- Nov 10, 2019
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Watching the board today has been interesting, with the Right attacking the left for being weak on support of the President and the Left attacking the Right, trying to blame President Trump for Iran's airliner disaster. My theory is, it is all on Iran. I look at it from a Safety Investigator's point of view. Iran shot down the airliner lifting off from their airport due to failure to control crew served anti-aircraft battery in a live fire environment.
The jist of the Left's argument is that Trump raised tension in the region by taking out Soleimani, so he is to blame. This is incorrect from a Safety standpoint for that type of equipment. Just like here in the US with handguns or any other weapon. You are responsible for every round you fire. Nobody else. That crew failed their mission (meant to be carried out in high stress environment) to control and accurately engage Enemy Targets with their crew served missile battery.
But this is not the first time this has happened to an Iranian airline and last time the failure was ours.
Iran Air Flight 655 - Wikipedia
Iran Air Flight 655
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Iran Air Flight 655
An Airbus A300 similar to the aircraft involved in the incident, EP-IBT
Shootdown
Date 3 July 1988
Summary Shot down by a missile fired from USS Vincennes
Site Strait of Hormuz, near Qeshm Island, Iran
Aircraft
Aircraft type Airbus A300B2-203
Operator Iran Air
Registration EP-IBU
Flight origin Mehrabad International Airport
Tehran, Iran
Stopover Bandar Abbas International Airport
Bandar Abbas, Iran
Destination Dubai International Airport
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Passengers 274
Crew 16
Fatalities 290
Survivors 0
Iran–Iraq War
Iran Air Flight 655 was a scheduled passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai via Bandar Abbas that was shot down on 3 July 1988 by an SM-2MR surface-to-air missile fired from USS Vincennes, a guided-missile cruiser of the United States Navy. The aircraft, an Airbus A300, was destroyed and all 290 people on board, including 66 children, were killed.[1] The jet was hit while flying over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, along the flight's usual route, shortly after departing Bandar Abbas International Airport, the flight's stopover location. Vincennes had entered Iranian territory after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.[2][3]
The reason for the shootdown has been disputed between the governments of the two countries. According to the United States government, the crew of USS Vincennes had incorrectly identified the Airbus as an attacking F-14 Tomcat, a U.S.-made jet fighter that had been part of the Iranian Air Force inventory since the 1970s. While the F-14s had been supplied to Iran in an air-to-air configuration,[4][5] the crew of the guided missile cruiser had been briefed that the Iranian F-14s were equipped with air-to-ground ordnance.[6] Vincennes had made ten attempts to contact the aircraft on both military and civilian radio frequencies, but had received no response.[7] According to the Iranian government, the cruiser negligently shot down the aircraft, which was transmitting IFF squawks in Mode III, a signal that identified it as a civilian aircraft, and not Mode II as used by Iranian military aircraft.[8][9] The event generated a great deal of criticism of the United States. Some analysts blamed the captain of Vincennes, William C. Rogers III, for overly aggressive behavior in a tense and dangerous environment.[7][10] In the days immediately following the incident, US President Ronald Reagan issued a written diplomatic note to the Iranian government, expressing deep regret.[11]
In 1996, the governments of the United States and Iran reached a settlement at the International Court of Justice which included the statement "...the United States recognized the aerial incident of 3 July 1988 as a terrible human tragedy and expressed deep regret over the loss of lives caused by the incident..."[12] As part of the settlement, even though the U.S. government did not admit legal liability or formally apologize to Iran, it still agreed to pay US$61.8 million on an ex gratia basis, amounting to $213,103.45 per passenger, in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims.[13]
The shootdown is the deadliest aviation disaster involving an Airbus A300.[14][15][16]
Contents
USS Vincennes had been deployed to the Persian Gulf at short notice to compensate for the lack of AWACS cover
In 1984, the war between Iraq and Iran had expanded to include air attacks against oil tankers and merchant shipping of neighboring countries, some of whom were providing aid to Iraq by shipping Iraqi oil. The Flight 655 incident occurred a year after the Iraqi Air Force attack on the U.S. Navy guided-missile frigate USS Stark on 17 May 1987, which killed 37 American sailors. U.S. naval forces had also exchanged gunfire with Iranian gunboats in late 1987, and the U.S. Navy guided-missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts had struck an Iranian sea mine in April 1988. Two months before the incident, the U.S. had engaged in Operation Praying Mantis, resulting in the sinking of the Iranian frigate Sahand. Tensions were therefore high in the Strait of Hormuz at the time of the incident with Flight 655.
