Iran Airbus Probe Not Over, Reagan Says

President Reagan and defense officials, responding to published reports, warned Wednesday that it is too early to accept the findings of a Navy investigative team that reportedly has concluded that a tense and inexperienced crew misinterpreted signals and shot down a civilian airliner over the Persian Gulf on July 3, killing 290 people.

“I don’t think that . . . we could consider the report final until it has been submitted,” Reagan said in an afternoon news conference. “I have to feel the process has not been concluded.”

Several defense experts, including the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, added that a number of key questions remained unanswered, although the preliminary findings reportedly would exonerate the skipper of the U.S. cruiser that fired the missiles and would give a clean bill of health to the ship’s electronic combat system.

According to reports published in the New York Times and broadcast by ABC News, a six-person Navy investigative panel has concluded that the sophisticated $525-million Aegis weapons system on the cruiser Vincennes properly identified the speed and altitude of the Iran Air jetliner after it took off from an airfield at Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf.

But, the reports said, crew members monitoring the system were unnerved by a skirmish that had just taken place between the Vincennes and three Iranian patrol boats and incorrectly interpreted the Aegis information about the plane. They mistakenly concluded that the Airbus A-300 was a hostile aircraft descending toward the ship, the reports said.

The Navy panel reportedly found that the crew passed along the faulty data to Capt. Will C. Rogers III, who gave the order to fire on the plane.

At a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.) said that even if human error accounts for the Vincennes’ failure to accurately read the aircraft’s altitude and speed, it remains a mystery why the Iranian airliner did not respond to repeated warning calls from the Vincennes.

Warned Seven Times

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., said on the day of the shooting that the airliner was warned seven times to turn away from the ship but did not respond. The Pentagon has since asserted that the crew of the Vincennes detected transponder signals coming from the airliner that could only have come from an Iranian F-14 fighter. Both factors were crucial to the Vincennes’ conclusion that the approaching aircraft was intent on attack.

The reported findings of the investigation also leave open the question of how the 348-man crew of the Vincennes could have made such a blunder. The crew’s performance in nine months of pre-deployment training won an “outstanding” rating--the highest awarded--in anti-aircraft warfare, according to a Defense Department source.

An aide to the armed services panel, noting that the leaked findings of the report appear to leave both Capt. Rogers and the Navy’s cherished Aegis weapon system blameless, said some committee members are skeptical about the validity of the preliminary reports.

The closely-held 70-page report, compiled over four weeks by Rear Adm. William M. Fogarty and five investigators, was presented Monday to Gen. George B. Crist, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, which supervises Navy operations in the Persian Gulf. After reviewing the report and adding his endorsement, Crist is to present the report to Crowe early next week, defense sources said.

The report, accompanied by about 1,000 pages of supporting documents, would then be passed on with Crowe’s comments to Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci, who would give it to the President.

During any of those stages, the conclusions of the report can be amended, according to officials. They added that until it has passed through that detailed review process, the report’s findings are preliminary.

The official findings are very sensitive, Administration officials added, because they form the basis for any administrative or legal action that could be taken against Rogers or any of the crew of the Vincennes. They also are crucial in that they assign liability in the case.

The report’s leaked findings may influence Congress’ willingness to approve an Administration proposal to provide compensation to the families of victims who perished in the downed Iran Air jetliner. The proposal, which the White House proposed as a “humanitarian gesture” that would not imply U.S. blame, has met widespread resistance in Congress.

“If it turns out that human error was a big part of it and if it turns out that it was all our mistake, it increases the possibility of compensation for the families being approved by Congress,” Aspin told reporters.