John Simpson - Reporting war - Debrief on Panorama

BBC reporter John Simpson was a member of a party that was mistakenly bombed by an American pilot. The man standing by his side - his local translator Abdulla - was killed. Simpson lost his hearing in his left ear. With blood dripping out of his ear and from the shrapnel wounds he suffered, Simpson talks direct to camera. This footage was broadcast on Television moments later in the UK - a real life situation developing before our eyes. In this investigative programme - made by the award winning Panorama team - Simpson visits Iraq to apologise to Abdulla's family and attempts to discern the cause of the accident.

Watch the Programme

If you're in a rush, click through the menu within Realplayer to 'BBC team caught in 'friendly fire'' or 'John Simpson investigates'.

"While filming at a cross-roads in northern Iraq on April 6, 2003, a US Navy jet launched a bomb into a crowd of US and Kurdish soldiers who the BBC team were accompanying.

The bomb killed at least 16 people, including a member of the BBC team. 45 were injured.

In the seconds that followed, BBC cameraman Fred Scott began to film the disaster as it unfolded. He filmed the dead and the dying and the desperate moments in which friends, colleagues and comrades tried to find out who was alive and who was dead. "

In the line of fire