Iran Press/ Iran news: 31 years ago on July 3, 1988, US navy warship, USS Vincennes targeted an Iranian passenger plane by SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles above Persian Gulf, massacring all of its 290 crew and passengers, among them 66 children.
Mourners tossed flowers from a helicopter and a ferry into the Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran on Wednesday to mark the anniversary of the tragedy, Iran Press reported.
The Iran Air Flight 655 (IR655) bound for Dubai had taken off from Bandar Abbas in Iran, when it was hit by a heat-seeking missile fired by USS Vincennes, over the waters of the Persian Gulf. The attack took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf.
Mourners tossed flowers to mark the anniversary of 655 flight downed by a US navy missile
The Reagan Administration claimed that USS Vincennes had mistaken the passenger plane for an F-14 fighter jet, however it did not explain how a destroyer equipped with modern radars failed to tell the difference between a passenger plane with a fighter jet.
Furthermore, the US claimed USS Vincennes was in international waters, while evidence pointed to the warship being in Iran's territorial waters when firing the missile.
The US authorities also, following their lies, accused Iran of ignoring US warship warnings, but the results of research conducted by International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) published in New York Times in 1988 showed that most of the warnings were sent through military channels a passenger plane could simply not receive.
Apart from putting a blind eye on its crime, US never apologised to Iran, and never reprimanded any of the USS Vincennes crew, and even honoured the warship's commander, awarding him a medal for bravery.
This attack ranks tenth among the deadliest disasters in aviation history, the incident retains the highest death toll of any air disaster in the Persian Gulf and the highest death toll of any air disaster involving an Airbus anywhere in the world.
Mourners tossed flowers to mark the anniversary of 655 flight downed by a US navy missile
At a ceremony marking the 31st anniversary of downing of Iran Air Flight 655, parliament speaker Ali Larijani mentioned the consecutive failures of the US in the region and said that America has failed because it doesn’t know the region and Iranian nation.
"The US has done whatever it could to put the Islamic Revolution under extreme pressure; but Trump must understand that bullying and pressuring civilised nations like Iranians, make them more united," he remarked. 104/211/215
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