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TWA 800 Shot Down by a Military Missile?


Scott G

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Here is Richard Russell's original document:

***

"TWA flight 800 was SHOT DOWN by a US NAVY AEGIS MISSILE fired from a guided missile ship which was in area W-105 about 30 miles from where TWA flight 800 exploded. W-105 is a Warning Area off the southeast cost of Long Island and is used by the military for military operations including missile firing. It is believed that, while W-105 is a rather large area, budget constraints have dictated that missile firings be done closer to land so that the flight time for the P-3 monitor and tracking aircraft can be reduced.

Guided missile ships conduct practice firings on a regular basis and Navy P-3 radar planes track and evaluate the missile shots with their onboard instrumentation. A P-3 aircraft was on a southwest heading about over the top of TWA 800.

There was a US Air Flight coming from the Southeast descending towards Providence, RI that had been cleared to 21,000 feet and Air Traffic Control (ATC) had determined that there would be a conflict. As a result of the traffic conflict, the TWA flight was restricted to 13,000 feet. ATC then requested the US Air flight to to turn on his landing lights. If TWA could see his lights and identify him visually, the controller could safely clear the TWA flight to continue his climb.

The P-3 was SKIN PAINT or a non-beacon target. (This means that his transponder was turned OFF. Transponders reply to ATC radar and show a well defined radar target on the controller's scope, complete with ID and altitude. All civilian aircraft and airliners are required to fly with them when in controlled airspace. A skin paint target probably would not even be visible to the controller.) The P-3 made NO calls to ATC. After the explosion, he continued his flight to the west and then called ATC and asked if they would like him to turn around and assist with the "accident".

You will remember that the first announcement about this accident came from the Pentagon. The spokesman mentioned that they were sending the Navy to the crash site. They immediately sent a Navy Captain, who was replaced the very next day by a one star Admiral from Norfolk. That admiral is still on the scene as of 8-23-96. At least 5 Aegis destroyers are based in Norfolk.

The FBI has conducted about 3,000 eye witness interviews and the NTSB has not been able to be a part of these interviews nor have they any access to the contents of them. Some of those eyewitnesses reported seeing lights. Those were probably the landing lights of the US Air plane.

The NTSB is there in name ONLY. All announcement made by Mr. Bob Francis say absolutely nothing and notice that the FBI is always standing beside or behind Mr Francis and it would appear that his job is to make sure that nothing is said that would give away "THE BIG SECRET!"

Here is a list of the Aegis Destroyers based at Norfolk..... could one of them be the one which fired the fatal shot? USS Ramage, USS Arligh Burke (DDG 51), USS Barry (DDG 52), USS Stout (DDG 55), USS Mitscher (DDG 57) and USS Laboon (DDG 58). USS Ramage has a crew of 22 officers and 315 enlisted personnel."

***

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20021127051151/http://www.multipull.com/twacasefile/fffax.html

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Here is the relevant part of Richard Russell's affidavit:

*****

Affidavit of Richard Russell

1. My name is Richard D. Russell. I was employed as a pilot for Capitol Airlines on June 27, 1955 which became United Airlines in 1961 until I retired on March 1, 1990. During this period, I was a member of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and served 8 years as a copilot representative while domiciled in the New York area.

2. Upon moving to Los Angeles, I was appointed as an air safety representative and served in that capacity for 26 years. ALPA jobs are all volunteer positions and no compensation is paid. Such representatives act as an interface between the various federal, state and local governmental agencies and, in this case, the Air Traffic Control System and the pilot group. The job involved my spending a good bit of time at various radar facilities where I learned how to interpret radar indications, to read the data blocks as well as the limitations of the various pieces of equipment.

3. I have also served as an ALPA accident investigator during the NTSB accident investigation group on the United Airlines DC-8 Freighter that crashed in Detroit, Michigan in 1981. I was assigned to the systems committee and later to the flight data and cockpit voice recorder committee. In 1989, I was an ALPA member of the NTSB accident investigation team on the United Airlines B-747 accident at Honolulu, HI.

4. I continue to serve as president of an aviation consulting business in Dayton Beach, Florida.

5. I was amazed to watch Ken Bacon, the Pentagon spokesman announce that TWA 800 had exploded over Long Island Sound shortly after departing John F. Kennedy Airport. I knew that there was something wrong and could not understand why the Pentagon was announcing the demise of a civilian airliner crash unless the military was involved.

