Iraqi armour — he was about to kill nine allied soldiers.

The Burning Convoy: Desert Storm's Deadliest Day for Britain

When American A-10s mistook allies for enemies on the Highway of Death

American A-10s killed nine British soldiers in the Gulf War's deadliest friendly fire incident, reshaping NATO protocols forever.

The Warrior armoured vehicles kicked up spirals of orange dust as they pushed north across the Iraqi desert, Union Jacks snapping from radio antennas in the hot wind. It was April 24, 1991 — officially, the Gulf War had ended weeks ago, but the chaos hadn't.

Lance Corporal Karl Shearer felt the rumble through his seat as the convoy from the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars rolled toward a refugee camp near Safwan. Above, two American A-10 Thunderbolt IIs — the fearsome 'Warthogs' — circled like vultures, their pilots squinting through cockpit glass at the vehicles below.

What happened next would haunt two nations.

The lead A-10 banked hard, its GAU-8 Avenger cannon spinning up with a mechanical whine that soldiers on the ground couldn't hear over their engines. The pilot had identified the convoy as Iraqi armour. He was wrong.

💡 The fluorescent orange vehicle identification panels had been deliberately removed before the mission — British commanders feared they made vehicles more visible to Iraqi gunners, a tragic irony that contributed to American pilots misidentifying them.