In article , Jim Logajan says...

(Henry Spencer) wrote:
In a combat zone, by international law, the onus is on civilians to
identify themselves to military forces.

The civilian flight crew in this case used all possible and
internationally known means of making themselves known. It was the
Vincennes, not the flight crew, who were culpable on this point:
"Throughout its final flight IR655 was in radio contact with various air
traffic control services using standard civil aviation frequencies, and
had spoken in English to Bandar Abbas Approach Control seconds before the
Vincennes launched its missiles. The Vincennes at that time had no
equipment suitable for monitoring civil aviation frequencies, other than
the International Air Distress frequency, despite being a sophisticated
anti-aircraft warship."[1]

So your assertion, even if true, does not appear relevant.

Quite relevant. The legal requirement for someone who insists on flying
a civil aircraft through an active combat zone, is to broadcast on Guard
(i.e., the international air distress frequency), saying "For some strange
reason, we want to fly our civil aircraft over your battlefield - please do
not shoot us down." That's one of the things the frequency is for.

If the crew of IR655 had met this legal requirement, their plane would
probably not have been shot down. The crew of IR655 did not meet this
legal requirement. Probably through incompetence or carelessness, not
malice. And the crew of the Vincennes was also careless at very least
and probably incompetent at the margin. But their carelessness and/or
incompetence left them on the right side of the law, whereas that of the
IR655 crew, and for that matter the Soviet air defense command in 1983,
was criminal.

Assuming anybody cares about trivialities like the law, which most people
do not.


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