6. I expressed my concern to many people and about one month later, a long time friend called and asked me to listen very closely. He related that he had just attended a high level briefing where a controller showed a radar tape on which he identified a rogue target as a missile in close proximity to TWA 800, just prior to the loss of the transponder signal from TWA 800.

7. I wrote down the information verbatim and the next day, called the ALPA Air Safety department, for who I had worked for 26 years, to pass along what I thought would answer many of their questions but was appalled by their response. They asked what I expected them to do with this information. After this rebuff, I decided to seek the advice of 11 former ALPA accident investigators and air safety representatives. One of them betrayed my trust and put the information on the Internet. That story went around the world in a couple of days.

8. My source of this information was employed at the time and asked to remain anonymous. I respected his wishes but continued to ask for a copy of the tape, and one day the tape appeared and it was as advertised.

9. To this day, it has never been released to the public nor has it been made part of this investigation. As a result, no one has ever been required to explain this rogue target.

10. My options were to go to the news media but soon found out that no one was interested in making a public showing. All network and independent stations would not air this tape.

11. Pierre Salinger had visited me prior to the arrival of the tape and I received a call from him in Paris. He invited me to visit and that Paris Match Magazine was willing to break this story. I made the trip and a couple of weeks later, the story was released along with still photos of the rogue target in close proximity to TWA 800.

12. In late March, the FBI came to my home, armed with a subpoena for me to appear before the Grand Jury in New York, but told me I could satisfy the subpoena if I would hand over the tape. Not wishing to make such an appearance, I gave them a "copy" of the tape. I sent one e-mail message about the FBI confiscation of the tape and predicted that they would probably announce that it was a fraud. Indeed they did but a few days later announced that the tape was authentic.

13. I do not remember the date that the subject radar tape was delivered to me but believe it to be some time in February 1997. The tape showed a non-beacon target in close proximity to TWA 800 just prior to the TWA B-747 target indicating a loss of a transponder signal.

14. The radar antenna turns at the rate of one revolution every 4.7 seconds which means that a new picture is presented at each turn. The tape shows the rogue target on only 3 sweeps of the antenna and they indicate that the target is travelog at a speed of approximately 600 kts.

15. It has been suggested that these targets are only "anomalies." An anomaly is presented towards the the end of this tape and it is quite different from this target that displays direction. An anomaly seems to always return to the same spot. The rogue target is moving in the same direction.

16. I believe that the original message that was sent out is accurate. No evidence has been presented which would make me change my mind as to the cause of this tragedy.

17. The tape showed a non-beacon target in close proximity to TWA 800. That target disappeared from the scope just prior to the loss [of] the transponder signal from TWA 800.

18. I knew that there was something wrong, something that was amiss. A controller had identified a target on the videotape as a missile. This information was given to me, and I went to a number of accident investigators, and finally talked with them. I sent out an e-mail message of 11 accident investigators….

I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is correct

January 2, 2003 (Richard's signature)

*****

Source: http://www.twa800.com/lahr/affidavits/m-richard-russell.pdf

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Some clarification on burden of proof.

Actually, the burden of proof (onus probandi) isn't a fallacy in and of itself, it's a general rule in debate. The person making the claim carries the burden of proof. The person defending against a claim is not required to 'prove a negative'. If an alternate claim is made then the person making said claim carries the burden only for what he's claiming, he does not assume any burden for 'disproving' the original claim. Basically, one can't say, "X happened like this, now prove me wrong". One has to demonstrate that X did indeed happen and others do not assume any burden to "prove him wrong".

Edited by Lilly
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I was never happy with the official verdict on the cause of this crash.

This effected me a great deal as I had joined an up and growing company which I could only describe as a dream opportunity. Unfortunately (more so for the people on board) the owner of the company was on-board this very flight. Soon after the family sold the company to a German outfit who moved operations to Germany leaving us all out of work.

Very sad and I must admit a very strange explanation given for this tragedy.

I'm sorry to hear of your loss skookum. It's for losses of this nature that I feel compelled to write on these subjects; I'm not satisfied to just swallow the stories that officials and the mass media give us.

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Some clarification on burden of proof.

