USS Vincennes Shoots Down Iran Air 655 - What Really Went Wrong?

[@TheOperationsRoom]

Go to buyraycon.com/Operations to get up to 30% off sitewide! Brought to you by Raycon.

[@HerbertTowers]

NO!

[@kimango60]

I can't help hearing "Raytheon" is this intentional lol

[@keyenbentley8179]

What massive waste of my tax dollars 😢

[@LunaticTheCat]

V😊😊😊😊it t t😊😊😅 .6😊g t😊y😊

[@xxhowisuxx]

Raycons aren't bad for what they are. Finally got some beats and realized just how much better the sound quality is.

[@ticijevish]

You didn't mention the Post-Its. The consoles of the Vincennes were littered with them, cause the crew didn't know how to operate the Aegis combat system. Also, the officer didn't figure out how to fire the missile, another officer leaned over and fired it for him. The CIC crew of the Vincennes were an embarrassment to all sailors everywhwre, particularly naval officers.

[@MrXeCute]

In short, the captain couldn't hit the Iranian boats, so he downed a civilian airplane?

[@bzipoli]

ooohhh now i understand the 23 times thing

[@davee8113]

On the bridge OS seaman was so happy n professional in the video after the shoot, shows how the ship was run day to day ,

[@davee8113]

The Captain Rodger’s was very conceded and cocky officer and did not keep a clear picture of the overall situational awareness

[@dougmasters4579]

Wasn't this ship nicknamed 'RoboCruiser' by the rest of the fleet because it was always out of control and doing stupid things?

[@rainman6090]

I've studied this incident a lot. That Dotterway report makes zero sense. If the track numbers between flight 655 and an A-6 had been swapped, it would have shown up in data recording. There is absolutely no way for the data recording to be different than what was seen at the consoles. The Vincennes crew simply mismanaged the information in front of them. No one will ever know why they were so convinced flight 655 was descending when it was absolutely ascending. The Vincennes is an infamous ship in the AEGIS community for a reason. The crew of the Vincennes failed. Though the top brass didn't do much to account for this tragedy, the AEGIS community has moved forward and learned the lessons from this. There is pretty much zero chance this incident could happen today. The tools for viewing flight kinematics have become much more robust and sailors are better trained and more familiar with how the weapon system works. The crew of an AEGIS ship today in that same situation would identify flight 655 as a commercial airliner in very short order. Edit: I'm aware of the incident with USS Gettysburg shooting down the F/A-18 from USS Harry S. Truman. Until we know the chain of events that led to the incident, there isn't much to talk about.

[@brosefmalkovitch3121]

Not sure how things were then but not too long ago there was a spat of incidents with US naval vessels crashing into other vessels because the sailors on watch were so incredibly sleep deprived. I can definitely see how a combo of no sleep and combat stress causing the crew of the Vincennes to act irrationally.

[@si2foo]

Why probably because the ship turned around. and through every for a wack. so incompetent personnel not being able to talk to a plane on the comerical frequency after picking a fight. caused a tragedy

[@Caboosejaja]

caused a warcrime FTFY ​@@si2foo

[@katherinesilens2994]

As a software engineer, I knew that was bullshit when I heard it. Transposing and failing to line up the data is a possible error, but one that could only have happened in ways that would have been discovered almost immediately by quality assurance testing. There is absolutely no way the AEGIS at its certification and examination level could have possibly done such a thing barring the most freak accident of cosmic rays ever. Not to mention, every US Navy warship at the time would have observed it at peacetime stations. Even without the perspective of modern software, such a thing is simply not possible of the level of computing in that era. It would also have been discovered in scenario testing as part of the post-shootdown investigation. Dotterway's report is pure slander against the AEGIS developers as a means to shift the buck.

[@196cupcake]

"The crew of the Vincennes failed." Yes and no. Even for the time, it is inexcusable for Navy/DoD to have allowed the ship to go to sea without the capability to send on commercial channels. In that sense the top brass failed the crew of the Vincent rather than the other way around.

[@TheOperationsRoom]

Correction - USS Coronado was of course an Austin-class amphibious transport dock!

[@GunnerHeatFire]

Yeah i was about to point that out, time travel?!

[@TheOperationsRoom]

And shape shifting :)

[@quinlanreed7162]

@@timf2279Man what? This was an actual terrible thing that happened, he provided facts, statistics, and multiple points of view of the incident.

[@vixtheflyingfox]

@@quinlanreed7162He’s a trump worshipper, anything that isn’t total American worship is anti-american to him probably

[@generictag1050]

@@timf2279you can criticize someone and still support them. Pro America doesn’t mean agreeing with everything America does

[@dx-ek4vr]

There's no way this vid's getting monetized.

[@TheOperationsRoom]

You're probably right!

[@Kununu900]

Murcia doing something wrong? Quick, demonitize it!

[@whoknows20232]

why not?

[@Xeonerable]

Doesn't make the US government look good. Google: **nervous sweating**

[@Caboosejaja]

​@@whoknows20232shooting down civilian airliners is a war crime

[@Dean_AZN]

Tragic, not just the loss of life but the attempt to cover up the truth and save face.

[@Technichian462]

Covering up that the passengers recovered were all naked?

[@katherineberger6329]

​@@Technichian462Nope. There are photos of the bodies.

[@Technichian462]

@@katherineberger6329 Photos of the rescue efforts? Pulling bodies out of the water?

[@HerbertTowers]

@@Technichian462 Is the Earth flat?

[@katherineberger6329]

@@Technichian462 If Iran was ruthless enough to stack up a bunch of dead bodies in an Airbus and fly it out over a USN warship to try to entice the US into shooting an Iranian airliner, why wouldn't they have put clothes on them?

[@christoffermonikander2200]

The gave the ship a 1billion dollar radar and fire control system but settled for a ham-radio with fixed frequencies for communications. You'd think a modern warship would be able to broadcast and receive on all possible commercial, civilian and military radio frequencies.

[@usaturnuranus]

Disaster by design. The whole situation was seemingly riddled with single point of failure opportunities.

[@mystikmind2005]

"You'd think a modern warship would be able to broadcast and receive on all possible commercial, civilian and military radio frequencies." Nah, why bother doing that? What could possibly go wrong not doing it right?? Who could possibly anticipate that blatantly obvious problem, actually becoming a problem right?? But yes,, you would think it, even with half a moronic brain you would think it.

[@Xeyvian]

People been doing amateur radio since the 30s if not earlier. The fact a ship wasn't equipped with something your grandpa probably was messing with, even in 80s is unthinkable. Hell, I was messing around with my grandpa's custom radio setup near March AFB when I was a kid, and got in trouble for trying to contact military craft from his trailer.

[@MrXeCute]

@@Xeyvian It is like that... old methods are not obsolete... new methods nether.. With modern systems it is easy to track everybody who sends a message to his relatives... especially, when they don't live in the area. Taking a smartphone is a dumb idea when going to the frontline. It gives off a perfect signal to drop a grenade from any drone. Most people have no idea, how this technology works. In my state for example: every device in a vicinity of a few hundred meters, where a fire is happening, receives an emergency message and tell you to go to another location then there. They target the mobile phone, not the SIM or PUK (privacy reasons in the EU). No need to subscribe, they can trace any device when neeeded, without knowing who you are. At max, they know how many people of a certain nationality are in the vicinity. Telling them in wich language to adress the targeted device. Knowing how difficult it is to trace a Russian phone in Ukrain. ;-) My city uses that information for peacefull purposes. FE to address parking problems, criminal activity (a thief fleeing for example can be traced by city camera's but alsoo with his smartphone, a laptop or any other digital device he caries), to guide traffic (influencing GPS) or, as mentioned, to warn people that there is an emergency. ;-)

[@thethirdman225]

How would the airliner crew have known they were being warned without the basics of speed, altitude and direction? Vincennes provided them with none of those things. Vincennes wasn’t even monitoring the tower frequencies as far as I can tell.

