July 11, 2014
The country last Thursday marked the 26th anniversary of the shooting down of an Iran Air passenger jet by missiles fired from the US Navy cruiser Vincennes in the Persian Gulf. As every year on the anniversary, the Iranian Navy sailed families of the 290 people who died on the flight out to the site where the plane with many of the passengers entombed lies on the floor of the Persian Gulf. The relatives tossed flowers over the ship’s rail to float above their loved ones. The Islamic Republic says the United States intentionally shot down the Airbus A-300—and many in the regime believed the shootdown was a warning from Washington that it was prepared to enter the Iran-Iraq War. Ayatollah Khomeini agreed to a ceasefire in the war just a few weeks after the plane was shot down. In a tweet last week, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi said the proof that the shootdown was intentional was the fact that the ship’s commander was never taken to trial. The US Navy said the crew of the Vincennes thought the approaching plane was an F-14. But Iran repeated last week that the ship’s radar could tell a small F-14 from a large Airbus—although in 1988, the commander of Iran’s air defense forces told reporters that radar is unable to distinguish the size of aircraft.