In response to the pattern of attacks on shipping, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a NOTAM on 8 September 1987 warning all Persian Gulf countries that civilian aircraft must monitor the 121.5 MHz VHF International Air Distress or the 243.0 MHz UHF Military Air Distress frequencies and be prepared to identify themselves to U.S. Navy ships and state their intentions.[17]
On 29 April 1988, the U.S. expanded the scope of its navy's protection to all friendly neutral shipping in the Persian Gulf outside declared exclusion zones, which set the stage for the shootdown.[2] At about the same time, Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Vincennes was rushed to the area on a short-notice deployment, as a result of high-level decisions, to compensate for the lack of AWACS coverage, which was hampering U.S. monitoring of the southern Persian Gulf. Vincennes, fitted with the then-new Aegis Combat System and under the command of Captain William C. Rogers III,[2] departed San Diego on 25 April 1988 and arrived in Bahrain on 29 May 1988.
As the Strait of Hormuz at its narrowest is 21 nautical miles (39 km) wide,[18] in order to traverse the strait, ships must stay within sea lanes that pass through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman under the transit passage provisions of customary Law of the Sea.[19] It is therefore normal for ships, including warships, entering or leaving the Persian Gulf to transit Iranian territorial waters. During the Iran–Iraq War the Iranian forces frequently boarded and inspected neutral cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz in search of contraband destined for Iraq. While legal under international law, these inspections added to the tensions in the area.[2]
Shootdown of Flight 655
Locater map depicting Iran Air 655's origination point, destination and approximate shootdown location. (Air corridor not necessarily a direct path.)
The plane, an Airbus A300 (registered as EP-IBU), flown by 37-year-old Captain Mohsen Rezaian, a veteran pilot with 7,000 hours of flight time, left Bandar Abbas at 10:17 Iran time (UTC+03:30), 27 minutes after its scheduled departure time. It should have been a 28-minute flight. After takeoff, it was directed by the Bandar Abbas tower to turn on its transponder and proceed over the Persian Gulf. The flight was assigned routinely to commercial air corridor Amber 59, a 20-mile (32 km)-wide lane on a direct line to Dubai airport. The short distance made for a simple flight pattern: climb to 14,000 feet (4,300 m), cruise, and descend into Dubai. The airliner was transmitting the correct transponder "squawk" code typical of a civilian aircraft and maintained radio contact in English with appropriate air traffic control facilities.
Aegis screen displays in the combat information center on board Vincennes
On the morning of 3 July 1988, USS Vincennes was passing through the Strait of Hormuz returning from an escort duty.[2] A helicopter deployed from the cruiser reportedly received small arms fire from Iranian patrol vessels as it observed from high altitude. Vincennes moved to engage the Iranian vessels, in the course of which they all violated Omani waters and left after being challenged and ordered to leave by a Royal Navy of Oman warship.[20] Vincennes then pursued the Iranian gunboats, entering Iranian territorial waters to open fire. Two other US Navy ships, USS Sides and USS Elmer Montgomery, were nearby. Thus, Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters at the time of the incident, as admitted by the U.S. government in legal briefs and publicly by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William J. Crowe, on Nightline.[21][22] Admiral Crowe denied a U.S. government coverup of the incident and claimed that the cruiser's helicopter was over international waters initially, when the gunboats first fired upon it.[21][23]
Contrary to the accounts of various Vincennes crew members, the cruiser's Aegis Combat System recorded that the airliner was climbing at the time and its radio transmitter was squawking on only the Mode III civilian frequency, and not on the military Mode II.[24]
Flight 655 was first detected by the Vincennes immediately after takeoff when it received a short IFF Mode II, possible leading the crew of the Vincennes to believe that the airliner was an Iranian F-14 Tomcat (capable of carrying unguided bombs since 1985[25]) diving into an attack profile. Since the USS Stark incident, all aircraft in the area had to maintain radio contact on - the International Air Defence (IAD) radio frequency. A total of 10 attempts were made to warn the airliner, seven on the Military Air distress (MAD) frequency, and three on the IAD frequency. There were no responses.[14]
At 10:24:22, after receiving no response to multiple radio challenges, Vincennes fired two SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles, one of which hit the airliner at 10:24:43.[26] The plane disintegrated immediately and crashed into the water soon after. None of the 290 passengers and crew on board survived.[26] The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were never found.[27]
U.S. government accounts
A missile departs the forward launcher of Vincennes during a 1987 exercise. The same launcher was used in Flight 655's downing.
