Iranian airbus tragedy

US Department of State Bulletin, Sept, 1988

Only a few hours later on July 2, a Danish ship was attacked by Iranian boats and requested assistance from U.S. forces. At about 7:20 a.m. on July 3, a Pakistani ship issued a distress call, again due to attacks by Iranian boats. Later, a Liberian ship also was threatened. At about 9:25 a.m. local time on July 3, the Vincennes had sent her helicopter on patrol to investigate reports that Iranian boats were closely following a vessel of the Federal Republic of Germany. That helicopter was fired upon, and it returned to the Vincennes.

A threatening trend was clearly developing. Iranian fighters had pressed to within only a few miles of a Navy cruiser, four neutral ships had either been attacked or threatened, and Vincennes' own helicopter had been shot at by Iranian gunboats.

As the Vincennes and another U.S. naval vessel then approached the group of Iranian boats that had fired upon the U.S. helicopter, at least four of the boats turned toward the U.S. ships with obvious hostile intentions. Both U.S. ships began to exchange fire with the gunboats, sinking two of the Iranian boats and damaging a third. This fighting between U.S. and Iranian vessels took place before, during, and after the incident involving Iran Air #655.

With the Vincennes already involved in this exchange of fire with attacking surface vessels, the radar on the Vincennes suddenly showed a plane in the vicinity of the joint militarycivilian airfield at Bandar-e Abbas and heading directly for the Vincennes. Let me add that Iranian F-14 fighters are known to be based at Bandar-e Abbas, which was the site of departure for Iran Air #655. Despite repeated efforts by the Vincennes to establish contacts with the unidentified aircraft, the plane did not respond to the voice transmissions on international air distress and military air distress frequencies. An electronic IFF [identification of friend or foe] interrogation from the Vincennes indicated both a mode II and a mode III IFF response. Mode II normally is associated with military aircraft, and this particular mode II response historically has been associated with F-14s flown by Iran in the gulf It must be noted as well that military aircraft also are capable of responding with mode 111.

I think council members will agree that it was reasonable in these circumstances for the captain of the Vincennes to believe that he might soon come under attack by an Iranian military aircraft sent to assist the Iranian boats that were involved in an exchange of fire with the Vincennes. The plane was not far away, given the speed capabilities of modern aircraft. Time was short. Indeed, the captain had only a few brief minutes from the time the aircraft was spotted until it could be expected to be directly over the Vincennes.

Nevertheless, the captain avoided immediate air defensive action even though the surface gun battle continued. At some risk to his ship, in the extremely limited time available, he sought to confirm the identity of the plane, which was observed to alter a normal climb and began descending while heading rapidly toward him. Repeatedly, he asked the plane to identify itself and turn away. Each time he was met with silence, only to have radar show the plane moving closer Ultimately, as the risk of imminent danger reached an extreme point and while still under attack by Iranian gunboats, the captain felt compelled to take action to protect his men and his vessel from what then appeared to be an air attack in support of the Iranian surface combatants. From the time the captain first considered the approaching aircraft to be hostile, he had only 240 sec onds-4 minutes-to reconcile the menacing trend the Iranians had exhib ited over the past 24 hours. He waited until the very last minute to defend his ship from an air attack.