There's a perception amongst people I know that the US is notorious for friendly fire incidents.
I'm not saying it's true or deserved, friendly fire happens in all conflicts to all forces, but that's the perception.
To most people these days, I think it might stem from that incident in the gulf war - where that Warrior APC was attacked by an A-10 killing 9 British soldiers.
The Tornado incident gets stranger and stranger. Apparently, there were two Tornados on RTB. One managed to evade the patriot, but the other close behind was hit.
I'm sure an investigation will clear it up. Although after the Mull of Kintyre incident, where the RAF tried to blame two dead pilots for a Chinook crash that killed a load of top ranking Northern Ireland intelligence experts, against the expert advice of accident investigators, eye witnesses and Chinook specialists, my confidence in such investigations is not high. But that's irrelevant right now. I'm sure this will be much more transparent.
Any loss must be unbearable but it must be horrific to suffer a loss in this way.