KAL007 Coldwar Mystery

"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote:

An airliner on a course that approaching a US ship in a hostile zone...

A regularly scheduled commercial airliner...

Its course, schedule, transponder freq etc. in IATA publications
routinely distributed around the world (and routinely consulted by the
US armed forces, if not by Capt. Rogers)...

In a "zone" which the US had made no attempt to close to civilian air
traffic, and which the same flight (as well as hundreds of other
airliners, from Iran and a score of other countries) had routinely
transited numerous times before during that period.

I guess if you want to split hairs, it's more excusable than KAL 007
in that we didn't actually have fighters shadowing it before we
attacked. But neither incident was anything other than shameful.

"Monte Davis" wrote in message
...
"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote:

An airliner on a course that approaching a US ship in a hostile zone...

A regularly scheduled commercial airliner...

Its course, schedule, transponder freq etc. in IATA publications
routinely distributed around the world (and routinely consulted by the
US armed forces, if not by Capt. Rogers)...

In a "zone" which the US had made no attempt to close to civilian air
traffic, and which the same flight (as well as hundreds of other
airliners, from Iran and a score of other countries) had routinely
transited numerous times before during that period.

I guess if you want to split hairs, it's more excusable than KAL 007
in that we didn't actually have fighters shadowing it before we
attacked. But neither incident was anything other than shameful.


There's no doubt the wrong decision was made. My point is that the wrong
decision was made in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

In the case of KAL 007 there was no immediate threat. In point of fact the
aircraft was leaving the area.

There was plenty of time during the engagement to make the decision NOT to
shoot it down. They chose to anyway.

In the case of the Iranian airliner, the USS Vincennes had just been engaged
in a firefight with Iranian gunboats within the previous hour. Also it was
as I understand it, 27 minutes late in its take-off, so while regularly
scheduled it was not flying at the time it normally would have been.

The Vincennes never made visual contact with the target (which is not
necessarily unusual in cases like this).
The Soviets HAD visual contact with the target and still shot it down.

In addition the US also compensated the families to the tune of $61.8
million. (granted, w/o admitting fault).

The Soviets as far as I know never made any such attempt.


So yes, both are tragic, but I'm more inclined to lay a far greater guilt
upon the Soviets.

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
I guess if you want to split hairs, it's more excusable than KAL 007
in that we didn't actually have fighters shadowing it before we
attacked. But neither incident was anything other than shameful.


There's no doubt the wrong decision was made. My point is that the wrong
decision was made in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

In the case of KAL 007 there was no immediate threat. In point of fact the
aircraft was leaving the area.

In the case of the Vincennes, there was no immediate threat either. It
was an A300, not an aircraft typically known for its anti-shipping
prowess, flying down a commercial air corridor on a scheduled flight.

The Captain of the Vincennes went looking for a fight. There was a
naval policy to not fly within a certain distance of Iranian gunboats
due to their tendency to take potshots; his helicopters violated this
policy. When his helicopters came under fire, he expressed a desire to
bring them under his ship's air defense umbrella; rather than have the
helicopters fly toward the ship at 120 knots, he took his ship toward
them at 30 knots, into Iranian territorial waters.

Furthermore, his crew was utterly incompetent at operating their
equipment. They had loaded incorrect data regarding the air corridors,
causing them to be displayed in the wrong location. They interpreted
the range figure as altitude, causing them to make radio calls
addressed to "a diving F-14", rather than a climbing A300.

There's nothing good about the way the US handled the Vincennes
incident, from start to finish. It was incredibly negligent, in my
opinion criminally so. But... it was negligent. The US tried to cover
it up, but not hard enough effectively do so, even though they could
have (e.g. USS Liberty).

The USSR, on the other hand, knew they were shooting down an airliner,
did so anyway, and then lied blatantly and repeatedly about it for
decades.

So yeah, KAL 007 was worse than Iran Air 655, but that's only because
the Soviets were quite spectacularly bad, and anyone who's tempted to
say "Well, at least the USN isn't as bad as the Soviets" should, again
in my opinion, reconsider.

-jake

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 04:23:30 GMT, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:


"Monte Davis" wrote in message
.. .
"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote:

An airliner on a course that approaching a US ship in a hostile zone...

A regularly scheduled commercial airliner...

Its course, schedule, transponder freq etc. in IATA publications
routinely distributed around the world (and routinely consulted by the
US armed forces, if not by Capt. Rogers)...

In a "zone" which the US had made no attempt to close to civilian air
traffic, and which the same flight (as well as hundreds of other
airliners, from Iran and a score of other countries) had routinely
transited numerous times before during that period.

I guess if you want to split hairs, it's more excusable than KAL 007
in that we didn't actually have fighters shadowing it before we
attacked. But neither incident was anything other than shameful.


There's no doubt the wrong decision was made. My point is that the wrong
decision was made in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

In the case of KAL 007 there was no immediate threat. In point of fact the
aircraft was leaving the area.

