KAL007 Coldwar Mystery

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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John Schilling wrote:
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.

1) You appear to be wrong with regard to frequency 121.5 - the flight was
not required to transmit its intentions there. It was required to
_monitor_ them, and history now shows that for reasons unknown the flight
crew did not hear the challenges from the U.S. ships. (The problem of not
hearing a challenge on 121.5 recently occurred in a recent violation of
the ADIZ over Washington DC.)
1) There was no "strange reason" for the flight - it was a scheduled one
and presumably should have been known to the Vincennes.
2) The aircraft's IFF transponder was transmitting the proper commercial
flight code.
3) According to one reference I found (not authoritative, alas) the U.S.
Navy's investigation found _no_ fault with any of the actions of the
pilot of IR655.
4) Both a critic of Captain Rogers and Rogers himself "debate" the issue
in reference [1]. (Rogers' section begins on page 14.) Rogers does not
appear to address all of the accusations.

Except for not hearing the challenges on 121.5, Captain Rezaian of IR655
did nothing wrong. The U.S. commanders and their ship's equipment and
crew, on the other hand, appear to have made several (literally) fatal
errors.

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.

There is the "triviality" of whether the Vincennes was legally in Iranian
waters. If you care about such things. (In [1] Rogers claims he was
rightfully there. Lt. Colonel Evans believes he wasn't.)

There is no debate from me that the incident was a tragedy - the only
reason I even bothered to post on this issue is because Henry Spencer
attempted to deflect all blame toward the local ATC! No account I could
find seems to have mentioned any routing issues or that ATC should have
been aware of any running battle.

[1] http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~nava201/VCS/vincennes.pdf

John Schilling wrote:
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.

What determines an "active combat zone"?

Is it actually the case that if one Iranian gunboat gets buzzed by a
helicopter and fires warning shots back at it, and the helicopter's
ship shoots back, all airliners in the area, despite not having surface
search radar, squawking mode III, flying on commercial routes, not
flying attack profiles, flying over their own country's waters, etc.,
are legally obliged to announce their presence over 121.5 lest they be
shot down?

If the crew of IR655 had met this legal requirement, their plane would
probably not have been shot down.

Unless the crew of the Vincennes said "I don't know where this Airbus
is, but as soon as we shoot down this F-14 about to Silkworm us, we'll
take a look."

-jake

"Jake McGuire" wrote:
What determines an "active combat zone"?

According to Captain Rogers "Counterbattery" rebuttal in reference [1],
there was a NOTAM to air crews in the area:

"Annex 10 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, to party,
provides that commercial aircraft "shall continuously guard the VHF
emergency frequency 121.5 MHZ in areas or over routes where the possibility
of interception of aircraft or other hazardous situations exist, and a
requirement has been established by the appropriate authority." The
International Civil Aviation Organization confirmed that the Strait of
Hormuz in 1988 was such an area and that a Notice to Aviators Class I
warning had been promulgated in September 1987 advising that "failure to
respond to warnings could place aircraft at risk by U.S. defensive
measures. ICAO confirmed that "since 16 September 1986, Iran Air flight
crews operating in the Gulf area...required to monitor frequency 121.5
MHZ...at all times."

[1] http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~nava201/VCS/vincennes.pdf