According to the U.S. government, USS Vincennes mistakenly identified the airliner as an attacking military fighter and misidentified its flight profile as being similar to that of an F-14A Tomcat during an attack run; however, the cruiser's Aegis Combat System recorded the plane's flight plan as climbing (not descending as in an attack run) at the time of the incident.[24] The flight had originated at Bandar Abbas, which served as both a base for Iranian F-14 operations and as a hub for commercial civilian flights.[10] According to the same reports, Vincennes unsuccessfully tried to contact the approaching aircraft, seven times on the military emergency frequency and three times on the civilian emergency frequency. This civilian aircraft was not equipped to pick up military frequencies and the messages on the civilian emergency channel could have been directed at any aircraft. More confusion arose as the hailed speed was the ground speed, while the pilot's instruments displayed airspeed, a 50-knot (93 km/h) difference.[29]
This was finalized in a report by Admiral William Fogarty, entitled Formal Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Downing of Iran Air Flight 655 on 3 July 1988 (the "Fogarty report")[6] Only parts of this report have been released (part I in 1988 and part II in 1993). The Fogarty report stated, "The data from USS Vincennes tapes, information from USS Sides and reliable intelligence information, corroborate the fact that [Iran Air Flight 655] was on a normal commercial air flight plan profile, in the assigned airway, squawking Mode III 6760, on a continuous ascent in altitude from take-off at Bandar Abbas to shoot-down".
The Fogarty report also stated, "Iran must share the responsibility for the tragedy by hazarding one of their civilian airliners by allowing it to fly a relatively low altitude air route in Close proximity to hostilities that had been ongoing".[30]
When questioned in a 2000 BBC documentary, the U.S. government stated in a written answer that they believed the incident may have been caused by a simultaneous psychological condition amongst the eighteen bridge crew of Vincennes, called "scenario fulfillment", which is said to occur when persons are under pressure. In such a situation, the men will carry out a training scenario, believing it to be reality while ignoring sensory information that contradicts the scenario. In the case of this incident, the scenario was an attack by a lone military aircraft.[31]
Aftermath
The event sparked an intense international controversy, with Iran condemning the attack. In mid-July 1988, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati asked the United Nations Security Council to condemn the United States saying the attack "could not have been a mistake" and was a "criminal act", a "massacre", and an "atrocity". George H. W. Bush, at the time vice president of the United States in the Reagan administration, defended his country at the United Nations by arguing that the U.S. attack had been a wartime incident and that the crew of Vincennes had acted appropriately to the situation.[54] The Soviet Union asked the U.S. to withdraw from the area and supported efforts by the Security Council to end the Iran–Iraq War. Most of the remainder of the 13 delegates who spoke supported the U.S. position, saying one of the problems was that a 1987 resolution to end the Iran-Iraq war had been ignored.[55] Following the debate, Security Council Resolution 616 was passed expressing "deep distress" over the U.S. attack and "profound regret" for the loss of human lives, and stressing the need to end the Iran–Iraq War as resolved in 1987.[56]
Iranian postage stamp issued 11 August 1988 after the shootdown
Inside Iran, this shootdown was perceived as a purposeful attack by United States, signalling that the U.S. was about to enter into a direct war against Iran on the side of Iraq.[9] In August 1988, a month after the shoot-down, the Iranian government released a 45 rial postage stamp illustrating the event, where the ship shooting the missile is painted with the colors of the American flag, with a map of a burning Iran in the background.
