A new error analysis method is proposed for target location of airborne optoelectronic reconnaissance systems. Firstly, the target positioning equation was derived, and next the relationship of the positioning error and error source is obtained with the first order small perturbation method,and then the positioning error is qualitative analyzed, and it is concluded that the projection of attitude error on the baseline vector of target is the main source of positioning error. Furthermore, the scenario analysis method is intruduced assuming that the probability of the target appearing in space is equal, and then the the positioning error is quantitatively analyzed with monte carlo simulation, moreover, fixed scene method was introduced as a comparison,the results show that the positioning error obtained by the former has more numerical statistical significance. It is of great significance for the system demonstration and performance improvement of the photoelectric platform with this method.