
Iran Air Flight 655 (Wikipedia) - morpheuskafka
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
======
confluence
This is in reference to the Boeing 737 that just went down over Tehran:

[https://twitter.com/TheBelaaz/status/1214757041123803136](https://twitter.com/TheBelaaz/status/1214757041123803136)

[https://twitter.com/Asylumseeker111/status/12147702487436738...](https://twitter.com/Asylumseeker111/status/1214770248743673857)

Iranian sources state it was a "technical malfunction", but given current
geopolitical events, it may be a anti-air malfunction in their defense system
downing a civilian airliner, which looks bad, obviously.

~~~
flyinglizard
What kind of a technical malfunction causes a new airliner to descend to the
ground engulfed in flames mere minutes after takeoff? This has MH17 all over
it. Sad.

~~~
onion2k
_What kind of a technical malfunction causes a new airliner to descend to the
ground engulfed in flames mere minutes after takeoff?_

There have been two 737 crashes minutes after take off in the past two years.
Boeing have acknowledged the issue is real and have tried to fix. That goes a
long way to suggest this plane might not have been shot down.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Boeing_737)

~~~
steve1977
This problem does not cause the airplane to catch fire...

~~~
p_l
But recent CFM56 engines om 737-800 disintegrating at high power does. There
were two cases (with one passenger death and 8 injured) in the USA with
737-800 suffering damage after engine disintegrated in flight.

~~~
dotancohen
Source: [https://www.flightglobal.com/in-depth/ntsb-to-address-
rare-t...](https://www.flightglobal.com/in-depth/ntsb-to-address-rare-though-
deadly-forward-blade-engine-failures/135460.article)

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hurricanetc
This is a sad story but how is this “hacker news?” It happened over 30 years
ago. It has no relevance to what is going on today.

~~~
yorwba
HN is not a chronological "news" site, if people haven't heard of it that's
new enough.

Recently we had a discussion on an article from 1738:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21832371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21832371)

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duelingjello
So, has HN turned into a political conspiracy theory and propaganda factory to
beat the drums towards war? I just don’t see how this is relevant except to
egg-on the paranoid InfoWars hobgoblins.

~~~
probably_wrong
Big political news always make it to HN, at least at first. Then they
disappear relatively quick. I wouldn't worry about it.

For the record, I've flagged it. And I bet dang/sctb will remove it once they
wake up (assuming it makes it that long).

~~~
heyoni
Are news not supposed to make it on HN? So many Boeing MAX stories have made
it to the front page, you wouldn’t think that’s the case at all.

~~~
probably_wrong
Check the FAQ at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html),
in particular:

> _Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they
> 're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or
> disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's
> probably off-topic. _

Planes are interesting for HN in general, most of us (I think) enjoy learning
about how things fail and why, and learning from big business failures is a
must if you want to get a startup running. That's why most Boeing MAX stories
are usually fine.

"Regular" news stories, on the other hand, tend to be off-topic.

------
mikece
I served on the sister ship of the Vincennes in the early 90 and knew some
guys who were in her combat info center when that went down. The Airbus had
turned off civilian squawk and was in a dive directly at the Vincennes —
hardly what civilian airliners are supposed to do. Then again, even in a dive
an Airbus can’t go as fast as an F-14 in a vertical climb so while the
maneuver was provocative it didn’t fit the military jet attack profile,
something the Iranians knew as well. Both sides screw with each other during a
Cold War and usually lives aren’t lost. This was a huge, unfortunate
exception.

~~~
halflings
Huh. Why wouldn't the US show proof of this? Seems pretty easy to do.

From the page: > According to the Iranian government, the cruiser negligently
shot down the aircraft, which was transmitting IFF squawks in Mode III, a
signal that identified it as a civilian aircraft, and not Mode II as used by
Iranian military aircraft.

Given the US response (diplomatic note from Reagan), it seems that the error
was on the USS Vincennes, not the Iranians.

~~~
duelingjello
Basically every US Navy ship with radar constantly records radar data. It
would be easy to demonstrate the aircraft’s flight profile to exonerate the
ship. Hiding it means they’re hiding the truth.

