Italy Now Denies Its Warship Pinpointed Position of Airbus
The Italian navy on Tuesday denied that an Italian frigate in the Persian Gulf had clearly identified the position of the Iranian Airbus before it was shot down by U.S. forces Sunday.
An official navy statement said that the frigate Espero, which was on escort duty in the Strait of Hormuz when the plane was downed, “was 70 miles from the scene and never had reliable radar contact with the Iranian airliner.”
It said the frigate’s radar had not reliably identified the position or the course of the plane.
A Naval Ministry spokesman had told a reporter Monday that officers monitoring radar screens on the Espero said the airliner “appeared to be slightly outside the space reserved for commercial traffic.”
The spokesman said later that it was impossible to identify positively the type of aircraft on the Espero’s screen.
Tuesday’s Italian navy statement confirmed, however, that the Espero heard a U.S. Navy ship ask an unidentified aircraft in the area to identify itself and to change its course.
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