[@JK-ci8uq]

0:38 face reveal

[@NineEyeRon]

Must have been an accident

[@Themain1ofall]

[@lelandgrubson2736]

That's his wife

[@weeeeelp]

looking good ngl

[@WanderlustZero]

You look mighty in them there earbuds boy

[@twiggledy5547]

"Oh hey a civilian airliner!"

[@DS-sn9jk]

I seen a youtube short once.... they kept telling it "nooooooo, NOOoooo" as the phalanx ciws tracked a passenger plane.

[@aDeathbomb]

I am totally mentally stable

[@muadddib]

​@@aDeathbombDidnt have to clarify that, the pb says it all

[@Interdictiondeltawing]

😭😭

[@Rath_Burn]

"Lock it, you know you want to, Lock it, DO IT"

[@lazygameratn9863]

Correction: At 4:36 you call the USS Coronado an Independence-class LCS, but those ships did not exist at the time. You instead are referring to (and using the image of) AGF-11, which was also called the USS Coronado and was a converted Amphibious Transport Dock.

[@TheOperationsRoom]

Correct, my mistake

[@lazygameratn9863]

@@TheOperationsRoom Honest mistake, and doesn't take away from the excellent work on the video, especially for a topic as sensitive as this. Always a pleasure to see your videos.

[@bigjake2061]

The Coronado was an amphibious warfare vessel which was converted to support the staff of the operational Commander for the theater. The ship was permanently deployed.

[@HighGuard121]

No I believe he was correct. It's possible that the LCS-4 went back in time to join in on operation praying mantis

[@AndrewGivens]

@@HighGuard121 Not impossible: USS Nimitz famously travelled back in time and just missed the battle of Pearl Harbor, and for some time it was believed that the USS Scorpion had actually disappeared into a similar timewarp and emerged off Iceland in 1942 slicing HMS Punjabi in half with her sail and then being accidentally rammed and sunk by HMS King George V. The matter was concealed by a cover story which suggested that KGV actually hit Punjabi instead. It's now believed that Scorpion in fact never travelled back in time at all, that the 'fabricated' deep-sea wreck *is* real and the British are just terrible clumsy sailors. Still plausible though.

[@bryonslatten3147]

The Navy rushed a brand new and poorly trained Aegis cruiser to the Gulf to prevent another USS Stark incident and caused an even bigger problem.

[@Catolicodeguerra]

WE ARE WAITING FOR CORRECTION TO USS LIBERTY VIDEO AND APOLOGIZE FOR LYING TO SURVIVOR

[@ruin9027]

Maybe they were trying to stop another USS Liberty incident?

[@StromBugSlayer]

The cover up report by the Navy is the most reprehensible part.

[@abuseofmainstreammediacanh5713]

For me the worst thing is that the responsible officers in charge were rewarded and promoted. This brings this “incident” to the status of state terrorism under international law.

[@robotmonkeys]

Navy was covering up all sorts of incompetence in the 80s. Even as a kid I knew the USS Iowa fun explosion was a coverup.

[@davee8113]

Don’t forget about the IOWA tragedy report that was completely false

[@funghiman8492]

"An orchestrated litany of lies", eh?

[@flexelsson1625]

You shouldnt be surprised. Us in the west may be the 'good' guys, but to think we haven't done shit and covered it up/attempted to is to be very naïve.

[@TheOperationsRoom]

My wife did the edit on the sponsor section and I feel like she stitched me up with one of the editing decisions 😅

[@Satar63]

I have no idea by what you mean. You have great looking hair though! Not what I imagined you look like though ;)

[@Nexon44444]

@@Satar63 read the quote at 27:43

[@wannabedal-adx458]

Yeah either you or your wife look great!!!! ;) Cheers, mate!!

[@DaFinkingOrk]

She has a crazy deep voice for a woman though, calm it down with the cigarettes, jeez. ​@@Satar63

[@drgeorgek]

She’s a good woman!

[@treyaldridge1757]

2:18 the nickname Boghammar comes from the name of their Swedish manufacturer, Boghammar Marin AB. Iran bought a bunch of them from Boghammar in the early 80s and the name Boghammar just kind of stuck with the boats

[@196cupcake]

I had always assumed it was a reference to the type of wetland and the tool.

[@MM22966]

@@196cupcake Just a nickname. Like "technical" morphed into a general term for an improvised gun-truck.

[@kdaltex]

Should've been an apology immediately when it was found out it was our mistake and restitution made for the families of those killed. Shit happens, owning mistakes is important, even with an enemy. The government is the enemy but the people aren't.

[@noahl.j.4362]

The make up the government Should the Palestinians pay Israel restitution for Hamas?

[@katherineberger6329]

George H.W. Bush's statement was just so sociopathic in the matter. It was unambiguous that Vincennes shot down an airliner and there should have been apologies, but apologies would have meant reparations and the US didn't want to give money to Iran.

[@pheonixshaman]

@@katherineberger6329 I mean, this is the same George H.W. Bush that was head of the CIA during the begging of the Finders Project, so I don't think we should be surprised.

[@Nishisaki405]

maybe thats part of the reason why Iran has such an easy task building up hatred against the US in their country.

[@Modelstl063]

The US does not lower its self to apologising if it did they would still be apologising to Vietnam for the war of American aggression and its liberal use of chemical weapons the results of which are still causing people to be born still, or horrifically deformed. I’m not sure why any of you are surprised by this all militaries do horrible things and cover them up

[@neilwilson5785]

I get that the crew of Vincennes were poorly trained and muddled, and that the captain is ultimately responsible. But giving him a medal for that? Come on!

[@IMBlakeley]

Should have been a court martial

[@dx-ek4vr]

Yeah. Nobody on the Vincennes woke up that day wanting to just shoot down an airliner on purpose, but there had to be criminal negligence involved here

[@tomriley5790]

And then try to defend that you didn't do anything wrong and would do the same again....

[@marmite8959]

Sheer fucking incompetence. There is no justification for killing nearly 300 innocent people. No amount of blaming training or technical problems should get anyone off the hook for such a careless crime against humanity.

[@zasoc1495]

In my opinion, "poor trained and muddled" should never have happened. These men should've been trained to the fullest, they're supposed to be competent and professional to the point that they could handle/prevent these types of situations from happening.

[@MagicSquid]

17:00 Tries 23 times to fire the missiles?! Holy crap! How many times in life can you mess up something 23 times at a critical moment?

[@Dustin_Bins]

If the enemy was already in range at that point (which I believe TOR indicated had occurred, but the U.S. didn't respond at that time) and you can fuck up 23 times and still be alive, should make you wonder when your "trained enemy" doesn't shoot at you when they clearly could have by that point. While the comment at 17:45 doesn't represent all of the US or the Navy, having people who make comments like this (who are in charge of the very weapons that are pointed at the "enemy") undermines the whole the concept of "Whoops, it was a mistake, I swear!"

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

Maybe he secretly wanted to give his superiors time to abandon the attack.

[@zmss8537]

@@yesyesyesyes1600 wasnt he and his buddy the ones saying its descending ?

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

@@zmss8537 I have to admit I don't know. I have never been in the Navy and I don't know where everyone sits on the bridge and what task they have ...