In February 1996, the United States agreed to pay Iran US$131.8 million in settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice relating to this incident,[36] together with other earlier claims before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal.[12] US$61.8 million of the claim was in compensation for the 248 Iranians killed in the shoot-down: $300,000 per wage-earning victim and $150,000 per non-wage-earner. In total, 290 civilians on board were killed, 38 being non-Iranians and 66 being children. It was not disclosed how the remaining $70 million of the settlement was apportioned, though it was close to the value of a used A300 at the time.
The U.S. government issued notes of regret for the loss of human lives, but never formally apologized or acknowledged wrongdoing.[13] Informally, on July 5 of 1988 President Ronald Reagan expressed regret; when directly asked if this statement was intended as an apology to Iran, Reagan replied "Yes."[57] George H. W. Bush, the vice president of the United States at the time commented on a separate occasion, speaking to a group of Republican ethnic leaders (7 August 1988): "I will never apologize for the United States – I don't care what the facts are... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy." The quote, although unrelated to the downing of the Iranian air liner and not in any official capacity, has been attributed as such.[58][59][60]
Bush used the phrase frequently[61] during the 1988 campaign and promised to "never apologize for the United States" months prior to the July 1988 shoot-down[62] and as early as January 1988.[63][64]
The incident overshadowed Iran–United States relations for many years. The former CIA analyst Kenneth M. Pollack wrote: "The shoot-down of Iran Air flight 655 was an accident, but that is not how it was seen in Tehran."[65] Following the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 five months later, the British and American governments initially blamed the PFLP-GC, a Palestinian militant group backed by Syria, with assumptions of assistance from Iran in retaliation for Flight 655.
The jist of the Left's argument is that Trump raised tension in the region by taking out Soleimani, so he is to blame. This is incorrect from a Safety standpoint for that type of equipment. Just like here in the US with handguns or any other weapon. You are responsible for every round you fire. Nobody else. That crew failed their mission (meant to be carried out in high stress environment) to control and accurately engage Enemy Targets with their crew served missile battery.
But this is not the first time this has happened to an Iranian airline and last time the failure was ours.
Iran Air Flight 655 - Wikipedia
Iran Air Flight 655
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Iran Air Flight 655
An Airbus A300 similar to the aircraft involved in the incident, EP-IBT
Shootdown
Date 3 July 1988
Summary Shot down by a missile fired from USS Vincennes
Site Strait of Hormuz, near Qeshm Island, Iran
Aircraft
Aircraft type Airbus A300B2-203
Operator Iran Air
Registration EP-IBU
Flight origin Mehrabad International Airport
Tehran, Iran
Stopover Bandar Abbas International Airport
Bandar Abbas, Iran
Destination Dubai International Airport
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Passengers 274
Crew 16
Fatalities 290
Survivors 0
Iran–Iraq War
Iran Air Flight 655 was a scheduled passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai via Bandar Abbas that was shot down on 3 July 1988 by an SM-2MR surface-to-air missile fired from USS Vincennes, a guided-missile cruiser of the United States Navy. The aircraft, an Airbus A300, was destroyed and all 290 people on board, including 66 children, were killed.[1] The jet was hit while flying over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, along the flight's usual route, shortly after departing Bandar Abbas International Airport, the flight's stopover location. Vincennes had entered Iranian territory after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.[2][3]
