America's Flight 17 (Story of US Downing Iran Air Flight 655)

[Purveyor]

By Fred Kaplan

July 28, 2014
WASHINGTON—

— Fury and frustration still mount over the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and justly so. But before accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of war crimes or dismissing the entire episode as a tragic fluke, it's worth looking back at another doomed passenger plane — Iran Air Flight 655 — shot down on July 3, 1988, not by some scruffy rebel on contested soil but by a U.S. Navy captain in command of an Aegis guided-missile cruiser called the Vincennes.

A quarter-century later, the Vincennes is almost forgotten, but it still ranks as the world's seventh deadliest air disaster (Flight 17 is the sixth) and one of the Pentagon's most inexcusable disgraces.

In several ways, the two calamities are similar.

The Malaysian Boeing 777 wandered into a messy civil war in eastern Ukraine, near the Russian border; the Iranian Airbus A300 wandered into a naval skirmish — one of many clashes in the ongoing "Tanker War" (another forgotten conflict) — in the Strait of Hormuz.

The likely pro-Russia rebel thought that he was shooting at a Ukrainian military-transport plane; the U.S. Navy captain, Will Rogers III, mistook the Airbus for an F-14 fighter jet.

The Russian SA-11 surface-to-air missile that downed the Malaysian plane killed 298 passengers, including 80 children; the American SM-2 surface-to-air missile that downed the Iranian plane killed 290 passengers, including 66 children.

more...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-putin-flight-17-russia-vincennes-iran-flight-20140728,0,2924229.story

[Purveyor]

3. IIRC it took the US some 8 years to admit to our crimes. eom

[quadrature]

2. Iran 655 was challenged on 121.5 and 243Mhz but did not respond ...nt

[Purveyor]

4. Some that makes it ok then? Our military is so stupid they can't distinquish

a passenger jet with a military one?

"Love, Peace and Soul" in-fucking-deed.

[quadrature]

5. a blip looks like any other blip on a radar...

what do you expect a warship to do
when an unknown is headed right at it?

[Purveyor]

6. So Flight 17 must have been a 'blip' too, eh? Will take at least 8 years to

figure out the answer to 'that one' using the USA timeline.

[quadrature]

7. MH17, nobody admits to pulling the trigger.

till then, you can't compare stories

[quadrature]

10. see post #2 ...nt