224 adults and 66 children died on July 3 1988 when Iran Air Flight 655 (IR655) was mistaken for an attacking F14 by the US Navy cruiser, USS Vincennes. Gary Klein, in Sources of Power, blames the incorrect mental simulation of the Vincennes' Captain primarily on two pieces of inaccurate data: a belief that IR655's transponder gave a military rather than civilian response; a belief that the aircraft was descending like an F14 on an attack run, rather than ascending like a commercial airliner on route from Bandar Abbas to Dubai. The former problem seems to be operator error, but the latter was more complex.

When the IR655 took off from Bander Abbas at 10:17 the Vincennes' AEGIS system assigned it the track number 4474, but it was subsequently reassigned to 4131 the track number used by a nearby ship the USS Sides. 4474 was reused and assigned to a US Navy A-6 several miles away. At 10:22 Captain Rogers asked "What is 4474 doing?": most (but not all) crew members reported that it was descending. IR655 was ascending; the A-6 was descending.

No-one corrected Captain Rogers when he used the wrong track number; it would be a breach of military etiquette to correct a superior officer.

Sunday, August 13, 2006 | Permalink | 0 Comments