The reason for the shootdown has been disputed between the governments of the two countries. According to the United States government, the crew of USS Vincennes had incorrectly identified the Airbus as an attacking F-14 Tomcat, a U.S.-made jet fighter that had been part of the Iranian Air Force inventory since the 1970s. While the F-14s had been supplied to Iran in an air-to-air configuration,[4][5] the crew of the guided missile cruiser had been briefed that the Iranian F-14s were equipped with air-to-ground ordnance.[6] Vincennes had made ten attempts to contact the aircraft on both military and civilian radio frequencies, but had received no response.[7] According to the Iranian government, the cruiser negligently shot down the aircraft, which was transmitting IFF squawks in Mode III, a signal that identified it as a civilian aircraft, and not Mode II as used by Iranian military aircraft.[8][9] The event generated a great deal of criticism of the United States. Some analysts blamed the captain of Vincennes, William C. Rogers III, for overly aggressive behavior in a tense and dangerous environment.[7][10] In the days immediately following the incident, US President Ronald Reagan issued a written diplomatic note to the Iranian government, expressing deep regret.[11]
In 1996, the governments of the United States and Iran reached a settlement at the International Court of Justice which included the statement "...the United States recognized the aerial incident of 3 July 1988 as a terrible human tragedy and expressed deep regret over the loss of lives caused by the incident..."[12] As part of the settlement, even though the U.S. government did not admit legal liability or formally apologize to Iran, it still agreed to pay US$61.8 million on an ex gratia basis, amounting to $213,103.45 per passenger, in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims.[13]
The shootdown is the deadliest aviation disaster involving an Airbus A300.[14][15][16]
Contents
- 1 Background
- 2 Shootdown of Flight 655
- 3 Radio communication
- 4 Potential factors
- 5 Critique of U.S. media coverage
- 6 Aftermath
- 7 Maps
- 8 In popular culture
- 9 See also
- 10 Notes
- 11 References
- 12 Additional resources
- 13 Further reading
- 14 External links
USS Vincennes had been deployed to the Persian Gulf at short notice to compensate for the lack of AWACS cover
In 1984, the war between Iraq and Iran had expanded to include air attacks against oil tankers and merchant shipping of neighboring countries, some of whom were providing aid to Iraq by shipping Iraqi oil. The Flight 655 incident occurred a year after the Iraqi Air Force attack on the U.S. Navy guided-missile frigate USS Stark on 17 May 1987, which killed 37 American sailors. U.S. naval forces had also exchanged gunfire with Iranian gunboats in late 1987, and the U.S. Navy guided-missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts had struck an Iranian sea mine in April 1988. Two months before the incident, the U.S. had engaged in Operation Praying Mantis, resulting in the sinking of the Iranian frigate Sahand. Tensions were therefore high in the Strait of Hormuz at the time of the incident with Flight 655.
In response to the pattern of attacks on shipping, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a NOTAM on 8 September 1987 warning all Persian Gulf countries that civilian aircraft must monitor the 121.5 MHz VHF International Air Distress or the 243.0 MHz UHF Military Air Distress frequencies and be prepared to identify themselves to U.S. Navy ships and state their intentions.[17]
On 29 April 1988, the U.S. expanded the scope of its navy's protection to all friendly neutral shipping in the Persian Gulf outside declared exclusion zones, which set the stage for the shootdown.[2] At about the same time, Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Vincennes was rushed to the area on a short-notice deployment, as a result of high-level decisions, to compensate for the lack of AWACS coverage, which was hampering U.S. monitoring of the southern Persian Gulf. Vincennes, fitted with the then-new Aegis Combat System and under the command of Captain William C. Rogers III,[2] departed San Diego on 25 April 1988 and arrived in Bahrain on 29 May 1988.
As the Strait of Hormuz at its narrowest is 21 nautical miles (39 km) wide,[18] in order to traverse the strait, ships must stay within sea lanes that pass through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman under the transit passage provisions of customary Law of the Sea.[19] It is therefore normal for ships, including warships, entering or leaving the Persian Gulf to transit Iranian territorial waters. During the Iran–Iraq War the Iranian forces frequently boarded and inspected neutral cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz in search of contraband destined for Iraq. While legal under international law, these inspections added to the tensions in the area.[2]
Shootdown of Flight 655
Locater map depicting Iran Air 655's origination point, destination and approximate shootdown location. (Air corridor not necessarily a direct path.)
