At 09:28, 200 miles to the south, the USS Forrestal launched 2 x F-14s and 2 x A-7s. The aircraft headed for Point Alpha, a rendezvous point 50 miles outside the Strait of Hormuz. Once there, they would be less than 80 miles from the Vincennes.
At 09:47, the Iranian A300 took off on its routine commercial flight and was observed to have done so by the Vincennes.
Lt Cmdr Lustig, the Vincennes' tactical commander for air warfare, could see that the Forrestal's F-14s were circling 5 min away and could have been vectored onto the suspected target to confirm its identity before it reached the point where Rogers had said that he would launch against it.
However, since 09:41 Will Rogers was inside Iranian waters busily firing 5 inch shells at Iranian boats, shouting and yelling at his gunners to reload faster.
Then at 09:54 Rogers approved the launch of his 2 missiles.
It was perhaps wise of the Forrestal's Admiral Smith to keep his aircraft clear of a gung-ho idiot such as Rogers, whose trigger-happiness was well known. However, his own crew suspected that the target was a commercial airliner, but it seems that they didn't pass this information to the Vincennes. It probably wouldn't have done any good if they had though, as Rogers was surrounded by confusion of his own creation.
I wonder whether Rogers has ever thought about the 290 innocent civilians he killed by his inept behaviour.
Last edited by BEagle; 31st Jan 2015 at 15:15.
Reason: speling miskates!