page_title: Iran Air Flight 655
section_title: Shootdown of Flight 655
hierarchical_section_title: Iran Air Flight 655 / Shootdown of Flight 655
caption_attribution_description: English: Strait of Hormuz depicting intended path of Iran Air 655 and approximate location of downing. (English) فارسی: نقشهٔ تنگهٔ هرمز که مسیر برنامه‌ریزی شده برای پرواز شماره ۶۵۵ ایران ایر و محل تقریبی سرنگونی آن را به تصویر می‌کشد. (انگلیسی) Español: Mapa del estrecho de Ormuz (Inglés) Русский: Карта Ормузского пролива (англ.)
context_page_description: Iran Air Flight 655 was a scheduled passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai via Bandar Abbas that was shot down on 3 July 1988 by an SM-2MR surface-to-air missile fired from USS Vincennes, a guided-missile cruiser of the United States Navy. The aircraft, an Airbus A300, was destroyed and all 290 people on board were killed. The jet was hit while flying over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, along the flight's usual route, shortly after departing Bandar Abbas International Airport, the flight's stopover location. The incident occurred during the final stages of the Iran–Iraq War, which had been continuing for nearly eight years. Vincennes had entered Iranian territory after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.
  The reason for the shootdown has been disputed between the governments of the two countries. According to the U.S., the Vincennes crew had incorrectly identified the Airbus as an attacking F-14 Tomcat, a U.S.-made jet fighter that had been part of the Iranian Air Force inventory since the 1970s.
context_section_description: The plane, an Airbus A300 (registered as EP-IBU), flown by 37-year-old Captain Mohsen Rezaian, a veteran pilot with 7,000 hours of flight time, left Bandar Abbas at 10:17 Iran time (UTC+03:30), 27 minutes after its scheduled departure time. It should have been a 28-minute flight. After takeoff, it was directed by the Bandar Abbas tower to turn on its transponder and proceed over the Persian Gulf. The flight was assigned routinely to commercial air corridor Amber 59, a 20-mile (32 km)-wide lane on a direct line to Dubai airport. The short distance made for a simple flight pattern: climb to 14,000 feet (4,300 m), cruise, and descend into Dubai. The airliner was transmitting the correct transponder "squawk" code typical of a civilian aircraft and maintained radio contact in English with appropriate air traffic control facilities.
  On the morning of 3 July 1988, USS Vincennes was passing through the Strait of Hormuz returning from an escort duty. A helicopter deployed from the cruiser reportedly received small arms fire from Iranian patrol vessels as it observed from high altitude. 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. Vincennes then pursued the Iranian gunboats, entering Iranian territorial waters to open fire. At the time the missiles were launched, the Vincennes was located at 26°30′47″N 56°00′57″E, placing it  within the twelve mile limit of Iranian territorial seas. The location of Vincennes in Iranian territorial waters at the time of the incident was admitted by the U.S. government in legal briefs and publicly by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William J. Crowe, on Nightline. Two other U.S. Navy ships, USS Sides and USS Elmer Montgomery, were nearby. Admiral Crowe denied a U.S. government coverup of the incident and said the cruiser's helicopter was over international waters when the gunboats first fired upon it. 
  Contrary to the accounts of various Vincennes crew members, the cruiser's Aegis Combat System recorded that the airliner was climbing at the time and its radio transmitter was squawking on only the Mode III civilian frequency, and not on the military Mode II.
  Flight 655 was first detected by Vincennes immediately after takeoff when it received a short IFF Mode II, possibly leading the crew of Vincennes to believe the airliner was an Iranian F-14 Tomcat (capable of carrying unguided bombs since 1985) diving into an attack profile. Since the USS Stark incident, all aircraft in the area had to monitor 121.5 MHz, the International Air Distress (IAD) radio frequency. A total of 10 attempts were made to warn the airliner, seven on the Military Air Distress (MAD) frequency, and three on the IAD frequency. There were no responses.
  At 10:24:22, after receiving no response to multiple radio challenges, Vincennes fired two SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles, one of which hit the airliner at 10:24:43. The plane disintegrated immediately and crashed into the water soon after. None of the 290 passengers and crew on board survived. The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were never found.
caption: Iran Air 655's origination point, destination and approximate shootdown location (not necessarily a direct path)
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