Spanish track was fractured before high-speed train disaster, report finds

Re:Spanish track was fractured before high-speed train disas... by digitalPhonix on Sunday January 25, 2026 @11:29PM (#46761874)

> But it did look like an F-14

It absolutely did not. The RCS of an F-14 v/s an Airbus A300 is an order of magnitude different (probably 2 or 3 orders).

> There really was an F-14, just on the ground at an Iranian airbase

There was, but that’s a red herring for the root cause. Each ship’s radar independently and correctly identified and tracked the Airbus separate from the Mode 2 targets, but when communicating the track information between ships, the tracks were mixed up.

Source: The US Navy’s own account: https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/about-us/l...

> There was a combat camera team aboard the Vincennes, and the footage depicts considerable confusion and even ill-discipline amongst the crew (cheering, shouting, football game atmosphere) that contributed to one of the most tragic events in U.S. Navy history

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Spanish track was fractured before high-speed train disas... by edwcross on Monday January 26, 2026 @03:25AM (#46763134)

The URL you linked to results in a 503 error (Service unavailable) and the Wayback Machine returns "Error code: 403 Forbidden" with "Looks like there’s a problem with this site", for all timestamps I tried, in 2025 or 2024.

I'm outside the US so that's probably the cause. Is such information available elsewhere?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Spanish track was fractured before high-speed train disas... by skissane on Monday January 26, 2026 @11:00AM (#46767263)

I’m outside the US too and the link works for me

But this also works: https://archive.md/XsxT8

And also this: https://web.archive.org/web/20251208110440/https://www.histo...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Spanish track was fractured before high-speed train disas... by LorenPechtel on Thursday February 05, 2026 @12:46PM (#46902333)

The point is this is a fog of war situation. Mixing up who is who in combat is a very real issue where we have gotten better over time but have never truly solved.

I put the primary blame on Iran because they cleared a civilian plane to overfly combat they initiated. They set the situation up, a mistake happened.

Fog of war isn't like in a video game where it's just whether you can see something--in the real world by far the biggest factor is identifying what you see rather than simply seeing it.

[ Parent | on HN ]