Word: hormuz
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ever sees. In the open ocean, a possibly hostile plane can be tracked over hundreds of miles. But Admiral William Crowe Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has likened combat in the Persian Gulf -- only about 25 miles wide at the narrowest point of the Strait of Hormuz -- to "fighting in a lake." A plane can reach a ship's missile range in minutes or even seconds after it first appears on a radar screen; a captain who hesitates too long while trying to identify conclusively that radar-screen blip could lose his ship and the lives...
...first, the incident seemed like another deadly confrontation in the Persian Gulf between the armed forces of the U.S. and Iran. But the affair quickly developed into something far worse. On Sunday morning the Navy cruiser U.S.S. Vincennes, while battling several Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz, mistakenly shot down an Iranian commercial airliner. Iran said the Airbus A300 "exploded in the sky," killing all 298 people on board. Officers on the Vincennes had believed the aircraft was an Iranian F-14 fighter jet that was attacking the U.S. ship. The tragedy immediately invited comparison with the 1983 downing...
...Camp David at 4:52 a.m. and told of the new fighting. "I am saddened to report," said the President, "that it appears that in a proper defensive action by the U.S.S. Vincennes this morning in the Persian Gulf, an Iranian airliner was shot down over the Strait of Hormuz. This is a terrible human tragedy. Our sympathy and condolences go out to the passengers, crew and their families." At 1:30 p.m. a tense and obviously tired Admiral William Crowe, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, strode into the Pentagon briefing room to deliver the shocking details...
...sinking of the Joshan followed within minutes. Then the action shifted farther north, near the Strait of Hormuz. There, repeated hostile actions by Iran forced the U.S. to jettison its plan to limit Iranian ship losses to a single vessel. When two Iranian frigates, the Sahand and the Sabalan, fired on American reconnaissance aircraft, U.S. warships went after them. A Harpoon missile launched by the U.S. destroyer Joseph Strauss hit the Sahand. The missile, delivered from a distance of 20 miles, blew a hole in the Iranian vessel's hull. An F-14 Tomcat from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise...
...about the brutal determination of Shatti's tormentors evaporated as the ordeal of Flight 422 stretched into its second week and gained distinction as the longest uninterrupted skyjacking ever.* After the airliner, en route from Bangkok to Kuwait, was seized on April 5 as it neared the Strait of Hormuz, it began a tortured 3,200-mile journey that took it from Mashhad in northeastern Iran to Larnaca, Cyprus, and finally to Algiers. Deadlines came and went as the skyjackers, having already killed two hostages, threatened the lives of the rest if Kuwait did not meet their demand to free...