This was Iran Air Flight 655 which was shot down on a flight form Tehran to Dubai. According to the U.S. The passenger airplane had been misidentified as an attacking F-14 and destroyed mid-air with Sm-2RM surface to ground missiles. the event was surrounded by controversy and in many ways it seems like it was the fault of the captain of the ship that fired the missiles and the U.S. Military has tried to o everything to deny that.