U S warship downs Iranian passenger jet
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 warshipthe 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 7800 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 12000 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.
