Sad that the Russians keep shooting down unarmed airliners.
Wow, it’s been 40 years...I remember this so well when I was a kid. To me it was the heart of the Cold War.
Reagan’s address to the nation on 9/5:
https://youtu.be/9VA4W1wDMAk?feature=shared
If they could have gotten away with it, they would have blamed the Russians for shooting down TWA Flight 800 in 1996.
My Congressman, Larry McDonald was aboard. He was a Democrat but today Democrats would consider him a Republican.
KAL 007 was 200 miles off course when it flew over the Kamchatka Peninsula. Their course was close to one being flown at the same time by a US spy plane. The Soviets claim that their fighter pilots tried to contact KAL 007 but got no response.
The 1980’s were a rough ten years ....
Iran Air Flight 655
Jul 3, 1988
In the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistakes for a hostile Iranian fighter aircraft.
Two missiles were fired from the American warship—the aircraft was hit, and all 290 people aboard were killed. The attack came near the end of the Iran-Iraq War, when U.S. vessels were in the gulf defending Kuwaiti oil tankers.
Minutes before Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down, the Vincennes had engaged Iranian gunboats that shot at its helicopter.
Iran called the downing of the aircraft a “barbaric massacre,” but U.S. officials defended the action, claiming that the aircraft was outside the commercial jet flight corridor, flying at only 7,800 feet, and was on a descent toward the Vincennes. However, one month later, U.S. authorities acknowledged that the airbus was in the commercial flight corridor, flying at 12,000 feet, and not descending.
The U.S. Navy report blamed crew error caused by psychological stress on men who were in combat for the first time. In 1996, the U.S. agreed to pay $62 million in damages to the families of the Iranians killed in the attack.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-warship-downs-iranian-passenger-jet
Flight 800. The Russians didn’t shoot that one down.
Iran Air Flight 655. The Russians didn’t shoot that one down, either.
The USA did.
I was sitting SAC alert. Interesting night.