Navy Missile Downs Iranian Jetliner (flashback)

Washington Post ^ | July 4, 1988 | George C Wilson

[11th_VA]

A U.S. warship fighting gunboats in the Persian Gulf yesterday mistook an Iranian civilian jetliner for an attacking Iranian F14 fighting plane and blew it out of the hazy sky with a heat seeking missile ...

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Oh yeah. That’s a good point actually.

Thanks.

[tanknetter]

I have a friend who was on an oiler in the Indian Ocean at the time. The Vincennes had a real rep as an a**hole ship with something to prove. The Capt was just itching for the chance to actually do something with his nice, shiny Aegis Cruiser.

The friend also stressed to me the desire and need for aggressive ship commanders in the Navy, but that the Vincennes CO took it to a much different level.

[Responsibility2nd]

Nope....

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Nope what? The US Navy is not our friends?

Or do you believe it was terrorists that shot down that flight?

Or (giggle) even funnier, (Heh heh heh) do you actually believe (HA HA HA HA HA....) The “Official” US version?

HA HA HA HA HA HA... ROFLMAO.....

[NorthMountain]

At no point did we deny that USS VINCENNES launched the missile ... we expressed ‘regret’ for the loss of life ... we forked over the bucks.

Even wikipedia agrees with that.

The Russians/Soviets, OTOH ...

[11th_VA]

ROFLMAO !!! (Now that’s funny)

[GeronL]

The rebels probably didn’t care if it was an airliners or not, they were likely to shoot anything that flew over.

[11th_VA]

The Russians were just a few decades ahead of the Obama administration, politically speaking. This President will never apologize for anything either

[PhiloBedo]

IIRC, there was a report that there were 2 Iranian Tomcats shadowing the airliner, probably to sneak attack the US destroyer. Once the destroyer locked on, and fired the missiles, the Tomcats broke off and ran.

[bert]

That bears repeating.....

“The rebels probably didn’t care if it was an airliners or not, they were likely to shoot anything that flew over.”

Irrational exuberance with no reliable commanders

[1rudeboy]

Not to mention, the U.S. was savaged in the press over it. Whereas now, it appears that the implication is that what the Russian separatists did was ok because the U.S. did it.

[cripplecreek]

When I was a factory foreman I had a couple of mentally retarded adults in the shop. They weren’t great at very complex jobs but simple repetitive tasks that needed doing were where they proved their value.

Obama is the kind of guy I would tell to take a chair, prop that door open with it and sit in the chair to make sure the door stays open.

(Course I’d just end up with a shop full of Guatemalans)

[GeronL]

I got that thought from the transcript of the intercepted phone call I read.

[Phlyer]

Whatever the cause or whether it was a setup, someone put the crosshairs on the blip and pushed the button.

Flying a passenger airliner through a region where your own forces are actively engaged with USN surface warships may qualify as a setup in itself. At the time, some of the high-speed attack boats that the Iranians were using were actively firing on the Vincennes, which was returning fire with the 5-in gun. Then an aircraft starts to fly right over the cruiser, and - despite multiple hails on appropriate emergency frequencies - refuses to reply or change course.

What I understand was the proximate cause was that a relatively junior officer got confused in the intensity of the moment and started reading a range indication as an altitude indication. The range was decreasing as the aircraft flew toward the cruiser, and but it was interpreted as decreasing altitude as the target dove toward the ship. Diving toward the ship - at high speed - is an offensive maneuver and so the ship fired on the threat.

The error was in mis-reading the displays, but it was a real error and resulted in the loss of many civilian lives. It was something to 'regret', but at the same time flying an airliner over a warship actively engaged in combat with your own national forces at least has to be considered a 'contributing' cause.

As a technical note, you don't set a transponder to a code that identifies the type of aircraft. The codes are set to the flight type - one of many IFR codes for airliners or other IFR traffic, with special codes for emergencies of various types. There are separate military signal formats that an airliner wouldn't have anyway, but not aircraft-type-ID codes. Also, the Iranians didn't (and don't) have any F-15s. They had F-14s. On the other hand, a false transponder code wasn't required.

[Phlyer]

Standard missiles are heat seeking?
Who knew???

Obviously, you haven't been getting your information from the most technically and factually accurate sources. You need to subscribe to the Washington Compost and the New York Slime. Otherwise you might have thought that a Standard missile was a command-guided missile with a semi-active radar terminal phase.

[11th_VA]

I don’t think anyone is saying it’s Ok because we did it. The yahoo’s on the ground that fired the missile screwed up - just like we did. But the airliner could have avoided the air space as well - just sayin ...

[Romulus]

Actually, we didn’t apologize.

There’s no evidence of the Iran Air’s crew doing anything but following normal civilian procedure. Vincennes had been pushing the envelope for some time, as the record showed.

Captain and crew all received normal end-of-tour medals and commendations, but the captain never received another sea command, and retired about 30 months afterwards.

[Romulus]

Yeah, “there was a report”. That sounds real solid. “Some guy said.”

Come on, our guy screwed up. Man up and admit it.

[jpsb]

"BUK, which is from the 70s."

I've been reading that a lot lately. My research leads me to believe this system is much more modern that a 70's system. The platform might have been designed in the late 70's but the missiles, radar and comm gear are more likely late 80's tech if captured from Ukraine forces but 90's or newer tech if they came from modern Russian forces.

[wxgesr]

I know that the US Navy was not responsible for the downing of TWA800.

If you want to disagree feel free, but do not ping me.

[Responsibility2nd]

....but do not ping me.

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Say what? You pinged me. Twice. I just replied, that’s all.

Are you new here? Freep much?