FODP
Thanks for that. I take your thoughts, but by definition, there was no war (look up UN definition)
I also agree re snap decisions and innocent lives....but do you not think that when a CO takes on the responsibility, that he should be held by those actions? The CO should have had 35 years for murder, end of story.
It was a huge cluster-f, and when you hear the various people interviewed there does not even seem to be any contrition, which is really shocking.
More:
the airliner was transmitting an Identification friend or foe code for a civilian aircraft
the Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters when it launched the missiles. This contradicted earlier Navy statements that were misleading if not incorrect. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) report of December, 1988 placed the USS Vincennes well inside Iran's territorial waters.
According to the U.S. Navy investigation the Vincennes at that time had no equipment suitable for monitoring civil aviation frequencies, other than the International Air Distress frequency.
ten attempts were made to contact Iran Air flight 655: seven on military frequencies and three on commercial frequencies, addressed to an "unidentified Iranian aircraft" and giving its speed as 350 knots (650 km/h), which was the ground speed of the aircraft their radar reported. The crew of the Iran Air 655, however, would have seen a speed of 300 knots (560 km/h) on their controls, which was their relative airspeed, possibly leading them to conclude that the Vincennes was talking to another aircraft.
The ship's crew did not efficiently consult commercial airliner schedules, due to confusion over which time zone the schedules referred to. The schedules flight times used Bandar Abbas airport time while the Vincennes was on Bahrain time. The airliner's departure was 27 minutes later than scheduled. "The CIC was also very dark, and the few lights that it did have flickered every time the Vincennes fired at the speedboats. This was of special concern to Petty Officer Andrew Anderson, who first picked up Flight 655 on radar and thought that it might be a commercial aircraft. As he was searching in the Navy's listing of commercial flights, he apparently missed Flight 655 because it was so dark
Last edited by Jakey; 17th Jul 2012 at 13:39.