Actually, the burden of proof (onus probandi) isn't a fallacy in and of itself, it's a general rule in debate. The person making the claim carries the burden of proof.

I agree. This is why I've pounced on people when they state that something is true without offering proof that this is so.

The person defending against a claim is not required to 'prove a negative'.

They do if they want to prove their claim. In essence, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, though it certainly does help. In wikipedia's article on Evidence of abscence, the following statement is made:

**In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.

Of course, in practice, it can be difficult to agree whether a particular experiment was a sufficiently "qualified investigation".**

And here is the crux of the matter. In essence, people who believe in official stories believe that the investigations were sufficiently qualified. People who don't feel otherwise. There is frequently disagreement on what qualifies as evidence as well. Given enough time, and assuming that the people debating an issue use enough logic, I think that they can reach a consensus on any issue. The time span may be longer than any particular individual's lifetime, but if what's being argued about is history, I think that's a fair price to pay, atleast for those of us who believe that knowing the true history of events is very important.

Rafterman stated that if TWA 800 had been downed by an AEGIS missile, it would mean that "400 or so crewmen and women all had no problem living with the fact that their ship shot down a 747 and killed several hundred innocent people". Because -he- was asserting that this would have been the case if an AEGIS missile had downed TWA 800, I asked him to prove it; he never did. When Rafterman stated "There's also the little issue of there not being an US Navy warships in the area of the crash", I asked him to prove -that- assertion; again, he didn't. To defend his claims, he would have to prove his assertions; otherwise, they're suspect for those who don't blindly trust in assertions made solely by posters here (I believe this is the case for his first assertion) or in official stories (his second assertion seems to be of this type).

If an alternate claim is made then the person making said claim carries the burden only for what he's claiming, he does not assume any burden for 'disproving' the original claim.

I agree with you there.

Basically, one can't say, "X happened like this, now prove me wrong".

One can, but it's a poor debater who uses it. I've seen it done here many times; it goes along the lines of "x is right, go read up on it". One way of putting it is asking your opponent to make your own case for you.

Edited by Scott G
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When I spoke about 'proving a negative' I was referring more along the lines of argumentum ad ignorantiam, this means basically 'a lacking of evidence to the contrary'. This asserts that a claim is true because it has not yet been proven false, and this is indeed a logical fallacy (albeit, an informal one). So, while "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", the lacking of evidence does nothing (either way) to support or deny a claim for existence.

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When I spoke about 'proving a negative' I was referring more along the lines of argumentum ad ignorantiam, this means basically 'a lacking of evidence to the contrary'. This asserts that a claim is true because it has not yet been proven false, and this is indeed a logical fallacy (albeit, an informal one). So, while "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", the lacking of evidence does nothing (either way) to support or deny a claim for existence.

Oh, yes, I certainly agree with that. I believe that I've provided a great deal of evidence that supports the assertion that the official story isn't correct, but I'm fairly sure there are those here who would disagree with me.

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"TWA flight 800 was shot down by a U.S. Navy Aegis missile...."

For anyone that knows anything about US Naval weaponry, that statement alone should pretty much discredit the "journalists" who wrote this piece. Hint, AEGIS is a system, not a missile.

Not to mention - and where all of these idiotic theories fail - the 400 or so crewmen and women all had no problem living with the fact that their ship shot down a 747 and killed several hundred innocent poeople.

By the way, which Ticonderoga class ship was it? Surely these vaunted "journalists" could have easily figured that one out.

Well, i don't know, the Vincennes seemed to have a bit of a problem identifying civil from military ... Not to mention that not a great deal of remorse ever seemed to come out of the USN then.

really, the Aegis system was notoriously dodgy, many have said so; I hope that the latest versions are a bit more trustworthy.

Edited by 747400
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A civilian posing as a Special Forces flight controller. He get into any trouble for that? You ever wonder if perhaps he was working for a U.S. intelligence agency? CIA, NSA, something like that? Have -you- read Captain Russell's affidavit? There was also Pierre Salinger's statements as well.

He didn't get into trouble for impersonating an officer - he got in trouble for impersonating a DOCTOR that headed a clinic on Long Island. http://articles.latimes.com/1996-12-04/news/mn-5555_1_sentenced-impostor-crash

No, he wasn't from an alphabet organization.