[@NautilusSSN571]

​@@zmss8537 No different guys, the other two were petty officers and the guy that couldn't shoot the missile was an ensing

[@nomxj]

I had a coworker who was on the deck of the Elmer Montgomery manning a .50 Cal when the missiles were launched, said they knew immediately upon impact that it wasn't a military plane. It is interesting to hear that he wasn't just telling war stories. Thank you for all your efforts in bringing light to this and other events.

[@X.Y.Z.07]

Though the target was beyond visual range?

[@robadzso]

@@nomxj must have had superhuman vision to tell it just by the looks as it was at least 10 miles away, but, hey, good story (edt)

[@archiveacc3248]

​​​​​@@robadzsoI'm guessing that the original poster means "they" as in, the Elmer Montgomery bridge crew knew it was civilian. Because that's true, both Sides and the Montgomery had the plane correctly identified. Like the story is supposed to be "I was on the Elmer Montgomery, we (the ship/guys in charge of the ship) knew it was civilian". Not "I knew a guy who happened to be on the ship, they (the guy I know) knew it was civilian." I think op just sucks at relaying stories lmao

[@nomxj]

@@archiveacc3248 Hey, thanks for that condescending clarification. There is really nothing like a supportive community.

[@robadzso]

@@archiveacc3248 makes sense, clarification was indeed needed, thanks

[@ScottySundown]

I saw an FBI Files show about how they thought Iranian operatives sent to kill Capt Rogers several months after this incident blew up his wife’s minivan with a pipe bomb. She lived but it was a big explosion. They were never really sure if it was Iranians or not and it’s still unsolved

[@robertkalinic335]

Why would they want to kill him, guy is walking pr disaster.

[@ScottySundown]

@ Yeah the FBI concluded that it was just as likely that it was someone from his past with a vendetta against him for something. Apparently he wasn’t known for his great decision making

[@billyruprecht9581]

I saw something like this too on Unsolved Mysteries when Robert Stack hosted the show.

[@chrisc1140]

​@@ScottySundown I feel like there's a non-zero chance the guys looking into it went "we don't _quite_ have enough evidence...but it was probably the Iranians...and honestly? Fair enough."

[@Simple_But_Expensive]

I sailed with Captain Rogers. I asked him about this when I saw him about twenty years later. He told me that the FBI told him they were pretty sure it was a disgruntled sailor who had been disciplined at a Captain's Mast, but they didn't have enough evidence to make it stick.

[@gaffords2631]

Mistakes happen, but this was completely unexcusable. What a horrible waste of innocent lives.

[@DeadAndAliveCat]

For the one Italian and six Yugoslavian victims yeah, the rest of them can hardly be called a "waste" though

[@nnchnn1591]

@@DeadAndAliveCat ?? There were 66 children on board and your just calling innocent civilian lives a "waste" because of their nationality? Disgusting. Truly disgusting.

[@medimedimadmad]

This was intentional to push Iran for white peace with Iraq

[@wilburbrickowski]

@@nnchnn1591don’t worry he voted for Kamala. They aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.

[@SMJ495]

⁠@@wilburbrickowski Bro what? Your god king Trump just appointed the most pro war cabinet in 40 years including mark Rubio who literally hates Palestinians. I think people like yourself might legit be to stupid to live in the Information Age

[@stischer47]

I had a number of military students involved in US military telecom and security. The company developing the software for the new Aegis system told the Navy that the system was not ready for deployment. The Navy brass told them that it be deployed or they would look elsewhere. They told the brass "Sign here" and shipped a system that was not ready, which was installed on the Vincennes without training. There were significant differences between the two and the differences could be misinterpreted...which they were and the airliner was shot down. Of course, blame slides down to the lowest level, while the brass were at fault.

[@onothankyou]

Was the company behind schedule and over budget? Just wondering, as that seems to be a standard concern in military contracts.

[@onothankyou]

Was the company behind schedule and/or over budget? Just wondering, as that seems to be an ongoing concern with military contracts. Not to give the brass too much credit, but sometimes a poorly rolled out system that can be further developed and improved of a better option than delay. I don't know the case here, just wondering.

[@chunkycornbread4773]

As an American and I’m sure the majority think this. The way the US military handled this situation is absurd. Sure no one believes the airliner was intentionally targeted and it’s obviously a mistake. That being said to be the one that shot the missile and deny any wrong doing is next level crazy. Like why? Claim responsibility and explain the factors. Sure 100% of the blame may not be on them but it’s not all or nothing. Honestly disgraceful. The unwillingness to claim any wrongdoing is worse than the incident in many ways.

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

It was the era of Ronald Reagan, right?

[@coltseavers6298]

And, I also remember US Congressmen coming up with crazy conspiracy theories such as - _the Ayatollah ordering the loading of the plane with a bunch of dead bodies then flying the plane at the ship to create an intended setup._

[@davewolfy2906]

There were too many with vested interests, the people who put that captain in charge, the people who send a warship out with less than competent crew.

[@DSiren]

I can reasonably argue that the US was not at fault in any way here, but it's crazy that they couldn't just come out and say "We were in a skirmish, an unidentified plane coming from a military airbase was heading for our ship and failed to respond to our attempts to contact, we shot it down. Don't fly over battles and pay attention to military matters if you want to live. The situation is regrettable but unavoidable from our end, as even had there not been mistakes in identification, an unresponsive commercial airliner heading straight for a warship under fire is still a valid target."

[@davewolfy2906]

@DSiren utter nonsense. The US ships were in Iranian waters. This was a civil flight, in the right place at the right time. Just how professional were these USN people? How competent were they? Why were Iranian vessels being engaged in their own water?

[@poggergen1937]

U.S Government: "We investigated ourselves and concluded we didn't do anything wrong"

[@ricardosmythe2548]

Iran flew a civilian airliner directly over an area in which it was harassing international shipping and baiting a far more powerful naval force. Play stupid games win stupid prizes

[@yukipaw1702]

@@ricardosmythe2548 Yeah and the World Trade Center simply got built in the flight path of the terrorists hijacking planes. Shut the fuck up with your stupid reasoning. The U.S warship was fully equipped and capable of identifying and tracking its target.

[@thomasg.5990]

​@@ricardosmythe2548Sure.. as always the civilians are the aggressors and the reason for being killed. American peak logic.

[@jadenpatterson5584]

@@ricardosmythe2548true, but they were flying down a regular commercial flight path with the transporter setup to let them know it was civilian and it was in Iran airspace/waters. Def a huge f up

[@julianturberfield7101]

@@ricardosmythe2548 A civilian airliner is not part of the military. Not a single person who lost their lives that day had any part in the instigated attack, or even the conflict as a whole.

[@georgepatton93]

I believe over aggression plays a key role in this incident, over aggression is a double edge knife, on one hand, it can get results, on the other hand, more room for mistakes and miscommunication, so if anything, id chalk this one down to a tragic mistake that cost lives

[@reallyhappenings5597]

Most mistakes are preventable if systems are well-designed/trained. It was not an Act of God.

[@PvtPartzz]

You guys truly provide an important service to viewers with these videos. Putting a spotlight on what actually happened in these situations reinforces how crucial it is to think critically about everything we see or are being told.

