Radio Rootz' This Day in History

• produced by Arturo Contreras
• in

Toward the end of the Iran Iraq War, the US Navy shot down Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 passengers and crew on board the commercial airliner. The US Ship that launched the missiles was inside Iranian territorial waters, although America originally denied it. The US Government insisting that the crew had mistakenly thought they were under military attack and acted appropriately. Later reports proved that the Ships data system had identified the object as a civilian aircraft and that the captain of this particular ship had a reputation for being aggressive. The International Court of Justice dropped the case, the US never accepted responsibility for the events, and the crew even received combat action ribbons.