Iranians Remember Victims of Airliner Downed by US

on July 5, 2021 | 5:26:05

Iranians threw flowers into the Persian Gulf waters on Saturday to mark the 27st anniversary of the downing of Iran Air flight 655 by the US warship.

The relatives of the 290 dead passengers scattered flowers into the sea from a ship at the spot where the Iran Air Airbus A300 crashed in 1988, killing all on board.

Iranian Helicopters also showered thousands of red, orange and white flowers onto the crash site.

On 3th July 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down the Iranian airliner shortly after it took off from Bandar Abbas for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Washington said the Vincennes mistook the airliner for a hostile Iranian fighter jet, while Iran believes it was a deliberate attack. Tehran maintains that an airliner’s radio signals could never have been mistaken for those of a fighter.

Tehran has called for the commander of USS Vincennes at the time, William C. Rogers III, to be brought to trial. In 1990, then-President George H. W. Bush awarded Rogers the Legion of Merit for his service as a commanding officer, without mentioning the Airbus downing.

In 1999, Iran said that it had received $130 million from a 1996 settlement that included compensation for families of the victims.

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