[@sailordude2094]

I sailed in those waters in the 1980s, I got out the year this happened. While sailing there, we were alerted about an Iranian P-3 coming at us one night and we lit it up with our weapon's radar until it veered off, we were close to GQ at like 2 AM in the morning. USS Leahy. The thing about that class ship is it had no large guns for close in defense, just .50s and I guess the Phalanx, other then that it would have been expensive SM2s. While in the Gulf, I always slept up in my surface radar workroom in case we hit a mine, my bunk was adjacent to the forward magazine, lol. Thanks for the history, glad I wasn't stationed on this ship. Sad story but a lot of history I didn't know about, thanks!

[@gorflunk]

I was there on Kitty Hawk in the 80s and being buzzed by Russian Bears and Iranian civilian aircraft happened so regularly it was almost routine. When this incident happened, my thought was "It was only a matter of time." Why would the Iranians let that aircraft take off knowing there was a running gun battle going on in its direct flight path? When Vincennes was trying to contact the airliner, why didn't the Iranians take it on themselves to contact the airliner and vector it away from the area? Lots of unanswered questions.

[@AudieHolland]

@@gorflunk The USS Vincennes never addressed the Iranian airliner in the correct way. If it had, the Iranian plane would have realized what was going on. Only the USS Sides did properly address the airliner but then the USS Vincennes was already launching its missiles.

[@grathian]

I was in the Gulf on Koelsch in 1980 to backstop the AWACS out of Riyahd because we had NTDS. One night as CICWO I accidentally scrambled the Saudi Air Force due to a ducted IFF return. The atmospherics in the Gulf were a mess. SM2s & Phalanx? We had only WWII 5"/38s.

[@easy_eight2810]

Huge respect for ToR for never shying away from reporting war crimes

[@jakemocci3953]

He was honest about Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, too. Nice to hear.

[@cruisinguy6024]

I don't see how you could insinuate this was a war crime when a) classic fog of war situation b) did not intentionally shoot down an airliner c) Iran is the poster child for FAFO. If they weren't acting a fool this would not have happened.

[@iwaswrongabouteveryhthing]

US war crimes is endless material for videos

[@natowaveenjoyer9862]

(American war crimes are not real)

[@wannabedal-adx458]

Also, minor note. Rear Admirals do not command aircraft carriers (the ship itself) but command Carrier Battle Groups or Carrier Strike Groups (present day). The Carrier Battle groups consist or 1-2 missile cruisers and 3-5 destroyers and 1 dedicated multi-product supply ship (AOE). The aircraft carrier itself is commanded (in the US Navy) by a VERY senior captain though.

[@phil_nebula676]

13:28 It's baffling why the Vincences despite being equip with the AN/SPY-1 radar and Aegis Combat System. Wasn't equip with civilian communication system especially previous incident of Passenger Airliner getting shot down like Korean Air Flight 007 or Libyan Arab Airlines flight 114. But prior to Iran Air flight 655 no air defense ship was involved in accidential shooting down of civilian airliners.

[@TheLastCustomer]

Could it be because the system was new-ish? I mean, I see a parallel between this and the patriot problems years later during the 1stGW

[@bobdole6768]

It's a ship of war not a shipofavoidingciviliancasualties

[@davewolfy2906]

There was an airliner "fell" down in the Irish Sea, many years ago. There was missile testing on the Welsh coast.

[@logansorenssen]

It's actually worse. They did, in fact, have the equipment necessary to communicate with civilian airliners. It just wasn't standard procedure to actually set up their gear to do that. Nowadays, it is.

[@monkemode8128]

Well, it doesn't take shooting down very many civilian airliners to destroy public support for fighting. ​@@bobdole6768

[@phil-jo8px]

At this point, and I'm not joking, just show videos like this in history classes.

[@Grim_Prospects]

These folks are incredible. The attention to detail is something no book in school can provide. My 12 year old would love learning thru these in school. He watches them at home already, he tells me all the time about how none of the kids even pay attention in history and social studies and that almost all of the kids except him and a couple others are failing.

[@Hagmire2]

It's incredibly helpful having the visual aid of the animations, you could read about everything Operations Room has put out but you never get a real sense of how things play out.

[@phil-jo8px]

Definitely, not every kid has a spark to learn more about history. But I think a lot of them do. And it is crushed by history teachers that don't care.

[@f-86zoomer37]

It will never be shown. The US school system is an indoctrination system. They criticize russia for doing what it already does lol. Somehow we have to listen to these war criminals without question say that russia is the enemy when they literally lie about covid, iraq WMDs

[@HYDRAdude]

Today's children don't have the attention span for a 5min video let alone a 30min one.

[@yuyuyu25]

Carlson's essay criticizing Rogers is available for free online on the USNI Proceedings archive by the way (although it might be a bit hard to find, since it's not properly digitized). It's very illuminating and I highly recommend reading it.

[@20chocsaday]

Do you know if there is anything in it about the situation in the cockpit of an airliner in the climb phase so soon after takeoff?

[@kenpdx7471]

I remember reading it in the print magazine back in the day. If I recall correctly it was a letter to the editor, which may be why it's harder to find.

[@mdbizzarri]

I like the deep dive in all of the sides. What puzzles me is if the IFF came back as commercial aircraft, and that was a known corridor, why was everyone so quick to go on the offense? Hindsight being what it is, when we sailed in the Persian Gulf, everything was done with A LOT of care. The aircraft was slow and climbing, which is not indicative of an attacking aircraft, so all of the pieces were there to hit pause on attacking. That said, attacking gun boats, high tension, and the fog of war make it a complicated scenario for anyone. Great job on showing all sides! If it wasn't for historians, we wouldn't be able to look back and document the truth objectively. Thanks to the entire team for telling the stories!

[@XMysticHerox]

"attacking gun boats" Thats. A bit biased. It was sort of mutual though I'd lean more towards them engaging the gun boats frankly given this took place in iranian waters.

[@skullsaintdead]

Why were they quick to go on the offense? = Confirmation bias, you only interpret and value the info that fits your preconceived bias, it happens a lot in aviation, so much so that pilots can totally dismiss their instruments, believing them faulty, when they're actually flying upside down at night (like JFK Junior). He wasn't an idiot, just overworked, stressed, out of his depth with a plane beyond his capabilities at the time (he'd just upgraded). These sailors were looking for boogy men and they made an airliner fit their image of an enemy. We need to be brutally honest with ourselves about our failings (NOT cover them up or excuse them away), learning the lessons of the past ensures we don't repeat them in the future.

[@Roytulin]

@@skullsaintdeadThe thing is, confirmation bias is well known in aviation because of how incidents are investigated, but it's a human tendency that affects almost everything we do.

[@philsmith2444]

Being properly trained would have gone a long way toward easing the tension. The stories I could tell of some NCOs in my unit a few years later during Desert Storm! I was a SPC and apparently took my training a lot more seriously than they did. An E5 and an E7 were close to outright panic when a chemical alarm went off in the middle of the night. If it hadn’t been a false alarm there would have been a lot of dead soldiers.

[@davee8113]

The Iranians did the F-14 turn on radar on the ground on purpose to distract from the real picture , others had the clear picture, the O-6 just wanted a fight pure and simple

[@seeingeyegod]

My cousin was on the bridge of the Vincennes, when I asked him about the incident only a few years after it happened, he also said in his opinion they were the ones pursuing the boghammers

[@XxJay71xX]

The worst thing about this incident is not the tragic mistake, it can happens... BUT the fact that the US NEVER apologized about that, tried to put some blame on the Iranian pilots that, for once, did NOTHING wrong, did not even court martialed Rogers, and EVEN rewarded him for his service during this time, it's BEYOND insulting and one of the reason why I always reply "no shit" when someone complain that Iran doesn't like the US...

