Known faults in the US Army's Patriot missile system may have caused an RAF plane to be accidentally shot down in Iraq last year, the BBC has found.
The US originally suggested a problem with the Tornado aircraft itself led to the friendly fire incident near Kuwait.
But Radio 4's Today programme has uncovered evidence that the US unit which fired the missile knew there was an error in the Patriot system.
RAF findings on how the two airmen died have not been made public.
An RAF report on the March 2003 incident is believed to have been forwarded to the Ministry of Defence but the MoD says it cannot comment until the report is finalised.
Journalist
The two airmen killed - Flight Lieutenant David Rhys Williams and Flight Lieutenant Kevin Barry Main - both served with 9 Squadron, RAF Marham.
Dead Tornado airmen named
US journalist Robert Riggs was embedded with the Patriot unit which shot down their RAF Tornado.
He told the Today programme how the US Army responded to the incident.
"The soldiers that we talked to said that the British Tornado was identified as an enemy missile and the story that the army put out to its own soldiers in the hours after that incident was they were blaming the British flight crew."
Mr Riggs said the US Army claimed the RAF airmen had not turned on equipment which tells radar systems like patriot whether a plane is a friend or an enemy.
"But what the army never disclosed publicly at the time was that the army Patriots were mistakenly identifying friendly aircraft as enemy tactical ballistic missiles", he added.
Robert Riggs told BBC reporter Gordon Correra such misidentifications were occurring dozens of times a day in the army unit he was with.
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