Originally posted by Evan
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- Don't say "an" error. There were many, a lot of errors.
- Climbing vs diving.
- The plane had departed its assigned departure airport and was flying straight along and well inside its assigned civil airway (civilian airspace corridor).
- The plane was squawking a valid Mode III civilian transponder code, not the Mode II that somehow the Vincennes crew thought.
- All the three things above were clearly and correctly displayed by the AEGIS system, and was recorded by said system so there is no doubt about that.
- They made warning calls in military frequencies and the civil emergency frequency (121.5). They didn't try the ATC frequency of the zone, and in the emergency civil frequency (that the airplane wasn't necessarily monitoring) they gave no clear information that would have helped the crew, if they were listening, to recognize that they were calling them. In fact, against the usual practice, they gave the groundspeed instead of the estimated airspeed.
- When they consulted the commercial flight schedules, they didn't take into account the different time zones.
- "Trigger-happiness" seems to be an important factor in the Vincinnes case too.
- A helicopter from the USS Vincennes received small arms fire from Iranian patrol vessels as it observed from high altitude (the Iranian claim than both the vessels and the helicopter were in Iranian waters, the USA claims that they were on international waters).
- Seeking a sort of "revange" (since it was not in danger), the Vincennes ilegally moved into Iranian waters to engage the Iranian vessels (remember that USA and Iran were not in war, and one would argue that the Iranian vessels have all the right to be in their own waters). So what was the need to engage these vessels? Maybe trigger-happiness?
- So they make all the mistakes mentioned above and think that they were attacked by an Iranian F-14. Which was no only not in an attack maneuver, but hadn't even illuminated them with the radar (which is a needed step in the attack process).
- Not only that, but the Iranian F-14 fleet didn't have the capability for air-surface attack. One would think that the Navy, largest operators of F-14s, should have known the capabilities of the enemy.
- And let's also remember:
Craig, Morales & Oliver, in a slide presentation published in M.I.T.'s Spring 2004 Aeronautics & Astronautics as the "USS Vincennes Incident", commented that Captain Rogers had "an undeniable and unequivocal tendency towards what I call 'picking a fight.'" On his own initiative, Rogers moved the Vincennes 50 miles (80 km) northeast to join the USS Montgomery. An angry Captain Richard McKenna, Chief of Surface Warfare for the Commander of the Joint Task Force, ordered Rogers back to Abu Musa, but the Vincennes helicopter pilot, Lt Mark Collier, followed the Iranian speedboats as they retreated north, eventually taking some fire:
...the Vincennes jumps back into the fray. Heading towards the majority of the speedboats, he is unable to get a clear target. Also, the speedboats are now just slowly milling about in their own territorial waters. Despite clear information to the contrary, Rogers informs command that the gunboats are gathering speed and showing hostile intent and gains approval to fire upon them at 0939. Finally, in another fateful decision, he crosses the 12-nautical-mile (22 km) limit off the coast and enters illegally into Iranian waters.
...the Vincennes jumps back into the fray. Heading towards the majority of the speedboats, he is unable to get a clear target. Also, the speedboats are now just slowly milling about in their own territorial waters. Despite clear information to the contrary, Rogers informs command that the gunboats are gathering speed and showing hostile intent and gains approval to fire upon them at 0939. Finally, in another fateful decision, he crosses the 12-nautical-mile (22 km) limit off the coast and enters illegally into Iranian waters.
Ok, not the same trigger-happiness flavor than than the one likely displayed by the revels here (if they indeed sot down the Malaysian airplane). The Vinceness flavor was, what was it called? Oh, yes, 'scenario fulfillment'.
- There might be factors involved in the Rebels' action too (if that's what happened as it seems).
- There are reports (I don't know if true or not) that there was an Ukrainian transport in the zone. If that's true, maybe when they say target in the radar they said "there it is".
- They likely knew that the airspace was closed to civilian flight. Ok, only up to FL320, not 330, but maybe they didn't know or understand that, as the vast majority of the press and forum posters who said "what the hell were they doing flying in a closed airspace, the FAA had banned the zone" and things like that.
- So maybe they just thought "civilians are not flying here, Russians are not here either because they tell us when they do it, so it must be Ukrainian military". Especially if they knew of an Ukrainian military transport in the zone.
Bottom line, sure there are several differences between both cases, like, as you mention, that the Vincennes thought they were under attack and the rebels not (but the Vincennes didn't thought that they were under attack when they invaded Iranian waters to engage the Iranian vessels).
But, if under one specific set of circumstances, the US navy made this gross and negligent mistake, I don't see why, under a different set of circumstances, the rebels can't make a similar gross and negligent mistake too.
Sorry, I didn't want to get into this. Let's make a deal: You stop minimizing and defending the US navy for their shooting down of Iranian Air and I stop acting like the Iranian lawyer, which you have no idea how far it is from what I want to do.
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