Yes, I've read Russell's affidavit AND Salinger's report. Both ignore perfectly sound science, evidence and reasonable reporting. You accept them at face value because they fit your agenda.

You are missing Lilly's point. The investigators - the ones that actually had their HANDS and EYES on the recovered jet - found that the plane blew from the inside, out - that no missile or projectile impacted it. Russell wasn't THERE. Salinger is basing his info on a mystery piece of paper that a covert agent gave him in a cafe?? PLEASE! This brings to mind Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where an entire basis of government was based on a saucy tart lobbing a broadsword at a youth.

Like most CTers, you are calmly ignoring one glaring problem with your fallacy. An Aegis cruiser has a crew complement of how many? How about 250! Of these, only about 60 have security clearances. That leaves about 190 free to talk about shooting a missile south of Long Island on July 17th, 1996. How many have? Quick - hold up ZERO fingers and count them.

My gods man! The most uber-secret thing in the history of the US was known for several years before the Manhattan Project was officially unveiled. Even oral sex in the oval office was known - and there were only TWO people involved!! This level of secrecy, where the ONLY people that "know" anything are those that didn't have anything to do with the operation!

The only "conspiracy" I saw was from the media, where alleged journalists were cutting chain-link fences to get pictures of bodies as they were brought to the docks. The FBI was very proud of the collection of expensive cameras and recording devices that were confiscated and kept on display.

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Oh, yes, I certainly agree with that. I believe that I've provided a great deal of evidence that supports the assertion that the official story isn't correct...

However, evidence that the official story is incorrect isn't the same thing as evidence that the United States Military shot down a commercial airliner.

Because premise 'A' might be false does nothing to support that premise 'B' is correct. Let me further explain, this is called denying a conjunct (and it's a logical fallacy).

It can't be that both A and B are true.

B is not true.

Therefore, A is true.

The conclusion does not logically follow as it could be that both A and B are not true.

So, logically speaking, refuting the official story does not automatically support that any other story must be true. The burden of proof still remains to support the veracity of any other scenario being put forth as being true.

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Prove it.

I took a look at that "analysis". It doesn't even -mention- Captain Richard Russell's email, not to mention his affidavit. It's easy to write some hit piece against those who disagree with the official story. What Captain Richard Russell did was much harder; he faced media scorn and even went so far as to file an affidavit, apparently against the government's version of events. Did you even read it?

Why do I have to "prove it" - you're the one making the claim that flys in the face of the accepted story. Seems to me the burden of proof falls to you.

As far as the Skeptoid piece is concerned - by the way, how exactly is it a "hit piece" - it refutes the primary claim that a missile hit TWA 800. Once that is done, there is no longer any reason to even both with Captial Richard Russell and his affidavit. By the way, you know that anyone can file an affidavit, right? There's nothing magical about that.

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Well, i don't know, the Vincennes seemed to have a bit of a problem identifying civil from military ... Not to mention that not a great deal of remorse ever seemed to come out of the USN then.

really, the Aegis system was notoriously dodgy, many have said so; I hope that the latest versions are a bit more trustworthy.

And that matters in this discussion how exactly?

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And that matters in this discussion how exactly?

because it shows how the Aegis system was not foolproof, particularly with inexperienced operators. The US Navy seemed to manage to live with the fact that their ship shot down an A300 and killed several hundred innocent people. In fact, Captain Rogers got a decoration when he returned home.

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because it shows how the Aegis system was not foolproof, particularly with inexperienced operators. The US Navy seemed to manage to live with the fact that their ship shot down an A300 and killed several hundred innocent people.

There are significant differences, however, between the situation surrounding the Vincennes incident and TWA 800. One can reasonably assume, for instance, that if there was a US warship in the area at the time of the TWA 800 explosion, it was not in an area where it was prone to be under attack by hostile forces, and as such, was probably not in direct conflict with foreign surface assets, as the Vincennes was at the time of the incident.

It was also shown that the Aegis system was not responsible for the incident, but rather the crew's interpretation and use of the Aegis data in giving Capt. Rogers incorrect / incomplete information.

In fact, Captain Rogers got a decoration when he returned home.

