THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 15, 1995 TAG: 9512150487
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
The Navy has decided not to proceed with plans to swap a Norfolk-based ship and crew with one from San Diego in order to avoid a sensitive issue in the Persian Gulf.
Instead, the ships will be left in their respective fleets.
In what was seen early this fall as an unusual step, the Navy had proposed swapping the San Diego-based guided missile cruiser Vincennes and its crew with the Norfolk-based guided missile cruiser Ticonderoga and its crew.
The Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner in 1988 while on duty in the Persian Gulf. The Navy did not want to send it back into the region where its presence could be seen as awkward for neighboring countries to Iran that might have to work with Vincennes.
There also was the possibility of reprisals from Iran, which vowed to seek revenge for the 290 people who were killed on the airliner.
But Navy officials said Thursday that the proposal was canceled this week.
The Vincennes will remain in San Diego as a unit of the Pacific Fleet. It is scheduled to begin a deployment in January to Central and South America.
It is doubtful, however, the Vincennes will ever return to the Persian Gulf.
``All of our ships are world-wide deployable,'' said Cmdr. Bruce Cole, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet Surface Force in San Diego.
The Ticonderoga, which is in a Hampton Roads shipyard until next month, will return to its previously announced schedule of transferring to Pascagoula, Miss., in June.
There it will become part of the 14- to 16-ship Western Hemisphere Group, patrolling in the Caribbean Sea and along South American waters.
The airliner tragedy occurred at a time when U.S. warships were stationed in the gulf to protect shipping and trade during the Iran-Iraq war.
A military investigation concluded that the crew of the Vincennes thought the aircraft they had spotted was hostile and preparing to attack their ship.
At the time, the Vincennes was under attack by Iranian gunboats, according to reports.
KEYWORDS: U.S. NAVY by CNB