[@hadikhan63]

True colors

[@seanmccann8368]

Only "our enemies" do disgusting things. Our forces whether right or wrong, successful or unsuccessful, winning or losing, only do the proper thing at the proper time in the proper way. The US is no better or worse than britain, Russia, Japan, China, Spain, France, Andorra, Liechtenstein or Norfolk Island. But I do agree with you about people who are aggrieved that their country who have just murdered innocent people aren't respected or loved by the nation of their victims - they are stupid. Expecting Iranians to like Americans is akin to expecting Irish people to respect the british.

[@dillonhunt1720]

That he got away with killing 290 innocent people and decided to actually write a story for money about it is incredible. Like you're going to sell your excuses for your horrible decisions and give it a cheesy action movie name like STORM CENTER in big red letters? Really my guy? Beyond tasteless.

[@greyfells2829]

Why was Iran still running flights over an active combat zone? Face it, Iran wanted something like this to happen. Same thing that Hezbollah and Hamas are doing now, using civilians as sacrifices to fight their propaganda wars.

[@mcarrowtime7095]

Iran didn’t like the US before this incident, and they would’ve continued to do so had this never happened.

[@Roytulin]

Several details here that other coverages of the incident I have read or watched did not cover. Well done.

[@ElectroAtletico]

Captain Kearly (USS Elmer Montgomery - Atlantic Fleet), informed VINCENNES that he did not need any help, that he had the situation well in hand,. But Rodgers (USS Vincennes - Pacific Fleet), and his marginally average crew, did not have necessary situational awareness of the engagement. This was just another instance of "cruiser mentality" taking over for a proper tactical engagement.

[@CMDKeenCZ]

"Marginally average" is by far the best compliment that crew ever got in their entire careers.

[@kremepye3613]

R.i.p to the lost souls aboard the airliner. Especially the 60 children, what a disaster stemming from ego and incompetence.

[@garybauer124]

Fog of war

[@tmmht]

The investigation calling the Iran Air pilots negligent, but not the crew of the Vincennes is just so comically reprehensible.

[@ImCrimson]

Thanks for the videos, always informative and entertaining

[@VideoSpectator1223]

Can you cover the story of 4 royal marines who strapped themselves to RAF Helicopters to rescue a stranded colleague?

[@iwaswrongabouteveryhthing]

bricks immorter mightve done it or operations room

[@ericmosher6969]

July 1988 I was on West Pac with the USS New Orleans (LPH-11). We were parked in Japan after this incident right next to the Vincennes, we we told not to talk to them.

[@pvb3562]

so ur a war criminal then?

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

Wow ... And that is what you did I guess.

[@iwaswrongabouteveryhthing]

harder to cover it up if more info gets out

[@davewolfy2906]

Ironic. The Japanese sailors were "hidden" after Midway. Even the Emperor did not know for five weeks.

[@davenehilla9610]

I flew missile profiles against the Vincennes very late one night in the Gulf of Mexico sometime around early 85, I believe, in between cruises. These were in fact descending profiles in an A-7E out of Cecil Field, FL. This was a request that had come to our squadron on a very short turnaround between our 2nd and 3rd back to back cruises. They were testing and calibrating their tracking and targeting systems. I recall it clearly as they got what they needed from me earlier than expected and said they had set up Pensacola for me to duck in and refuel. I know they were a bit concerned and surprised when I said I’d be heading back to Cecil (on fumes). Hey, I wanted to be home in my bed with my wife whom I rarely saw! The Vincennes sent a nice thank you letter and a pin, which I still have to this day.

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

Thanks for sharing. 😊 If I may ask what is it exactly that you did, when you "flew missile profiles"? Is that a simulated attack run or is it about radar profiles? Missile detection? Really fascinating.

[@davenehilla9610]

@@yesyesyesyes1600The Vincennes would give me a starting point, a speed, and an altitude to come inbound at. To be honest, it’s been a minute, so some of these runs may have been at a level altitude. Nothing was very low. I also do not recall them ever lighting me up with fire control radar on the ALR 45. That, you would definitely remember as I’ve been lit up off of Lebanon and it required a very fast descent from 2000’ to the deck 😂 I will have to find the letter to see if it states exactly what it was they were testing. The crew was definitely very appreciative and easy to work with. It’s not uncommon for up and coming technologies to go thru a steep learning curve. The Aegis combat system was no different.

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

@@davenehilla9610 Wow 😮 Really cool and interesting. Something you just see poorly depicted in tv-series like JAG or some low budget movies where greedy companies and ruthless generals sacrifice personnel for their own good.

[@TheOperationsRoom]

Can I ask you all a favour? If you enjoy this documentary, could you please hit the like button and/or leave a comment, it helps us massively. Also, over 50% of people who watch this video are not subscribed. Hit the button! Appreciate you all!

[@beastmedic1st575]

say no more..

[@EpicRenegade777]

will do, thankyou for your awesome content

[@_Jfb]

😊

[@alexdrockhound9497]

deal

[@antoy384]

On KZbin, when we subscribe, the videos are not suggested anymore in the normal feed. So much that I only subscribe to channels that I want disappeared from my feed. It works even better than “Do not suggest this channel”, because the latter only works for 6 months.

[@abuseofmainstreammediacanh5713]

For me the worst thing is that the responsible officers in charge were rewarded and promoted. This brings this “incident” to the status of state terrorism under international law.

[@chichan8424]

Yeah mistakes were made but medals afterwards? Completely ridiculous and goes to show how much the US hated the Iranians at that point.

[@jdubhub68]

I had been in the Navy for less than two years when this happened, enlisting in Reagan's 600-ship Navy out of high school in 1986. In fact, that day I swore my oath into the Delayed Enlistment Program was the day the Navy and Air Force bombed Libya. I still remember sitting in the lobby of MEPS in LA waiting for my recruiter to pick me up and watching the news. I remember two years later when this happened and listening to the news then hearing the different opinions of my shipmates who had been over there recently. It was an interesting time to be in the Navy, that's for sure. I am thankful for this video and a trip down memory lane.

[@ariochiv]

This is the first I've heard that there was a naval surface engagement going on at the time. Kind of an important detail.

[@joeyartk]

Thats why there was such a coverup and so much lying. Similar to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, we were hiding how deeply we were involved in covert military action at the time.

[@garyverstick8259]

Also provoked by cowboy Rogers.

[@Chilly_Billy]

A horrific day for 290 innocent souls and a terrible day for the U.S. Navy.

[@hadikhan63]

Those without any honor?!

[@NautilusSSN571]

​@@hadikhan63 The honorable state of Iran has never shot down civilian airlines... wait

[@piedpiper1172]

The truly shameful day for the Navy came later-when they tried to cover it up and gave the Captain a medal.

[@underarmbowlingincidentof1981]

@@NautilusSSN571 we really doing a "well they did the same thing 30 years later so it wasn't bad when we did it"-stig now are we

[@NautilusSSN571]

@@underarmbowlingincidentof1981 Is it not the same thing?

[@briantaylor9285]

Jesus... what an utter clusterf___k 😮 😢

[@zebradun7407]

War is a cluster F__K.

[@Genessyss]

​@@zebradun7407there was no war

[@pandasonic1294]

It was Homicide. ​@@Genessyss

[@abdulmismail]

The USS Vincennes was a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser which used the Aegis combat system. Their radar can detect wingspans of any aircraft. All they needed to do was verify this and they would have known this it wasn't an Iranian F-14.

[@red_d849]

are you sure that wasnt an upgrade?

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

Was that already possible in 1988?