Irrelevant to the topic at hand, and also to the Iran Air 655 incident. His decoration was for his service on the Vincennes for the year prior to and after the incident. While the shooting down of the civilian airliner was definitely a tragic mistake, military investigators felt that Rogers acted correctly given the situation - engaged in small-arms combat with Iranian surface craft, their helicopter having been fired upon, and tasked with defending the USS Elmer Montgomery - and the information - erroneous as it was - he had on hand at the time.

Cz

Edited by Czero 101
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There are significant differences, however, between the situation surrounding the Vincennes incident and TWA 800. One can reasonably assume, for instance, that if there was a US warship in the area at the time of the TWA 800 explosion, it was not in an area where it was prone to be under attack by hostile forces, and as such, was probably not in direct conflict with foreign surface assets, as the Vincennes was at the time of the incident.

It was also shown that the Aegis system was not responsible for the incident, but rather the crew's interpretation and use of the Aegis data in giving Capt. Rogers incorrect / incomplete information.

Irrelevant to the topic at hand, and also to the Iran Air 655 incident. His decoration was for his service on the Vincennes for the year prior to and after the incident. While the shooting down of the civilian airliner was definitely a tragic mistake, military investigators felt that Rogers acted correctly given the situation - engaged in small-arms combat with Iranian surface craft, their helicopter having been fired upon, and tasked with defending the USS Elmer Montgomery - and the information - erroneous as it was - he had on hand at the time.

Cz

But heavens, if someone had committed an error of that gravity (the U.S. wasn't even at war with Iran), what you might expect was that he'd be given a court martial when he got back, not a medal, surely. I think that if an accident of this magnitude had happened during an exercise, the first instinct would surely have been to deny everything; and only the crew on duty with their eyes on the actual radar would have had any idea that such a mistake may have been made, so it doesn't seem completely outrageous that those in charge might have managed to cover it up.

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And it may, very possibly, have happened before ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerolinee_Itavia_Flight_870

And it has, very possibly, happened since... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812

Edited by 747400
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But heavens, if someone had committed an error of that gravity (the U.S. wasn't even at war with Iran), what you might expect was that he'd be given a court martial when he got back, not a medal, surely.

What you or I might expect and how things actually happen are typically not the same. Civilians often try to impose their views and expectations on the Military and are almost always surprised to find out just how little they apply in most military situations.

As stated previously, military investigators found that Rogers acted properly and within the ROE he was under at the time (admittedly, those rules have come under some amount of scrutiny) given the information he had within the short time frame of the incident. You or I can think that the military should have done things differently, or that Rogers should have had further action taken against him, but (I can only assume) you and I are not in the military, you nor I were not privy to the full details of the incident, you nor I were not there on that day, and you and I are certainly not qualified to pronounce judgment on the man.

As for being at war with Iran, no, the US was not, but they were in the Persian Gulf at the time of the Iran Iraq war protecting shipping in the area. As said earlier though, the Vincennes was involved in combat action at the time of the shoot down. Whether Iran and the US were at war at the time is on little consequence given the events and actions on that day specifically, and in that period of time in general. I'm fairly sure the Iranians in the boats that shot at the Vincennes and its helicopter cared little as to whether there was an actual, formal declaration of war between the US and Iran.

I think that if an accident of this magnitude had happened during an exercise, the first instinct would surely have been to deny everything; and only the crew on duty with their eyes on the actual radar would have had any idea that such a mistake may have been made, so it doesn't seem completely outrageous that those in charge might have managed to cover it up.

Again, you are free to think anything you want and to have whatever expectations of the Military you desire, but as stated, those thoughts and expectations rarely coincide with the reality of Military life and situations.

Cz

Edited by Czero 101
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Here is Richard Russell's original document:

***

"TWA flight 800 was SHOT DOWN by a US NAVY AEGIS MISSILE fired from a guided missile ship which was in area W-105 about 30 miles from where TWA flight 800 exploded. W-105 is a Warning Area off the southeast cost of Long Island and is used by the military for military operations including missile firing. It is believed that, while W-105 is a rather large area, budget constraints have dictated that missile firings be done closer to land so that the flight time for the P-3 monitor and tracking aircraft can be reduced.

