Compare and Contrast: USS Vincennes versus Ukrainian Flight 752
Posted at 12:00 am on January 10, 2020 by Stu Cvrk Compare and Contrast: USS Vincennes versus Ukrainian Flight 752
FILE – In this July 3, 1988 file photo, the crew of the USS Vincennes stands at attention to salute the USS Samuel B. Roberts which leaves the Persian Gulf. In 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts struck a mine and nearly sank. That sparked a daylong naval battle between Iran and the U.S. in which American forces attacked two Iranian oil rigs and sank or damaged six Iranian vessels. A few months later, the USS Vincennes in the Strait of Hormuz mistook an Iran Air flight heading to Dubai for an attacking fighter jet, shooting down the plane and killing all 290 people onboard. (AP Photo/Greg English, File)Remember the USS Vincennes shooting down that Iranian airliner at the tail end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988? Here’s an overview reminder:
Following the execution of Operation Praying Mantis on 18 April 1988, President Ronald Reagan gave U.S. Navy ships authority to engage Iranian warships that were in the act of attacking neutral merchant ships in the Arabian Gulf. This was an even more aggressive expansion of the previous rules of engagement, which only allowed U.S. Navy ships to aggressively maneuver to deter a potential Iranian attack on neutral shipping, but to fire only in self-defense or perception of Iranian hostile intent toward a U.S. Navy ship. U.S. Navy ships were still barred from taking retaliatory action against an attack on neutral shipping that had already occurred. The U.S. Navy also increased its force levels inside the Strait of Hormuz.
On 2 July 1988, at 0947, Iran Air Flight 655, an Airbus A300, took off 27 minutes late on a regularly scheduled flight (every Sunday and Tuesday from Bandar Abbas, a dual-use military and civilian airport) to Dubai— normally a short 30-minute flight. The pilot, Moshe Rezaian, was very experienced on this particular route. The flight was slightly off center, but still well-within the published flight corridor, Amber 59. Rezaian had no idea a surface action was going on directly under his flight path. Although Flight 655 was detected by Vincennes’s radar shortly after takeoff, the cruiser also detected a Mode II (military) identification, friend or foe (IFF) reading, most likely from an F-14 on the ground at Bandar Abbas. The operator mistakenly correlated the Mode II signal with the aircraft taking off rather than with the plane on the ground. The Aegis detected Flight 655’s Mode III (civilian) IFF transponder soon after take-off, but Vincennes’s anti-air warfare coordinator accepted the Mode II correlation as valid since Iranian military aircraft were known to transmit both Mode II and Mode III IFF.
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https://www.redstate.com/stu-in-sd/2020/01/10/compare-and-contrast-uss-vincennes-versus-ukrainian-flight-752/
