One of the more dangerous phenomena in aviation is an F-16 pilot whose marksmanship is better than his situational awareness. Two soldiers discovered this on the Utah Test and Training Range one night in April 2007. An F-16 pilot lost sight of his target while rolling into a strafing run using night-vision goggles, acquired their rented GMC Suburban instead, and converted it to Swiss cheese.
Fortunately the victims were both riding in the front seat and the injuries they sustained were the result of exiting the vehicle, which for some reason they decided to do rather quickly.
The USAF ascribed the accident to pilot error - essentially, the pilot was more focused on making the strafing pass work than on ensuring that he had the right target in his sights. When the 34th Fighter Squadron deployed to the Middle East the following month, they left him in Utah.
This incident, though, underscores a common misunderstanding about fighter guns in the CAS role - as far as ID'ing the target goes, they're beyond-visual-range weapons. (See my DTI editorial on the subject.) And in a diving gun attack, the pilot doesn't have time or attention to go head-down, slew the targeting pod forward and pull up a close-look image.
Reports that the responsible pilot's aircraft has received armament modifications ....
...cannot be confirmed at presstime. pic: US Navy. Tip credit: Jackonicko at Pprune.
Although this reminds me of a story that my buddy told me, about sim training for AH-64. Apparently he and his squadron were on their first sim mission, and they acquired a group of dispersed personnel and light vehicles. One of the squadron took fire, and they assumed that the identified group were armed hostiles and attacked. A few minutes later a group of fast-moving reinforcement vehicles came on the scene, and the gunships took them out as well.
In the AAR, it was discovered that they had shot up the simulated County Fair. The "fast-moving reinforcements" were actually simulated ambulances...