This is what really happened. The explosion occurred in the center fuel tank of TWA 800 in sky om the same manner as what occurred on C-141, 0253 on the ground.

crash_seq.jpg

My link

To further add:

slide_2079_27206_large.jpg

Air Separator

John Hickey, FAA Director of Aircraft Certification Service, holds a new device commonly called a 'air separator' that replaces oxygen in a aircraft fuel tank with nitrogen preventing potential flammable vapors seen here during a press conference July 16, 2008 at the National Transportation Safety Board training facility in Ashburn, Virginia. One day before the 12th anniversary of the crash of TWA Flight 800 off Long Island, the federal government Wednesday announced a new rule it said would eliminate the risk of exploding fuel tanks on jumbo jets.

My link

I have always said that the problem was in the fuel tank, and nothing to do with a missile strike.

Edited by skyeagle409
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because it shows how the Aegis system was not foolproof, particularly with inexperienced operators. The US Navy seemed to manage to live with the fact that their ship shot down an A300 and killed several hundred innocent people. In fact, Captain Rogers got a decoration when he returned home.

Well what exactly should the US Navy have done? Decommission the entire fleet and disband?

The incident surround the USS Vincennes is certainly tragic and, while the actual facts of that day are still being debated, certian facts are clear. The ship was operating in disputed waters less than a year after the USS Stark was almost sunk by an Iranian F14 firing Exocet missiles.

Last time I checked, warships are generally not attacked off the coast of Long Island.

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Well what exactly should the US Navy have done? Decommission the entire fleet and disband?

Something slightly less crass than welcoming Captain Rogers home with garlands and brass bands, perhaps.

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Well what exactly should the US Navy have done? Decommission the entire fleet and disband?

Something slightly less crass than welcoming Captain Rogers home with garlands and brass bands, perhaps.

Edited by 747400
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Something slightly less crass than welcoming Captain Rogers home with garlands and brass bands, perhaps.

Jeez... exaggerate much? :rolleyes:

Please show us where he was welcomed home "with garlands and brass bands".

He was given an award for two years of service. Granted, the Iran Air incident was not mentioned in his citation, but again, as you continually seem to avoid addressing, a military investigation found that he had acted appropriately given the circumstances.

Cz

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Jeez... exaggerate much? :rolleyes:

Please show us where he was welcomed home "with garlands and brass bands".

He was given an award for two years of service. Granted, the Iran Air incident was not mentioned in his citation, but again, as you continually seem to avoid addressing, a military investigation found that he had acted appropriately given the circumstances.

Cz

have you seen the picture of the Vincennese being welcomed home to Pearl with the customary garland on her bow? And gosh, a mistake of that magnitude was not mentioned in the citation for Captain Rogers' decoration? I wonder why not? The man should have been given a court martial and dishonorably discharged for a mistake of that magnitude. There's no two ways about it. Of course the U.S. navy would "decide that he had acted appropriately". What would you expect them to say?

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have you seen the picture of the Vincennese being welcomed home to Pearl with the customary garland on her bow? And gosh, a mistake of that magnitude was not mentioned in the citation for Captain Rogers' decoration? I wonder why not? The man should have been given a court martial and dishonorably discharged for a mistake of that magnitude. There's no two ways about it. Of course the U.S. navy would "decide that he had acted appropriately". What would you expect them to say?

That's the thing - it wasn't considered a mistake. It was determined that he made the best decision at the time with the information he had at hand to protect his ship and the lives of his crew.

Perhaps if the Iranian Navy had not been firing upon the Vincennes' helicopter the entire event would have never happened. Let's also not forget - as I mentione above - the USS Stark was almost sunk a year prior in these same waters by an Iranian F14. So there was precedent to think that the Iranian Air Force would fire on US Navy warships.

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That's the thing - it wasn't considered a mistake. It was determined that he made the best decision at the time with the information he had at hand to protect his ship and the lives of his crew.

It was a mistake and there was another case where it almost happened again when an AWACs cleared an F-14 to shoot down a bogie, but the F-14 pilot decided to take a closer look and he found that the aircraft was an airliner.

Perhaps if the Iranian Navy had not been firing upon the Vincennes' helicopter the entire event would have never happened. Let's also not forget - as I mentione above - the USS Stark was almost sunk a year prior in these same waters by an Iranian F14. So there was precedent to think that the Iranian Air Force would fire on US Navy warships.

That was an Iraqi jet that fired upon the USS Stark, not an Iranian F-14.

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