US Air Force's Patriot Missile Mistakenly Launched at Ally Fighter Jet, Killing Two

March 22, 2003

The U.S. Air Force inadvertently launched a Patriot missile towards an allied UK Tornado fighter jet, leading to the tragic death of two crew members. This incident underscores the critical need for responsible AI governance, specifically in military applications where trustworthy AI could have prevented such harm. Incidents like these are valuable in mapping to the HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM (Measure function), shedding light on areas that require improvement in AI systems and helping us build safer, more secure AI practices for the future. JOIN US to contribute towards better AI governance.

For those interested in shaping the future of AI incident analysis and response, consider getting involved with the HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM (Govern function).

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MEASURE 2.6 — similarity 0.735, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 3.1 — similarity 0.693, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MANAGE 4.1 — similarity 0.684, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: us-air-force
Alleged developer: raytheon, lockheed-martin
Alleged harmed parties: us-air-force, uk-royal-air-force, kevin-main, david-williams

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/444

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.