How It Started: Iran Speedboats Open Fire
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The following is a chronology of events in the Persian Gulf on Sunday that resulted in the downing of an Iranian civilian airliner by the U.S. Navy :
10:10 a.m. (local Dubai time)--Three Iranian Boghammar speedboats fire on a U.S. Navy helicopter flying reconnaissance patrol from cruiser Vincennes just inside the Persian Gulf.
10:42 a.m.--Vincennes and U.S. frigate Albert B. Montgomery fire on speedboats, sinking two and damaging one.
10:47 a.m.--Iran Air Flight 655 takes off from Bandar Abbas airfield, with scheduled arrival time of 11:15 a.m. in Dubai.
10:49 a.m.--Vincennes, using both military and civilian channels, issues warnings and demands that the airliner, suspected to be an F-14 fighter jet, change course.
10:51 a.m.--Vincennes again warns aircraft as it speeds up slightly, bearing down on ship at altitude of 7,800 feet.
10:54 a.m.--Vincennes launches two Standard SM-2 missiles from 9 miles away at aircraft.
10:55 a.m.--Iranian airliner, struck by one of the two missiles launched by Vincennes, disintegrates in midair, apparently scattering wreckage in Iranian territorial waters.
11:00 (estimate)--U.S. Navy forces spot an Iranian F-4 fighter-bomber flying over Iranian mainland.
1:40 p.m.--Wreckage of airliner sighted within Iranian waters.
2:42 p.m.--Norwegian tanker Berge Strand attacked by Iranian speedboats just off the coast of Al Hanriyah in United Arab Emirates.
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