I just found out about this incident (yes 20 years late) but I still found it very disturbing. In 1988 an American warship stationed in the Gulf shot down an Iranian airliner carrying 290 civilians killing everyone on board. The Americans thought it was an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter. Whats even more fucked up is the Americans never admitted wrongdoing, accepted responsibility, nor apologized for the incident! I am not a big fan of Iran but this is sickening. [Link]
16 replies on “US shoots down Iranian airliner (1988)”
Who have an F-14 other than US?
The discussions on that wikipedia link is interesting though
They will never admit to it, and they are always right!
Well according to Wikipedia article the mad captain was awarded a medal for his achievements !
So he probably did get orders to shoot the airplane, a few months later the Iraq-Iran war ended.
dude your blog is popular , we don’t want another Bashar Al Saigh plesae
khaled
Iran does have F-14. The US used to supply Iran with weapons during Shah ruling. You can actually see some of these F-14 in Google Earth if you look at military airports in Iran.
Damon Dash: it’s not that harsh on American Intelligence. Mark is just trying to make a point here that how on earth you can kill civilians without no official statement admitting & apologizing for that catastrophic accident!
It is one of the incidents which Robert Fisk obsesses about…I doubt the truth will ever be known. What is known is that the airliner was shot down out of a clear blue sky…
First of all, I find myself once again apologizing for my countrymen….
I remember this incident. I felt sick about it. There were all kinds of speculation about it; like why wasn’t the pilot of the US plane able to determine through his equipment that the Iranian plane was civilian. Civilian planes and military planes have different communications equipment (markers) to let other planes know what they are. Then, the US government was questioning weather the plane was actually civilian or a military plane covering as civilian (but never came out with a purpose for their “mission”).
Regardless, it was very sad. I remember news clips of the families in the airport in Iran.
This was about the same time that Kuwaiti tankers were being re-flagged as American, so they could safely make their way up the Gulf. There were marine mines in the Gulf for a few years. There was a lot of tension on all sides and it was a strange time.
itz crazy !!
how couldnt the US ARMY differentiate between a F-14 fighter jet and an AIRBUS 300 a passenger jet !!
hurtful even after 20yrs !
It was a horrible horrible mistake. I thought we DID apologize for it, and make reparations. I remember it was supposed to be the cause of bringing down Pan Am 103 at Lockerbie.
Yes, there was some evidence that the Pan Am bomb was revenge by Iran. That bombing was definitely not by mistake.
YOU THINK THATS CRAZY! ? LOOK AT WHAT YOUR AMERICAN FRIENDS WANTED TO DO TO KUWAIT…
“US airborne troops would seize the oil installations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and might even ask the British to do the same in Abu Dhabi.”
https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3333995.stm
British spies in 1973 warned of U.S. plans to invade Arab lands
LONDON (AP) — British spy chiefs warned after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war that they believed the United States might invade Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi to seize their oil fields, according to records released Thursday.
https://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-01-01-britain-nixon_x.htm
“Ted Heath’s government feared – at the height of the 1973 oil crisis – that the White House was planning to invade Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to secure fuel supplies, according to Downing Street files released today.
The files, handed over to the National Archive in Kew under the 30-year rule, expose a disturbing and acrimonious episode in “the special relationship” between London and Washington.”
https://politics.guardian.co.uk/politicspast/story/0,9061,1114530,00.html
Secret UK government documents, declassified for the first time this year, reveal that the US government was prepared to invade Arab states when the oil crisis began in 1973. Yet there are still some people who cling to the belief that the US government would not send us to war for oil.
https://www.theinsider.org/news/article.asp?id=440
An intelligence assessment by the British government in January revealed that in 1973 Washington drew up a plan to seize oilfields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi to counter an Arab oil embargo against the West.
https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3625207.stm
Its not about apologizing or feeling bad about the incident which strikes.
What strikes is the sheer power and helplessness of diplomacy.
Its the same game boys!
A country spending on defense is a must for numerous reasons which is out of scope here to jot them down.
If there were to be any considerable change, it would be during and after 3rd world war.
Fucking neutralization and change of power !
~ Soul
I am a male, blond haired, and blue eyed 27 yr old nursing student in Stockton, Ca….just so you know where I am coming from…..
It is hard to be that steriotypical “Proud American” when our country is flat on its face with hypocracy…..when my fellow citizens have been blinded to truths by their obsession to create false worlds through surrounding themselves with material goods… (bads really).
It is pretty obvious that our country doesn’t belong to us anymore and those who do control things can only do so with a biased and manipulated public. I hope that obama can do what he needs to do to make things better… I did not know of this incident until early of 2009.
And as a human first before a North American I am ashamed of the cowardice of my fellow citizens and that my country would commit routine attrocities such as this throughout its history by my name…..
This country earned the mess it is in and will suffer for it accordingly…
After taking numerous humanities courses, in U.S. public and private univeristies/colleges, I came to the conclusion that our government wants to hold every other nation accountable for their actions, but when we make mistakes there is no apology or even a hint of wrongdoing. No wonder there are countries all over the globe that dislike us. After learning the history of geography of current events that have gotten us to where we are today I don’t like us much either. When we bombed the Japanese at the end of WWII it didn’t give us the right to turn our democratic and “peaceful” state into the dictator of every nation and state in the world.
I can’t believe that the captain was rewarded for his action, when he was totally wrong. I was on board the USS Sides and tracked that aircraft. I tried to tell them several times they were wrong and was ignored. Did I get a medal? No Way. Their training must of been non-existent , because, how can you say a Airbus 300 looks like an F-14.