Aegis Mistakes an Airbus for a Fighter Jet

The USS Vincennes' state-of-the-art Aegis combat system helped misidentify an Iranian passenger jet climbing routinely out of Bandar Abbas as a diving F-14; the crew trusted the screens over the transponder and shot it down, killing all 290 people aboard Iran Air 655. The most advanced automated air-defense system of its era couldn't tell an airliner from an attacker. It was very confident, though.