Quote:
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Seaver, the Iranian airliner shot down by the US Navy's Vincennes in the Persian Gulf in 1988, was not observed with it's IFF "turned off". Signals returned to the Vincennes were "confusing", dual signals, one civilian, one from an Iranian F-14, as it there were two transponders on board the airliner. There was even speculation that this was because the airliner ferried Iranian troops to military airfields and was equipped with a second, military transponder to obtain landing clearances fron military control towers, but that speculation was not embraced in the investigation....
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Thanks for the correction. It's been about 7 years since they went over the incident in the Navy. I was drawing it off of admittedly bad memory.
Regardless I think the parallel was correct, that it is very similar situation. Confusion mixed with high tensions between the two countries can result in simple and costly mistakes. Thankfully this was not one of them.