[@rainman6090]

@@abdulmismail That's not true. SPY-1 only gives a return in amplitude. It doesn't tell you anything specific about the wingspan. Of course bigger amplitudes usually directly correlate with larger aircraft, but not all the time. A B-2 for instance will give a radar a very small return compared to its size, and that's if the radar even picks it up at all. If the crew wasn't even able to correctly read the kinematics of the track, there is no way they would have been able to correlate the amplitude to anything.

[@steves1371]

I feel like they could have stepped out with a pair of binoculars and ended the confusion, weather permitting. At 8nm and only 13.5k feet up it should have been clearly visible unless there were clouds

[@grathian]

@@steves1371 Weather did not permit. I knew XO of Vincennes, he was on the bridge with binoculars watching the cloudbase for what he expected would be a flaming F-14.

[@Dustin_Bins]

27:11 The classic "team sports" mentality to war: "It's okay when we do those things, we get shiny pieces of metals for it and get to call ourselves heroes! However, if the enemy does it, it is most DEFINETELY a War Crime and deserving the of the label of 'Cowards!'"

[@underarmbowlingincidentof1981]

yeah lmao compare the comments here to the ones under the USS Liberty video lol

[@hewhohasnoidentity4377]

I had never heard of this event. Thank you very much for producing this video.

[@Lawdog652]

I love this video, it's a mix of The ops room and The Intel report.

[@Cactus7810]

Just wanted to say thank you for uploading this! I remember asking in one of the older videos (some two years ago or so) for you to cover this event, and here we are today! Thank you, and keep up the great work. Your content is excellent!

[@irafair3015]

This one hits close to home because Petty Officer Anderson was my Chief Petty Officer on a different ship several years after this incident. He mentioned this incident a couple of times. I'll just leave it at that.

[@Dustin_Bins]

My guess is his comments sounded like 17:45?

[@irafair3015]

@@Dustin_Bins Nope, nothing like that.

[@Dustin_Bins]

@@irafair3015 my bad, was just a guess.

[@Genessyss]

sifkening that he wasn't court martialed with his superiors

[@irafair3015]

@@Dustin_Bins No problem.

[@dannnmerkle7930]

If I knew I was the one to make that call even if totally on accident I'm not sure I could live with myself.

[@CaffeinePanda]

Probably why Capt. Rogers is so adamant about explanations that stretch the imagination; accepting the alternative is a horrifying prospect. If you can justify your actions to yourself, you don't have to live with the guilt of being responsible for an atrocity.

[@anthonyxavier6300]

Especially when there were dozens of kids involved.

[@robadzso]

@@CaffeinePanda Only if you're a complete dirtbag. On the contrary, the difference between dirtbags and real men is, that real men just face reality and consequences as they are, instead of hiding behind some self soothing mental mockery and accepting medals to feed an inflated ego...

[@piedpiper1172]

That’s because you aren’t fundamentally a coward. It takes strength to face personal failure. Cowards cannot do it and go to any length to justify avoiding it.

[@grathian]

I knew Vincennes XO. He was on the bridge with binoculars trained to catch visual of the F-14 he expected to see falling out of the clouds. He did not have a good day for a long time.

[@Springbok295]

My father and I were having lunch or dinner at the Hotel Metropol in Belgrade when the shoot down occurred. The manager who knew my father came to our table and told my father about what he had just heard on the radio. Our first inclination was that the Iranians had used some wide-body airliner on a suicide kamikaze attack on a USN vessel.

[@bigjake2061]

The important point to the story is that concerning command and control on board the USS Vincennes. Normally it's the job of the tactical action officer to define the ship. It is the the commanding officer's proper role to act as an overriding safety on the actions of the TAO. This is referred to as command buy negation. Captain Rogers usurped the serving TAO out of his position within the tactical command onboard the USS Vincennes. The Navy's reason for having this structure is fairly straightforward. If the captain is making all the tactical decisions directly then a form of groupthink consent in. Who on board is going to question the captain when he is wrong. Under a regime of command by negation if the tactical action officer makes an error is commanding officer has a chance to detect it and direct adjustments. The implementation of this is quite difficult because often tactical action officers are LT and human nature being what it is commanding officers find it very difficult to let go😊 a lot of people to do their jobs.

[@jojosworlds1208]

What still confuses me to this day is the fact that a military ship couldn't communicate with a civilian airliner. Like how didn't this happen more often with this miscalculation. Edit: And why took it so long for them to give the proper information to the pilots?

[@20chocsaday]

Hours later it was reported on BBC News. I could put no other inference on such an event than willful incompetence. And I was challenged to defend the indefensible years later.

[@jojosworlds1208]

22:03 That also puzzles me. What reaction would the US have if an enemy warship is in their territorial waters. It's absurd to me to have the audacity to shoot down an aircraft that's not 100% to be sure to be an enemy jet, if you are in territorial waters.

[@xiphoid2011]

This reminds of a line from one of my favorite cold war movies, The Hunt for the Red October, where the captain of the aircraft carrier said after a F-14 and Russian Bear bomber collided due to the heightened tensions: "This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we will be lucky to live through it". Some times it doesn't take actual hostile actions, but just hostile politics, to result in real casualties. These casualties are already tragic enough, but it can also lead to actual hostilities or worse. Something worth thinking about in today's world.

[@ericmcleod7825]

I think it's another line from The Hunt for Red October that perfectly describes the underlying situation in the gulf in the 80's. "It would be well for your government to consider that having your ships and ours, your aircraft and ours, in such proximity... is inherently DANGEROUS”

[@KieferSmokerland]

Thank you for great material

[@dajuanvariste4751]

Been waiting on this one.

[@red_d849]

27:56 yeah thats spot on

[@fuffoon]

Those little things that we, as a country, like to forget about. That wikileaks Julian dude might actually have more moral fiber than the entire nation. Officials were pissed off when he showed that video of a dozen journalists getting shot to pieces by our Apache helicopters.

[@Pilotmario]

Julian Assange may have been a moral man had he not promptly collaborated with Putin and Lukashenko in the suppression of their dissidents. Belarusian dissidents came to him in the belief he would keep them anonymous and expose the rotten Belarusian regime for what it is. He ratted them out to Lukashenko’s regime and uses the leaked information to help them hunt down dissidents. In that, he showed his true colors, and it is not a man who wants justice. What kind of man willingly helps dictators hunt down dissidents when he is free to do otherwise?

[@Tom_Cruise_Missile]

Honestly i think we put too much emphasis on that stuff considering Trump assassinated an Iranian general in Iran out of nowhere and DIDN'T DENY IT

[@illyavogel1660]

During my time in grad school I had the pleasure to have Captain Plichta, as a "peer student", and he told us about his time in the Gulf during this incident. These are his words. "At the time of the incident, my ship was in port in the United Arab Emirates, just across the Gulf from Bandar Abbas where the Airbus flight originated. I had an intelligence asset onboard which gave me immediate information about Iraqi and Iranian radio communications, both military and civilian. At the time, I was the only ship in the Gulf with that capability."

[@pjgr5685]

I remember this from the news at the time. The screens said the plane was climbing, crew thought it was diving. Still nobody made an error. ???

[@abuseofmainstreammediacanh5713]

Finesse of language. If the US does it, it's collateral damage. If certain other nations do it, it suddenly becomes a war crime. It's magical!

