An incident with the US Navy and an
Iranian speedboats raises concerns about accidental collisions in the Gulf.
Many remember the USS Vincennes in
1988. While on the Strait of Hormuz, the
US
naval ship shot down an Iranian Airbus holding 290 civilians. All passengers died.
The USS Vincennes did not monitor
the radio traffic properly and failed to notice that the plane was a civilian airliner
and not a fighter jet. The Iranian
government claimed that the US
knew exactly what it was and shot anyway.
The US government suggested that what
may have happened was “scenario fulfillment,” a condition in which military
personnel executes a scenario in their head because it is what they expect,
just as if it were a training exercise.
This will usually happen when the soldier is under pressure.
There is still uncertainty about the
role of “scenario fulfillment” in the latest incident, although a voice was
heard over the US
radios, saying “I am coming at you. You
will explode after a few minutes,”
There are doubts about who said the
warning, but the US
is implying that it was part of a series of transmissions between the ships and
the Iranian boat.
The US
government later suggested that one factor at play on the Vincennes was a condition called
"scenario fulfilment" in which military personnel are under such
pressure that they expect and then execute a particular scenario, as if in an
exercise.
Whether the same expectation was at
play in this latest incident is not clear.
What is clear is that there are
grave doubts about who uttered the warning picked up by the US ships. A
deep voice was heard to say: "I am coming at you. You will explode after a
few minutes."
The video released by the US implied that
the warning was part of a series of transmissions to the ships from the Iranian
craft.
On further research, the warning was
found to be another recording that was added onto the video. It is possible that it could have come from a
radio transmitter on shore or another ship in the area. Iranian vessels use an open channel to make
inquiries.
Iran, releasing their own video, claims
that they issued a “warning” asking the ships who they were and where they were
going. The US vessels allegedly replied they
were in international waters.
In the Iranian video, their boats
are no where close to the American ships.
Some suspect that the incident is
just a case of misunderstanding raising fears of another Vincennes tragedy.