There was plenty of time during the engagement to make the decision NOT to
shoot it down. They chose to anyway.

In the case of the Iranian airliner, the USS Vincennes had just been engaged
in a firefight with Iranian gunboats within the previous hour. Also it was
as I understand it, 27 minutes late in its take-off, so while regularly
scheduled it was not flying at the time it normally would have been.

The Vincennes never made visual contact with the target (which is not
necessarily unusual in cases like this).
The Soviets HAD visual contact with the target and still shot it down.

In addition the US also compensated the families to the tune of $61.8
million. (granted, w/o admitting fault).

The Soviets as far as I know never made any such attempt.


So yes, both are tragic, but I'm more inclined to lay a far greater guilt
upon the Soviets.

There is a film of the Vincennes CIC when the Iranian airliner was
engaged, and it did not show the crew in a good light in terms of
their discipline and attention. The contrast with a voice recording of
a British CIC under missile fire in the Falklands was stark.
--
Stephen Horgan

"intelligent people will tend to overvalue intelligence"

http://www.horgan.co.uk/

Stephen Horgan wrote:
There is a film of the Vincennes CIC when the Iranian airliner was
engaged, and it did not show the crew in a good light in terms of
their discipline and attention. The contrast with a voice recording of
a British CIC under missile fire in the Falklands was stark.
Sounds interesting. Any links?
Volker

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:19:31 +0100, Volker Hetzer
wrote:

Stephen Horgan wrote:
There is a film of the Vincennes CIC when the Iranian airliner was
engaged, and it did not show the crew in a good light in terms of
their discipline and attention. The contrast with a voice recording of
a British CIC under missile fire in the Falklands was stark.
Sounds interesting. Any links?
Volker

Both on television I am afraid. The American crew were excited and
quite noisy as the airliner was shot down. The British crew just kept
reporting tactical updates as they successfully engaged an inbound
exocet.

--
Stephen Horgan

"intelligent people will tend to overvalue intelligence"

http://www.horgan.co.uk/

Stephen Horgan wrote:
On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:19:31 +0100, Volker Hetzer
wrote:

Stephen Horgan wrote:
There is a film of the Vincennes CIC when the Iranian airliner was
engaged, and it did not show the crew in a good light in terms of
their discipline and attention. The contrast with a voice recording of
a British CIC under missile fire in the Falklands was stark.
Sounds interesting. Any links?
Volker

Both on television I am afraid.
Can you remember anything about the program?
Which station and about how long ago?


The American crew were excited and
quite noisy as the airliner was shot down. The British crew just kept
reporting tactical updates as they successfully engaged an inbound
exocet.


Thanks a lot!
Volker

On Fri, 03 Feb 2006 18:47:53 +0100, Volker Hetzer
wrote:

Stephen Horgan wrote:
On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 09:19:31 +0100, Volker Hetzer
wrote:

Stephen Horgan wrote:
There is a film of the Vincennes CIC when the Iranian airliner was
engaged, and it did not show the crew in a good light in terms of
their discipline and attention. The contrast with a voice recording of
a British CIC under missile fire in the Falklands was stark.
Sounds interesting. Any links?
Volker

Both on television I am afraid.
Can you remember anything about the program?
Which station and about how long ago?

The British tape was played on BBC2 documentary on the Falklands.
Another interesting part of that was an interview with the Belgrano's
Captain, who thought the RN was quite right to sink his ship.

The US tape was played as part of a documentary on independent TV, I
forget the channel. Video evidence was certainly used in subsequent US
enquiries on the airliner shootdown.
--
Stephen Horgan

"intelligent people will tend to overvalue intelligence"

http://www.horgan.co.uk/

Stephen Horgan wrote:
The British tape was played on BBC2 documentary on the Falklands.
Another interesting part of that was an interview with the Belgrano's
Captain, who thought the RN was quite right to sink his ship.

The US tape was played as part of a documentary on independent TV, I
forget the channel. Video evidence was certainly used in subsequent US
enquiries on the airliner shootdown.
Ok, thanks a lot!
Volker

Stephen Horgan wrote:

Both on television I am afraid. The American crew were excited and
quite noisy as the airliner was shot down.


That was very noticeable on the bridge film- they were bouncing off the
walls at a chance to show off what their shiny new ship could do.


The British crew just kept
reporting tactical updates as they successfully engaged an inbound
exocet.



That's because they remembered the Falklands war, and knew what was
going to happen if that Exocet arrived at their ship.
In the Vincennes case they thought they had an F-14 that was maybe going
to attack them, or may have just been rattling their cage. If it had
been an incoming cruise missile the reaction might have been different,
with more relief than cheering when the Standard missile intercepted
it. The first question the crew would ask themselves was whether there
were going to be any more inbound, and I'm sure that was what the
British crew were thinking.

Pat