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Iran Air Flight 655 "IR655" was a commercial flight operated by Iran Air, that flew on a Tehran-Bandar Abbas-Dubai route. On July 3, 1988, the flight was shot down by USS Vincennes on the Bandar Abbas-Dubai leg, which resulted in 290 civilian fatalities including 66 children.

The first leg of the flight went as planned, and the plane, an Airbus A300B2, registered EP-IBU, left Bandar Abbas at 9:50am that day. It would have been a 28 minute flight. At that same time, the U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser, Vincennes, fitted with the AEGIS combat system, was nearby in the Strait of Hormuz which the commercial airliner, flown by captain Mohsen Rezaian, would pass over. In command of Vincennes was Commander William C. Rogers III. At the time of the incident, Vincennes, in support of Operation Earnest Will, was within Iranian territorial waters, following an attack on and pursuit of Iranian gunboats.

What happened thereafter is still subject to debate.

According to US government accounts, Vincennes mistakenly identified the Iranian airplane as an attacking military fighter. The officers identified the flight profile being flown by the A300B2 as being similar to that of an Iranian Air Force F-14A Tomcat during an attack run. According to the same reports Vincennes tried more than once to contact Flight 655, but there was no acknowledgement. The official ICAO report stated that these attempts to contact Iran Air 655 were sent on the wrong frequency and addressed to a non-existent "Iranian F-14". At 9:54am, with the civilian jet about 10 miles away, Vincennes fired a volley of two SM-2ER antiaircraft missiles. The first missile broke the aircraft in two and damaged the tailplane and right wing. After the engagement Vincennes' crew realised that the plane had been a civilian airliner. This version was finalised in a report [1] (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/ir655-dod-report.html) by Admiral William Fogarty, entitled Formal Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Downing of Iran Air Flight 655 on 3 July 1988. This report is so far only partially released (part I in 1988, part II in 1993), a fact criticised by many observers.

Independent investigations into the events though have resulted in a different picture. John Barry and Roger Charles, of Newsweek, wrote in a piece that Commander Rogers acted recklessly and without due care. The report further accused the U.S. Government of a cover-up.[2] (http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/vince.html) An analysis[3] (http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Iraq/May0503.htm) of the events by the International Strategic Studies Association described the deployment of an Aegis cruiser in the zone as irresponsible and felt that the expense of the ship had played a major part in the setting of a low threshold for opening fire. In an judgement from the November 6 2003 the International Court of Justice concluded that U.S. Navy's actions in the Persian Gulf at the time had been unlawful.

Three years after the incident, Admiral William Crowe admitted on Nightline that Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters at the time of the shoot down (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/ir655-nightline-19920701.html). This directly contradicted the official Navy claims of the previous years.

While issuing notes of regret over the loss of human life, the U.S. Government has to-date not admitted any wrongdoing or responsibility in this tragedy, nor apologized, but continues to blame Iranian hostile actions for the incident. Most officers involved in the shooting down of the aircraft received decorations for their action, including the captain.

The incident continued to overshadow the Iranian-American relationship for many years. Following the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 the British and American governments initially publicly blamed the PFLP-GC, a Palestinian terrorist group backed by Syria, with assumptions of assistance from Iran in retaliation for Iran Air Flight 655. Only later this blame was shifted onto Libya.

The Flight 655 incident has often been compared to that of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 interception by the VVS in 1983.

See also

• Lists of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
• Korean Air Lines flight 007
• Itavia Flight 870
• TWA Flight 800

External links

• ABC Nightline interview with Admiral William Crowe (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/ir655-nightline-19920701.html) aired July 1 1992 in which Crowe admits that the Vincennes was inside Iranian waters at the time of the shooting, despite what the Navy had been claiming.
• Sea of Lies (http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/vince.html) - an account of the incident critical of the US explanations.
• A collection of US government's public statements on Iran Air Flight 655 (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/ir655-statements.html)
• Tragedy over the Persian Gulf (http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/books/rochlin/chapter_09.html#p30), from Chapter 9 of Trapped in the Net:The Unanticipated Consequences of Computerization (http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/books/rochlin/) by Gene I. Rochlin