diff --git a/docs/re/BACKLOG.md b/docs/re/BACKLOG.md
index 6908c365..f8413281 100644
--- a/docs/re/BACKLOG.md
+++ b/docs/re/BACKLOG.md
@@ -274,9 +274,13 @@ is what the autopilot needs in order to CHOOSE a target. One run in:
 * 🔴 **The counter is not "hostiles left" either.** It held at `012` for fifteen
   minutes of **live** flight while the ADAN population fell 132 → 93. That is
   also why there is still no verification: no transition to filter on.
-* 🔴 **`pilot.py` never fires** — `fire=1` in 0 of 13 521 samples. Every
-  kill-based experiment in the corpus is leaning on the wingmen without saying
-  so. Fixing it would give the counter something to react to.
+* 🔴 **`pilot.py` never fires** — `fire=1` in 0 of 13 521 samples. **Proximal
+  cause found** (2026-08-23): the committed target is *astern* in 100 % of
+  samples (`|aim yaw|` exactly 90.0°, the `ez < 0` branch) and the range to it
+  grows 22 km → 49 km — the craft flies away and the turn never completes. Which
+  of stale attitude matrix / wrong axis / inverted stick sign is behind that is
+  **still open**; one probe attempted it and was invalidated by a freeze.
+  See [`pilot-never-fires.md`](pilot-never-fires.md).
 * 🔴 **An in-mission freeze — the item in front of everything else.** Reproduced
   with the Kernel channel on. 🔴 The resume-spin lead is **refuted by its own
   control**: a still-flying run has *more* refused resumes (2 738) than a frozen