The plane, an Airbus A300 (registered as EP-IBU), flown by 37-year-old Captain Mohsen Rezaian, a veteran pilot with 7,000 hours of flight time, left Bandar Abbas at 10:17 Iran time (UTC+03:30), 27 minutes after its scheduled departure time. It should have been a 28-minute flight. After takeoff, it was directed by the Bandar Abbas tower to turn on its transponder and proceed over the Persian Gulf. The flight was assigned routinely to commercial air corridor Amber 59, a 20-mile (32 km)-wide lane on a direct line to Dubai airport. The short distance made for a simple flight pattern: climb to 14,000 feet (4,300 m), cruise, and descend into Dubai. The airliner was transmitting the correct transponder "squawk" code typical of a civilian aircraft and maintained radio contact in English with appropriate air traffic control facilities.
_Aegis_large_screen_displays.jpg)
Aegis screen displays in the combat information center on board Vincennes
On the morning of 3 July 1988, USS Vincennes was passing through the Strait of Hormuz returning from an escort duty.[2] A helicopter deployed from the cruiser reportedly received small arms fire from Iranian patrol vessels as it observed from high altitude. Vincennes moved to engage the Iranian vessels, in the course of which they all violated Omani waters and left after being challenged and ordered to leave by a Royal Navy of Oman warship.[20] Vincennes then pursued the Iranian gunboats, entering Iranian territorial waters to open fire. Two other US Navy ships, USS Sides and USS Elmer Montgomery, were nearby. Thus, Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters at the time of the incident, as admitted by the U.S. government in legal briefs and publicly by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William J. Crowe, on Nightline.[21][22] Admiral Crowe denied a U.S. government coverup of the incident and claimed that the cruiser's helicopter was over international waters initially, when the gunboats first fired upon it.[21][23]
Contrary to the accounts of various Vincennes crew members, the cruiser's Aegis Combat System recorded that the airliner was climbing at the time and its radio transmitter was squawking on only the Mode III civilian frequency, and not on the military Mode II.[24]
Flight 655 was first detected by the Vincennes immediately after takeoff when it received a short IFF Mode II, possible leading the crew of the Vincennes to believe that the airliner was an Iranian F-14 Tomcat (capable of carrying unguided bombs since 1985[25]) diving into an attack profile. Since the USS Stark incident, all aircraft in the area had to maintain radio contact on - the International Air Defence (IAD) radio frequency. A total of 10 attempts were made to warn the airliner, seven on the Military Air distress (MAD) frequency, and three on the IAD frequency. There were no responses.[14]
At 10:24:22, after receiving no response to multiple radio challenges, Vincennes fired two SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles, one of which hit the airliner at 10:24:43.[26] The plane disintegrated immediately and crashed into the water soon after. None of the 290 passengers and crew on board survived.[26] The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were never found.[27]
U.S. government accounts
A missile departs the forward launcher of Vincennes during a 1987 exercise. The same launcher was used in Flight 655's downing.
According to the U.S. government, USS Vincennes mistakenly identified the airliner as an attacking military fighter and misidentified its flight profile as being similar to that of an F-14A Tomcat during an attack run; however, the cruiser's Aegis Combat System recorded the plane's flight plan as climbing (not descending as in an attack run) at the time of the incident.[24] The flight had originated at Bandar Abbas, which served as both a base for Iranian F-14 operations and as a hub for commercial civilian flights.[10] According to the same reports, Vincennes unsuccessfully tried to contact the approaching aircraft, seven times on the military emergency frequency and three times on the civilian emergency frequency. This civilian aircraft was not equipped to pick up military frequencies and the messages on the civilian emergency channel could have been directed at any aircraft. More confusion arose as the hailed speed was the ground speed, while the pilot's instruments displayed airspeed, a 50-knot (93 km/h) difference.[29]
This was finalized in a report by Admiral William Fogarty, entitled Formal Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Downing of Iran Air Flight 655 on 3 July 1988 (the "Fogarty report")[6] Only parts of this report have been released (part I in 1988 and part II in 1993). The Fogarty report stated, "The data from USS Vincennes tapes, information from USS Sides and reliable intelligence information, corroborate the fact that [Iran Air Flight 655] was on a normal commercial air flight plan profile, in the assigned airway, squawking Mode III 6760, on a continuous ascent in altitude from take-off at Bandar Abbas to shoot-down".
