shirriff@sprite.Berkeley.EDU (Ken Shirriff) (01/17/91)
From: shirriff@sprite.Berkeley.EDU (Ken Shirriff) (This isn't a submission) Do you know offhand a reasonably accurate reference describing what happened in the Vincennes shootdown of the Iranian airliner in 1988? Everyone says something different, so I'd like to find out what "actually" happened. Thanks, Ken Shirriff shirriff@sprite.Berkeley.EDU
STOSC::TCOMEAU@SCIVAX.STSCI.EDU (Tom Comeau @ Space Telescope Science Institute) (01/18/91)
From: "STOSC::TCOMEAU"@SCIVAX.STSCI.EDU (Tom Comeau @ Space Telescope Science Institute) >From: shirriff@sprite.Berkeley.EDU (Ken Shirriff) > >Do you know offhand a reasonably accurate reference describing what >happened in the Vincennes shootdown of the Iranian airliner in 1988? >Everyone says something different, so I'd like to find out what >"actually" happened. > The `authoritative' report on the _Vincennes_ incident is the official report prepared by Admiral William Fogarty. It is available from the Government Printing Office. I highly recommend the report. It includes some limited technical details, though the most interesting numbers were blacked out in the unclassified version. It is remarkably honest in presenting the facts, though one can certainly argue about Admiral Fogarty's conclusions as to the ultimate cause of the downing. It goes into some detail about the effectiveness of the AN/SPY-1 radar system, including the ability of the radar to pick up targets as they left the ground at Bandar Abbas. It also points out the portions of an otherwise automatic system that require manual intervention. (Admiral Fogarty, by the way, is now commanding all US Naval Forces in the Middle East.)