The Tragedy of Flight 655 : Iran Air Resumes Its Gulf Flights; Iraqis Hit Oil Installations

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran Air resumed flights across the Persian Gulf on Wednesday as conditions gradually returned to normal in the region where a U.S. Navy cruiser shot down an Iranian airliner Sunday.

The dhows, the sailing vessels that have plied the gulf’s waters for centuries, were also active again on their trade runs from the Arab side to Iranian ports across the gulf.

The resumption of routine air and shipping activity came as Iraqi warplanes attacked two Iranian oil installations in the Hassan and Gorreh oil fields about 450 miles northwest of Dubai. Both targets had been hit previously in the nearly 8-year-old Iran-Iraq War, now one of the longest major conflicts of the 20th Century.

Ships of Seven Navies

It was to protect neutral shipping along vital oil routes in the gulf that the United States and six other noncombatant nations sent elements of their navies to the region.

Wednesday’s air attacks were the first Iraqi military action in the gulf since Sunday, when the Iranian airliner, an Airbus operated by Iran Air, was brought down with the loss of 290 lives after it left the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas. The plane was on a scheduled half-hour flight across the gulf from Bandar Abbas to Dubai.

On Wednesday, an Iran Air Airbus left here for the ancient Iranian city of Shiraz, carrying some of the hundreds of Iranians who had been stranded on this side of the gulf since Sunday. Later in the day, Iran Air sent an unscheduled Boeing 707 to Bandar Abbas carrying nearly 200 passengers, including relatives of those killed in the Sunday incident.

May Never Be Found

Tehran Radio indicated that the bodies of many of the passengers on the ill-fated Airbus might never be found because they may have disintegrated when the plane was hit by at least one missile. Tehran Radio said that about 200 bodies have been recovered, and the search is continuing.

Meanwhile, the cruiser Vincennes, which shot down the Airbus under the mistaken impression that it was an Iranian F-14 fighter on an attack run, was anchored off Bahrain, where a team of six U.S. Navy officers arrived Tuesday to investigate the incident.

The investigation, directed by Rear Adm. William M. Fogarty, is expected to determine the course of events leading up to the launching of two surface-to-air missiles by the Vincennes, including the matter of mistaken identity, as well as whether the ship’s crew acted correctly under the circumstances.

Other U.S. Navy ships in the area remained on the alert Wednesday, challenging approaching aircraft and in one instance briefly targeting a civilian helicopter after an apparent communications breakdown.

The destroyer John Hancock was unable to communicate by radio with a helicopter carrying an NBC television crew and, as the aircraft closed to within 5 miles of it, the destroyer warned, “You are straying into a danger area and may be subject to U.S. Navy defensive measures.”

The helicopter, whose alarmed pilot said he had not heard earlier challenges, quickly identified itself, and moments later the Hancock informed the helicopter, “The direction of your approach and the flight profile you exhibited caused us to lock you up with weapons.”

Copter Is Allowed In

The Hancock later permitted the helicopter to move in to take pictures. The incident occurred about 20 miles southwest of the Strait of Hormuz.

In the strait itself, where years of war and heavy tanker traffic have left the once-clear waters highly polluted with crude oil, tankers moved slowly through calm seas. Much of this pollution is the result of Iranian gunboat attacks on heavily laden tankers, which sometimes spill part of their cargo when struck by gunfire. But some of it is the result of the practice of emptying tanks of ballast before heading into the gulf to take on cargo.

Salvage Ships on Scene

The salvage business has become so brisk that salvage ships no longer wait to be called out. Now, they pick a spot near the main shipping lanes and wait for the business they know is not far off.

Meanwhile, an official for Pan American, which flies within 20 miles of Iranian airspace on some regularly scheduled flights from Frankfurt, West Germany, to Karachi, Pakistan, said the airline is negotiating with governments in the region seeking a “wider berth” in its route there.

“We would like to be able to fly along a track that gives us more separation from Iranian airspace,” said Alan Loflin, a spokesman for the carrier.

Planning No Changes

Abdullatif Sultan, an official with Gulf Air USA and Canada, said his airline is planning no changes in routes or scheduling and has experienced no decline in passengers except for “a few Americans going to Bahrain who are afraid.” His carrier operates about two dozen flights out of London, Paris and Frankfurt every week to four countries in the Persian Gulf region.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci and other Pentagon officials conducted secret briefings for members of Congress on the Vincennes incident, and some of the lawmakers later commented on the information they learned.

California Rep. Leon Panetta (D-Monterey) said the Vincennes was on a heightened state of alert last weekend because the Navy had intelligence that “July 4th might be a day that something might happen.”

On the issue of whether Iran should be compensated for the loss of 290 of its citizens, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the issue was being considered “in the sense that lawyers are meeting on it and we know it’s an issue we have to decide.

‘So Many Ramifications’

“There are so many ramifications--precedents, who the money goes to, how much, how does it effect the perceptions of the incident, what were the facts, is it deserved?” Fitzwater said.

Asked whether President Reagan was giving any consideration to withdrawing the naval forces from the Persian Gulf, the White House spokesman replied: “No. We believe our policy is sound and appropriate, that it has been successful. And we believe that it has saved a lot of lives.”

Challenged on this last assertion, he said:

“The objectives of our policy were to maintain the international waters open for navigation. That has occurred. To protect the flow of oil out of the gulf. That has occurred. To maintain our commitment to the Gulf Cooperation Council (friendly Arab states in the gulf). . . . That has occurred. To maintain our presence to the exclusion of Soviet presence, and that has occurred.

“Lives are saved continually,” he said.

Times staff writers Marlene Cimons and James Gerstenzang in Washington contributed to this article.