By Medea Benjamin
March 15, 2019 "Information Clearing House" The tragic Ethiopian Airline plane crash recalls another passenger plane crash some 30 years ago. The latter, however, was not due to a mechanical malfunction but to U.S. missiles. And while very few Americans remember this incident, it still weighs heavy on the hearts of many Iranians–as we discovered on our recent trip there.
The tragic downing of the commercial passenger airline, Iran Air Flight 655, happened on July 3, 1988. A U.S. Navy ship called the Vincennes was stationed in the Persian Gulf to protect oil trade routes. The plane had just taken off from nearby Bandar Abbas International Airport in southern Iran when U.S. personnel on the warship fired two surface-to-air missiles. The flight was still in Iranian airspace, climbing on its regularly scheduled flight to Dubai, when it was hit. The plane disintegrated immediately and crashed into the water, killing all 290 onboard–274 passengers and 16 crew members.
According to the U.S. government, this was an accident: the crew thought the Iranian Airbus A300 was an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter jet.
Most Iranians, however, believe it was a deliberate war crime. Earlier that day, the same U.S. ship had sunk two Iranian gunboats in Iranian waters and damaged a third.
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