22 years ago this day

On 3 July 1988, Vincennes, under the command of Captain Will Rogers III, fired two radar-guided missiles and shot down an Iran Air Airbus A300 civilian airliner over the Strait of Hormuz, killing all 290 passengers on board. According to Captain Rogers, there had earlier been an attack on the Vincennes by Iranian motor boats. Crucially, the Vincennes then identified the Iranian Airbus as an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter because the plane's transponder signals had been changed by the Iranians so that they incorrectly identified the plane as a military aircraft. Also a radio warning had been sent to the aircraft on both military and civilian wavelengths



On the morning of 3 July, the Vincennes was passing through the Strait of Hormuz returning from an escort duty. A helicopter from the USS Vincennes received small arms fire from Iranian patrol vessels, as it observed at a high altitude. The Vincennes moved to engage the Iranian vessels, in the course of which they all violated Omani waters and left after being challenged and ordered to leave by a Royal Navy of Oman warship. The Vincennes then pursued the Iranian gunboats crossing into Iranian territorial waters to open fire. The USS Sides (FFG-14) and USS Elmer Montgomery (FF-1082) were nearby.

It was shortly after this gunfire exchange that Iran Air Flight 655 approached to begin its transit of the Straits. The USS Vincennes fired upon the airliner, destroying it and killing all aboard.

The event triggered an intense international controversy, with Iran condemning the US attack as a "barbaric act." In mid-July 1988, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati asked the United Nations Security Council to condemn the United States saying the US attack "could not have been a mistake" and was a "criminal act," an "atrocity" and a "massacre." George H.W. Bush, at the time Vice President of the United States in the Reagan administration, defended his country at the United Nations by arguing that the US attack had been a wartime incident and that the crew of the Vincennes had acted appropriately to the situation at the time. The Soviet Union asked the US to withdraw from the area and supported efforts made by the Security Council to end the Iran-Iraq war. The remainder of the 13 delegates that spoke supported the US position, saying one of the problems was that a 1987 resolution to end the Iran-Iraq war had been ignored. Following the debate, Security Council Resolution 616 was passed expressing "deep distress" over the US attack, "profound regret" for the loss of human lives, and stressed the need to end the Iran-Iraq war as resolved in 1987.