More than 200 relatives of people killed when a U.S. warship shot down an Iranian airliner a year ago have sued the makers of the ship's radar system, a spokesman said Sunday. Nagib Ghafoor said the suit was filed June 28 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on behalf of relatives of 83 of the 290 victims. The announcement of the lawsuit came on the eve of the July 3 anniversary of the 1988 tragedy, when an Iran Air Airbus was shot down by the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf. Vincennes crew members said they mistook the airliner for an Iranian F-14 fighter coming in to attack. The jetliner was on a commercial flight from the Iranian city of Bandar Abbas, where a large air base is located, to Dubai in the southern United Arab Emirates. Ghafoor said the lawsuit was filed against the General Electric Corp. ``and other entities which designed and manufactured the radar equipment on board the USS Vincennes.'' GE is based in Fairfield, Conn. ``The company has not seen the suit yet, so it's inappropriate to comment,'' said Jack Batty, a company spokesman. Most of the passengers aboard the ill-fated Airbus were Iranians. Pentagon analysts have said split-second decisions aboard the Vincennes were affected by the inability of radar operators to immediately match the plane's radar trace with digital direction, altitude and speed information displayed on another screen. Ghafoor said the complaint charged that the radar equipment indicated the aircraft approaching the Vincennes was an F-14, diving in an attack mode at an altitude of 4,000 feet, rather than the Iran Air flight, which was climbing. He said claims against the United States on behalf of the families ``are in the process of being filed as well.'' The Iranian government has been seeking a World Court verdict against the United States and demanded financial compensation for the 290 dead. He did not mention any figure for the compensation sought but said the group would be guided by the amount of compensation the Iraqi government paid the families of American sailors killed in an Iraqi air strike on the U.S. frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf on May 16, 1987. The Iraqis said the ship was hit because the pilot of a Mirage fighter-bomber mistook it for an Iranian warship. Iraq has agreed to pay $27.3 million to the families of 37 U.S. crewmen killed aboard the Stark, meaning each family would receive around $740,000. The United States had asked for $29.6 million for the families, along with an unspecified amount for 21 sailors wounded in the incident.
A suit was filed in the United States Court in San Francisco on June 28 on behalf of 83 of the 290 killed when missiles fired from the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner. The suit charges General Electric and other entities that designed and manufactured the Aegis system aboard the Vincennes. A spokesman also said that claims would be filed against the government of the United States. Iran has been asking for a World Court verdict against the United States, demanding compensation in an unspecified amount to be paid to families of the victims.