CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Iran Air Flight 655

1988 aircraft shootdown over the Strait of Hormuz

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

Iran Air Flight 655 was an international scheduled passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai via Bandar Abbas that was shot down on 3 July 1988 by two surface-to-air missiles fired by USS Vincennes, a United States Navy warship. The missiles hit the Iran Air aircraft, an Airbus A300, while it was flying its usual route over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, shortly after the flight departed its stopover location, Bandar Abbas International Airport. All 290 people on board were killed, making it one of the deadliest airliner shootdowns of all time, the deadliest aviation incident involving an Airbus aircraft of any type, and the deadliest aviation incident in Iranian history.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Iran Air Flight 655” as 1988 aircraft shootdown over the Strait of Hormuz. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1988—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Iran, Flight and aircraft can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as 1988 aircraft shootdown over the Strait of Hormuz. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1988.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Iran Air Flight 655”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Iran Air Flight 655 primary sources, Iran Air Flight 655 archive and Iran research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Iran Air Flight 655”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Iran Air Flight 655” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.