1988. when the russians shot down a civilian aircraft five years later in 1983, president reagan addressed the nation and said no other country does things like this. then when the united states did it five years later, the pentagon did back flips to explain how understandable this whole thing was. what was concluded to be a hostile aircraft. it wasn t a hostile aircraft. it was a passenger jet. the commanding officer of the u.s.s. vincennes which shot down that civilian aircraft, the commanding officer of that ship was honored one of the highest awards for his service commanding that ship during the time when it shot down that airliner. they even gave the navy commendation medal specifically to the ship s anti-aircraft officer who was the officer in charge of recognizing real threats from hostile aircraft and directing and appropriate response. that officer led the team that looked at what turned out to be an airbus passenger jet and that team decided it was an f-14 and they shot it o
f-14 even though the passenger jet was three times as big. the vincen slammed two missiles into the plane s side. president reagan rejects iran s claim that the u.s. shot down that airliner. i won t minimize the tragedy that we all know was a tragedy so i think it was an understandable accident to shoot and think that they were under attack from that plane. reporter: 290 people were dead. and while the u.s. apologized, it fed mass public protests deepening the trust of the u.s. that remains in tehran to this day. this is an nbc news special. shot from the sky. reporter: on two separate occasions, korean airlines found itself caught in the middle of armed conflicts. in 1978, one of their planes strayed over soviet air space. two of the 97 passengers on board were killed.
when the russians shot down a civilian aircraft five years later in 1983, president reagan addressed the nation and said no other country does things like this. then when the united states did it five years later, the pentagon did back flips to explain how understandable this whole thing was. what was concluded to be a hostile aircraft. it wasn t a hostile aircraft. it was a passenger jet. the commanding officer of the u.s.s. vincennes which shot down that civilian aircraft, the commanding officer of that ship was honored one of the highest awards for his service commanding that ship during the time when it shot down that airliner. they even gave the navy commendation medal specifically to the ship s anti-aircraft officer who was the officer in charge of recognizing real threats from hostile aircraft and directing and appropriate response. that officer led the team that looked at what turned out to be an airbus passenger jet and that team decided it was an f-14 and
believed to have been killed. now, the iranian government, the military is saying the plane was shot down by missiles, that they came from u.s. forces in the persian gulf. the defense department in washington has said so far it knows nothing about the plane being shot down by missiles. it cannot even confirm the plane was shot down. throughout the morning, military officials were certain that u.s. naval forces in the persian gulf had shot down an iranian f-14 fighter jet. now they re saying they re not so sure, leaving open the distinct possibility that a u.s. missile may have been responsible for the crash of that iranian civilian airbus. seeing this footage from the day is fascinating because those two clips were from the very initial reports, the first nbc special report as the news was first coming out of the persian gulf that day about that airliner going down. first, washington saying it knows nothing about the plane being shot down, not even confirming the plane was shot dow
passenger plane that was taking off from a nearby airport in iran called bondar abas. for whatever reason, the crew of the u.s. navy ship looked at that civilian airliner in the process of taking off and decided instead that it must be an iranian military f-14 fighter jet coming down at them. they got the size wrong, they got the speed wrong. they got the trajectory wrong, they got the type of aircraft wrong almost by an order of magnitude. and that navy ship shot that civilian airliner down and 290 people on board died in the persian gulf. good morning. we are following developments in the persian gulf where there has been a major tragedy and perhaps a major mistake. involves an iran airbus. that s a wide body jumbo jet. it had 290 people on board today as it was flying from a town along the coast of iran to dubai in the persian gulf. it crashed into the gulf. all 290 people on that plane are believed to have been killed.