Agora: the Downing of Iran Air Flight 655

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AGORA: THE DOWNING OF IRAN AIR FLIGHT 655 INTRODUCTION How quickly one forgets. On Sunday, July 3, 1988, an Iran Air A300 Airbus, with 290 persons on board, was shot out of the sky by two surface- to-air missiles launched from the U.S.S. Vincennes, a guided-missile cruiser on duty with the United States Persian Gulf/Middle East Force. The first reports from Washington were that the Vincennes had acted in self-defense against hostile Iranian aircraft.1 Some 12 hours later, the Pentagon admit ted that the Vincennes had made a mistake, that the aircraft it saw approach ing was a wide-bodied airliner on a regularly scheduled flight, not an F-14 Tomcat with hostile intent and capability. There were, of course, tense times in the Persian Gulf in early July 1988. Iraq had been conducting air strikes against Iranian oil facilities and ships, Iranian F-14s (sold by the United States to the Iran of the Shah a decade earlier) had retaliated, and small boats launched from Iran were challenging ships approaching the Strait of Hormuz. No doubt every American ship's captain in the Gulf remembered the episode a year earlier when an Iraqi missile had—it was said, by mistake—blown a hole in the frigate U.S.S. Stark, with the loss of 37 lives. Still, the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 was clearly a tragic error. Within a few days, President Reagan announced his country's regrets, and promised that the United States would make an ex gratia payment to the families of the victims. Many persons in Congress and around the country resented the notion of paying compensation to Iran, of all countries, and doubted that such compensation would reach the families of the victims. As of the end of the Reagan administration, no compensation had in fact been paid. What follows is, first, the official summary of the incident prepared for the Journal by the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, including the major portion of the congressional testimony of the Legal Adviser; second, extended excerpts from the testimony of Professor Harold G. Maier, formerly Counselor on International Law to the Office of the Legal Adviser; third, the Findings and Conclusions of the investigation con ducted by a team of five international civil servants dispatched by the Inter national Civil Aviation Organization pursuant to a decision of that organiza tion's Council of July 14, 1988; and fourth, some reflections by a member of the Board of Editors long concerned with international aviation law. 1 See N.Y. Times, July 4, 1988, at Al, col. 6, A4, col. 1; Wash. Post.July 4, 1988, at Al, cols. 5-6. 318 .

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