No Navy comment on Vincennes report

Press, 16 August 1988, Page 10

No Navy comment on Vincennes report

NZPA-AP Washington

A Navy board has completed an investigation into the shooting down of an Iranian passenger airliner by the U.S.S. Vincennes, but a spokesman refused yesterday to discuss a newspaper report saying the board recommended disciplinary action against only one officer aboard the ship. “The report went up, and, if not already, will be in the hands of the (defence) secretary this week,” said Navy Commander Mel Sutton. “We expect a public report in the near future.” Commander Sutton refused to discuss a story in yesterday’s editions of the “Washington Post,” which said the board’s

report calls for disciplining only the ship’s operations officer.

The story said that officer, who has not been identified publicly, drew most of the blame for his role in misinterpreting information that resulted in a decision to fire on the plane.

All 290 people aboard the plane were killed when it was shot down over the Gulf on July 3. The Vincennes had misidentified the plane as an F-14 fighter. The newspaper said the report reached the general conclusion that the tragedy resulted from a series of human errors, not from any major malfunction in the ship’s sophisticated Aegis radar systems.