U.S. Offers Up to $250,000 for Each Death on Iran Jet Shot Down in Gulf

WASHINGTON —  The United States has offered to pay up to $250,000 per person to families who lost relatives when the U.S. missile frigate Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf last year, the State Department said today.

But Richard Boucher, a department spokesman, said Washington will turn over the money only if the Tehran government names an “appropriate intermediary” to disburse the funds.

Of the 290 people killed on Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3, 1988, 250 were Iranians.

In general, the U.S. plan calls for Washington to pay the families of each full-time worker $250,000, while the families of others will receive $100,000.

Reagan Promised Payments

Boucher said the United States is not bound under international law to compensate the victims’ families, but then-President Ronald Reagan promised such payments would be made on humanitarian grounds.

Washington has contacted officials in India, Italy, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Yugoslavia to have them relay the offer to victims’ families in those countries. Although the countries have yet to respond, Boucher said the United States is confident the offer will be accepted.

“The same offer has been communicated to the government of Iran,” he said. “Unfortunately during the past year the government of Iran has ignored repeated efforts by the United States to obtain information from the families of the Iranian victims.”

Boucher said the U.S. government is ready to make payments to the families “so long as the government of Iran permits an appropriate intermediary to distribute the funds to the families.” An intermediary is necessary because the United States does not have diplomatic relations with Tehran, he said.

A Pentagon report found that a series of human errors led the Vincennes to mistake the Iranian Air Airbus A300 for a jet fighter.

Iran has charged that the United States violated international conventions on the safety of civil aviation when the Vincennes shot down the airliner.

It has asked the International Court of Justice to order Washington to pay compensation to the Iranian government, a move that U.S. officials have dismissed as a cynical ploy.