[@LynxSnowCat]

(Without seeing the actual software they used) I assumed that they had purely-numeric /software displays, which had more digits-of-precision than practical accuracy. (suspiciously low design effort software?) There have been many 'near miss' and (less consequential) incidents with industrial (software) systems where purely-numeric gauges were misread as (increasing or decreasing) because the flickering motion of changing digits doesn't convey a clear direction, only an intensity. And expectation bias primes people to see the 'direction' they anticipate. (see the 'spinning' stick-figure optical illusion, and how the direction 'switches' at a thought.) This effect gets much worse with non-proportional (monospaced) type faces, which [] 'dance" and jitter as the digits bunch together for cosmetic-appearance over usability. Its a problem that (some) avionics gauges have tried to -solve- -address- answer by pairing numeric displays with a continuous moving element with -an unambiguous- less ambiguous relation between changing direction and magnitude; while more-terrestrial systems have trended towards colour shifting diagrams (which looks good on a projector when selling [a design]; but tends to become indistinct in peripheral vision of technicians, unless an important condition is highlighted by a discontinuous colour, changing shape, 'moving' pattern, or flashing alarm) [And years ago] I was asked to bid on developing a solution for after [a prospective client] found that their crews were having measurable difficulties with small touch interfaces ; particularly compact spin-box/number inputs competing for limited screen space while obscured by operators fingers, 'too many fingers' and debris. -After following up on the client's research, and looking at what others had done before- I started to hone in on designing a skeuomorphism based on 'linear'-gauges (with non-linear graduations or steps) and a 2-D response curve to allow for faster accurate input with intuitive _arbitrary_ precision ; Before starting on researching the specific details and discovering that Halliburton had already 'published' a complete multi-platform implementation of the same concept 'public domain' (as an unlinked -shite- white paper-equivalent), including reference apps. At the time of that bid, I was annoyed that they hadn't pushed it to a more accessible open-source platform in the years after they'd developed it (since I wasn't willing to take money to solve a solved problem); But now I'm -disappointed- jaded that none of the common UI toolkits have yet to implement a single ready-to-use combination of these ideas -- ( -- And I can't find the magic combination of words to get a link to it at this moment. :I dunno if link rot or Google being an advertising company now. )

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

Could it be that "descending" and "ascending" were confused?

[@abuseofmainstreammediacanh5713]

@@yesyesyesyes1600 Unlikely because the US Navy would have confused promotion and demotion in the aftermath of this warcrime too....

[@khapankov]

@@LynxSnowCat what would you suggest to read for introduction into Human Factors and general high-stakes UI design? I was once tasked with designing a UI for operator of industrial UAV and tried to get answers to my questions in publically available US MIL-STDs from 70s which was a bit naive on my part. While there is some overlap in methods and approaches with my previous experience as UX designer in a studio the gap in responsibilty and systems' complexity is so vast it is laughable to compare them. I understand the base prerequisite is an engineering degree but with no immediate prospects of attaining one it is more of a curiosity about what it takes to work in that field.

[@mattm8092]

Hi The Operations Room, at 4:46 you identify the USS Coronado as a Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), however this must be a misidentification of the ship’s type as the LCS types of ships weren’t built for the US Navy until this century. It must be a different USS Coronado that served in the USN, probably the one that was an amphibious transport dock as that was the USS Coronado serving in the USN during this time period.

[@briansilva6160]

I never heard of this story before. Thanks for sharing this with us

[@GregFliesVR]

Congratz on 1.3 million. I loved how you got right into the story without sponsorships. Youre worth more than that. Put them at the end please or not at all.

[@crazedvole]

I was watching a history channel show or something years ago and when speaking about the captain of the _Vincennes's_ mindset they said, (paraphrase) "They don't hand out medals for sitting at the dock." I don't know if the captain ever said it or if it was the history "expert" supposing how things happened the way they did.

[@warrendimitrichardvalenzue2791]

I didn't know about this particular incident, so when I got the notification I was genuinely distraught. "The US did WHAT?"

[@shingshongshamalama]

Man... wait till you hear about the white phosphorous.

[@warrendimitrichardvalenzue2791]

@shingshongshamalama Oh yeah, I know about the various other warcrimes, just not about this one. Hope we get more detailed looks into these types of situations. I would like to know more about My Lai for example.

[@cryptorichierich1597]

Wait until you hear about the two nukes dropped on civilians

[@abuseofmainstreammediacanh5713]

Finesse of language. If the US does it, it's collateral damage. If certain other nations do it, it suddenly becomes a war crime. It's magical!

[@AnakinSkywakka]

​@warrendimitrichardvalenzue2791 There was a documentary I saw a while back about My Lai, which featured the man who attempted to stop the massacre, Major Hugh Thompson. I believe it's called "Back to My Lai" and it is on KZbin.

[@tetraxis3011]

The US blaming Iran for the shootdown is FOUL. the last warning was the only one that was well transmitted, yet the Yanks decided to fire upon them before Iran Air could respond. (and remember, the US ships were in IRANIAN waters). Im glad other USN personnel and independent reporters came out with the truth. Im also happy that the Operations room was unbiased in this video. Edit: and of course American MSM found a way to make America look innocent while treating the USSR and Iran as "the bad guys"

[@tonymorris4335]

I mean, you're not wrong, but later Iran shot down their own airliner and didn't even claim responsibility for that until it was proven there was no other possible explanation. This is pretty much what every nation tries to do unfortunately when they fuck up like this.

[@amogusenjoyer]

​@@tonymorris4335to be fair that was like, a few days after the shoot down. So they didn't deny it for long either, and I don't think they have blamed anyone else even when denying it but I might be wrong.

[@tetraxis3011]

@ It wasn’t their own airliner(it was Ukrainian) and they did claim responsibility eventually(unlike the US which still blames Iran for this shoot down) also I’m pretty sure the missile operator got fired and is possibly in prison.

[@LOKSTED]

It's comical that Iran is so upset at losing a commercial plane due to an obvious accident when it has done nothing but harassing commercial ships

[@Pilotmario]

@@tetraxis3011They claimed responsibility only because they were caught at a particularly public time, and prior to the incident relations with Ukraine were reasonably good. So far they have yet to pay compensation to Ukraine. Of course Ukraine-Iran relations are currently hostile because Iran sold Shahed drones to the Russians and helped the Russians make them. Given that Iran sent drones to kill Ukrainians to Russia, and then trained the Russians to use and manufacture them, and have yet to be properly compensated, Ukraine is understandably unhappy with Iran. Edit: the Iranians didn’t do anything to the missile operators and claimed that an airliner taking off from their own airport, which they had cleared to take off, was somehow acting suspiciously.

[@thomasberard1220]

Very good quality video as usual, especially the presentation of all points of view which changes from other videos on this kind of topics !

[@Seltkirk-ABC]

Video starts at 1:30

[@deplorabledegenerate2630]

It is honestly shocking how often things like this happen, and how often it is difficult to determine if it was malicious and deliberate, gross negligence, or an honest mistake. Thinking of the South Korean airliner the Soviets shot down earlier that same decade, but also the Lusitania, Panay, Liberty, etc.

[@saturnv2419]

This is the perfect example when the only thing you have are hammers, everything is a nail.

[@antoy384]

And when all you have is a the US army…

[@TheZoomTown]

This is not a perfect example of that.

[@HersheyHurricane-v3f]

OP Room finds time to post while being beat down on twitter for either being too conservative or too liberal depending on who’s mad at him.

[@spartanx9293]

I live in the town that ship is named after also raycons are basically jlab earbuds but twice the price

[@TheWastedFox]

I've bought both, this is true in my experience. Jlabs lasted quite a bit longer though

[@StringyPete]

I worked in air defence for 12 years (RAF, not navy) I was shaking my head the entire way through this in disbelief. You can see how lessons like this are written in blood.