The Fogarty report also stated, "Iran must share the responsibility for the tragedy by hazarding one of their civilian airliners by allowing it to fly a relatively low altitude air route in Close proximity to hostilities that had been ongoing".[30]
When questioned in a 2000 BBC documentary, the U.S. government stated in a written answer that they believed the incident may have been caused by a simultaneous psychological condition amongst the eighteen bridge crew of Vincennes, called "scenario fulfillment", which is said to occur when persons are under pressure. In such a situation, the men will carry out a training scenario, believing it to be reality while ignoring sensory information that contradicts the scenario. In the case of this incident, the scenario was an attack by a lone military aircraft.[31]
Aftermath
The event sparked an intense international controversy, with Iran condemning the attack. In mid-July 1988, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati asked the United Nations Security Council to condemn the United States saying the attack "could not have been a mistake" and was a "criminal act", a "massacre", and an "atrocity". George H. W. Bush, at the time vice president of the United States in the Reagan administration, defended his country at the United Nations by arguing that the U.S. attack had been a wartime incident and that the crew of Vincennes had acted appropriately to the situation.[54] The Soviet Union asked the U.S. to withdraw from the area and supported efforts by the Security Council to end the Iran–Iraq War. Most of the remainder of the 13 delegates who spoke supported the U.S. position, saying one of the problems was that a 1987 resolution to end the Iran-Iraq war had been ignored.[55] Following the debate, Security Council Resolution 616 was passed expressing "deep distress" over the U.S. attack and "profound regret" for the loss of human lives, and stressing the need to end the Iran–Iraq War as resolved in 1987.[56]
Iranian postage stamp issued 11 August 1988 after the shootdown
Inside Iran, this shootdown was perceived as a purposeful attack by United States, signalling that the U.S. was about to enter into a direct war against Iran on the side of Iraq.[9] In August 1988, a month after the shoot-down, the Iranian government released a 45 rial postage stamp illustrating the event, where the ship shooting the missile is painted with the colors of the American flag, with a map of a burning Iran in the background.
In February 1996, the United States agreed to pay Iran US$131.8 million in settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice relating to this incident,[36] together with other earlier claims before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal.[12] US$61.8 million of the claim was in compensation for the 248 Iranians killed in the shoot-down: $300,000 per wage-earning victim and $150,000 per non-wage-earner. In total, 290 civilians on board were killed, 38 being non-Iranians and 66 being children. It was not disclosed how the remaining $70 million of the settlement was apportioned, though it was close to the value of a used A300 at the time.
The U.S. government issued notes of regret for the loss of human lives, but never formally apologized or acknowledged wrongdoing.[13] Informally, on July 5 of 1988 President Ronald Reagan expressed regret; when directly asked if this statement was intended as an apology to Iran, Reagan replied "Yes."[57] George H. W. Bush, the vice president of the United States at the time commented on a separate occasion, speaking to a group of Republican ethnic leaders (7 August 1988): "I will never apologize for the United States – I don't care what the facts are... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy." The quote, although unrelated to the downing of the Iranian air liner and not in any official capacity, has been attributed as such.[58][59][60]
Bush used the phrase frequently[61] during the 1988 campaign and promised to "never apologize for the United States" months prior to the July 1988 shoot-down[62] and as early as January 1988.[63][64]
The incident overshadowed Iran–United States relations for many years. The former CIA analyst Kenneth M. Pollack wrote: "The shoot-down of Iran Air flight 655 was an accident, but that is not how it was seen in Tehran."[65] Following the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 five months later, the British and American governments initially blamed the PFLP-GC, a Palestinian militant group backed by Syria, with assumptions of assistance from Iran in retaliation for Flight 655.
