How terribly unfortunate. I hope they figure some sort of technology that would designate friendlies.
There is such a thing ("Blue Force Tracking") but the A-10 does not integrate it into the cockpit. It's easy to add to a command post or CO's helicopter, but much harder to integrate in a 30-year-old jet that has traditionally been the Air Force's most under-resourced fighter community. BFT is a relatively recent invention (we were fighting in Afghanistan before it was in the field); while its existence is not classified, its details are best kept under wraps.
The long-neglected A-10s are finally being updated; the end product, the A-10C, will be able to use the latest PGMs but I do not believe it will integrate BFT.
Yes, before anyone asks, we share the technology with our Canadian bros.
This Canadian kid sounds like a very mature and sensible young man, and I hope his words make it to the pilots. There have been several other friendly fire incidents in both theaters of war. A friend of mine and his interpreter were shot by the Marines at Abu Ghraib (they both lived and recovered). Steve Harriman and several of his Afghan troopies were whacked by an AC-130 at the outset of Anaconda; the guy's nav system failed and he tried to fire in support visually, and made the same mistake the A-10 pilots here did, fired up a similar-looking unit to his intended target, but it was a few pickups full of good guys in turbans and beards, and not the bad-guy pickups 800 yards away.
Of course, in WWII one close-support bombing raid in Normandy killed LTG McNair and hundreds of his troops. Remember the old bumper stickers that said, "**** Happens"? Well, the guy that made that sticker was a combat vet.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Military buying infrared markers and strobes to combat friendly fire