[@yoned3837]

Slight mistake at 4:35. This USS Coronado is an Austin-class amphibious transport dock

[@TheOperationsRoom]

Correct, my mistake

[@gimmethegepgun]

To be totally fair in the differing coverage between Iran Air 655 and Korean Air Lines 007, the circumstances of KAL 007 were a lot worse: 1. They had hours to make an identification instead of minutes 2. They never had any belief that they were imminently going to be attacked by it 3. They rushed to shoot it down before it exited their airspace so it couldn't get away 4. They intercepted it with fighters that could visually see the plane, at least one of which knew that it was a Boeing civilian model (albeit not knowing whether it was an airliner or modified to be a spy plane) And then afterwards, they denied it for days, and they intentionally impeded search and rescue/recovery efforts being performed by the US, Japan, and South Korea, both by using ships to directly interfere, and by faking a search in an area that they knew it wasn't in, because they did actually know where it went down. Though how much of this was known by the time of the coverage in question, I can't say.

[@Skank_and_Gutterboy]

I agree.

[@Skank_and_Gutterboy]

There was also no attempt to radio the jet and warn it away.

[@thefootballer777]

The fact that this is the first I'm hearing about this event speaks to the continued failure of our media and educational systems to hold ourselves, as a nation, even the least bit accountable.

[@abuseofmainstreammediacanh5713]

Finesse of language. If the US does it, it's collateral damage. If certain other nations do it, it suddenly becomes a war crime. It's magical!

[@katherineberger6329]

I remember when it happened. It stained the reputation of Vincennes for her entire service life, too - she was the first of the Block 1 Ticos to be scrapped and I'm pretty sure that Flight 655 was why.

[@the_rzh]

It was 1988. Not many people study the Iran-Iraq war anymore. But this incident comes up a lot when Iran is listing grievances.

[@BigFatCone]

I mean.. I'm from Sweden and I knew about this.

[@robadzso]

I live in far away looked down Europe, and even I knew about this incident. It's a well known event.

[@AT2Productions]

4:44 At the time, the USS Coronado was not an Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship(LCS), it was the AGF-11 (converted amphibious transport dock to auxiliary command ship) that was involved.

[@JoMomma1973]

Its worth noting that in the case of KAL 007, it was shot down by fighters that could see it was an airliner. Granted, from the Soviet POV, it could have been seen as a western deception. However, once they shot it down, they claimed they couldnt find the wreckage or bodies. It was later revealed that they had indeed found the wreck, then buried it, never telling the west.

[@TheOperationsRoom]

From the independent reports and the pilot radio recording transcripts, the pilot did not know it was an airliner but merely a 4 engined aircraft. It was ordered to shoot it down by fighter controllers after a false identification as an RC-135. Internal CIA documents also show that the CIA believed it was accidental. The Soviets screwed up majorly in that they didn't identify it visually as a civilian aircraft, despite concerns over comms that it could be.

[@puffyharpseal]

There wasn't even any major technical reasons for that case, or any ongoing conflict in the area, but somehow it's the exact same as Iran Air 655 according to the "when we do it vs when they do it" headline. Minor pet peeve.

[@michaelaustin310]

Didn't the russian pilot come out later and admit he knew it was civilian? That was why he repeatedly asked for confirmation from ground control. Paper Skys just did a video on the su15 that mentioned the incident.

[@zachjordan7608]

@@michaelaustin310 it was a serious situation, even if they thought it was a military aircraft, which is almost certainly why he asked more than once. Do you have a source on that info beyond paper skies? i've noticed he has a sharply anti-soviet lean and I think it kinda takes over his analysis sometimes

[@grumbotron4597]

This is insane I just heard about this this morning from a reddit comment, and hours later Ops Room releases a video on it???

[@geordiedog1749]

Probably your best video yet. Outstanding work.

[@anysnail6390]

This is a terrible situation. I was alive during this but never knew what really happened.

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

Actually I can't remember anymore what the Austrian Media reported about it. It was probably one of those events where you thought - isn't there always something going on down there in the middle east?

[@H2OSakanaIsMyOshi]

Great video!

[@fwa3387]

according to a retired USN EP-3 pilot I met years ago, the Iranian A-300 was modified with the F-14 Tomcat IFF transponder. So even though the A300 was transmitting civilian codes, the hardwired serial number was also transmitted and receivable only by US Military IFF equipment.

[@TryingToDoBetter101]

Anything to blame it on the Iranians 😂😂 The funny part is that you people "truly" believe you are good guys

[@deltawarshipdelta8565]

For the folks, who got Sea power naval combat in the missile age, can someone make a similar scenario where the players gets strongly fooled into believing it’s an enemy aircraft yet it’s a civilian, just like in this sad case ? Also wonderful documentary mate, the quality is always great :)

[@LimitBeamng]

Issue is on sea power, we can tell the difference between a radar contact based on size- 💀

[@scarecrow108productions7]

​@@LimitBeamng wait what???

[@LimitBeamng]

@ it tells us the relative size, meager, semi-small, medium, large, etc

[@oco8783]

​@scarecrow108productions7 Yea next to the contact it will say the size of the radar contact. Although, there are awacs/maritime aircraft in the game so it's not guaranteed to be an airliner if it's a large RCS return. Then again you'd pickup up the EW emissions from it ig

[@axisslayer545]

There's literally a scenario in the steam workshop about this incident lmao.

[@HeliRy]

The fog of war is a constant killer. Especially when combined with complete ineptitude.

[@skyboy4341]

Another good video by operations room

[@grathian]

As a reserve officer in 1993 I was selected to attend the mid-grade officers course, a condensed version of the Surface Warfare Officers Prospective Commanding Officer course. We spent most of a day going over the classified and unclassified details of the incident. One of the presenters was the XO of Vincennes, the first person to visually see the airliner as it fell thru the cloud layer. The essential takeaway was that the Newsweek report was correct, Will Rogers over aggressive attitude was the key ingredient that precipitated the shoot down. The incident was long and widely discussed in the surface warfare community, as well as the Naval Institute Proceedings. Capt Rodgers article noted in the video was far from the only one. CDR Carlson of the USS Sides was one of the first, and the public source of the "Robocruiser" appellation that was in fact the Vincennes nickname in the Gulf. The video fails to detail the descending track that probably caused confusion in Vincennes CIC, it was a human failure, not a system one. I would refer you to the June 1994 Naval Institute Proceedings Comment and discussion by Lieutenant Colonel Roger G. Charles, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired) for unclassified clarification.

[@raymondyee2008]

I see you covered what “Air Crash Investigation” didn’t.

[@zedekhorafe]

Dorud I am from Iran Thank you for your work 🙏🏽❤️

[@ZeZwede]

What an absolutely embarassing disaster this was. Bunch of hotheaded sailors messing up.

[@gregwah]

I would love to see you do a video on USS Saratoga and TCG Mauvenet. Very interesting in developing current command and control orders.

[@kendalldavis99]

You can literally visually identify the aircraft at that range

[@mosesracal6758]

Thats why I could never believe ths bs Capt. Rogers spouted. Until it had fired, the unknown aircraft is just that - unknown aircraft and as such is not a threat. ROE even says so that they can only fire in self defense.

[@scarecrow108productions7]

@@mosesracal6758 and now the Gettysburg did the same thing...against a Super Hornet of their own that would've nearly killed the pilots!

[@timmarien3011]

Thanks for making these videos!!

[@andrewashton195]

Quiet telling that the captain of the aircraft carrier kept his aircraft well clear of the USS Vincennes!!