The Record
American Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate, on Persian Gulf escort duty during the Iran-Iraq tanker war. Struck by two Exocet missiles fired by an Iraqi Mirage F-1 on the evening of 17 May 1987 in international waters. 37 dead — the first missile spread burning fuel through the berthing spaces, the second detonated inside the Combat Information Center. Iraq apologised and paid indemnity; Saddam Hussein personally called the incident an accident, an explanation that has held up through every subsequent review.
The Vessel
USS Stark (FFG-31) was an Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate of the United States Navy, commissioned at the Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle, Washington, on 23 October 1982. She was 138 metres long, 4,100 tons, armed with a single Mark 13 missile launcher (capable of firing SM-1 Standard surface-to-air missiles and Harpoon anti-ship missiles), a single 76mm Oto Melara gun, two triple 324mm torpedo tubes, and a Phalanx 20mm close-in weapons system. Her designed speed was 29 knots on a single-shaft gas turbine arrangement.
Her commissioning into the Atlantic Fleet placed her in a class that was the principal American frigate type of the 1980s and early 1990s. By 1987, Stark had completed two deployments: a 1985 Mediterranean deployment and a 1986 Caribbean counter-narcotics deployment. She was on her third full deployment, to the Persian Gulf, from February 1987 forward.
Her Persian Gulf mission was participation in Operation Earnest Will, the American naval operation to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers from Iranian attacks during the Iran-Iraq War. The specific tactical situation in May 1987 was complex: Iran and Iraq had been at war since September 1980; both sides were conducting attacks on third-party shipping in the Persian Gulf; and the Iraqi air force was using French-supplied Mirage F1 fighter-bombers armed with Exocet missiles to attack Iranian oil infrastructure and shipping.
The Voyage
USS Stark's commanding officer in May 1987 was Captain Glenn R. Brindel, 42 years old, a career surface warfare officer on his first major command. Her crew was 221 officers and ratings.
On the evening of 17 May 1987 Stark was conducting independent surveillance operations approximately 85 nautical miles northeast of Bahrain, in waters roughly midway between Iranian and Iraqi air operating zones. She was not escorting any specific tanker at the moment; her mission was passive radar surveillance of air traffic in the northern Persian Gulf. Her captain was not at battle stations; the ship was at standard sailing condition with her Phalanx CIWS at standby mode.
At 20:00 on 17 May 1987 Stark's AN/SPS-49 search radar detected an inbound aircraft at approximately 240 kilometres range, closing on a course indicating an Iraqi origin. The radar return was tracked over the following 47 minutes. Stark's combat information center identified the aircraft as an Iraqi Mirage F1, operating on a normal pattern for an anti-Iranian shipping strike.
At 20:58 Stark's radar detected a missile launch from the inbound aircraft at a range of 21 kilometres. At 21:00 Stark's watch officer challenged the Iraqi aircraft by voice on the international military channel; the challenge was not acknowledged. The Iraqi missile was already inbound at 870 knots.
The Disaster
The first of two Exocet AM-39 missiles fired by the Iraqi Mirage F1 reached USS Stark at 21:09 on 17 May 1987. The missile struck Stark's port side at Frame 43, near her crew berthing compartments. The warhead failed to detonate on impact but the missile's residual rocket motor fuel ignited and produced a fire that spread rapidly through the forward port-side crew compartments.
Twenty-five seconds after the first missile impact, the second Exocet reached Stark at Frame 75, penetrating her port side and detonating in her Combat Information Center. The CIC detonation killed the CIC watch team and destroyed Stark's primary combat management systems. The ship was, from the moment of the second missile impact, essentially defenceless and unable to coordinate her own damage control.
Stark's surviving crew fought the resulting fires for 24 hours. The ship's structural integrity was maintained by the remarkable performance of her damage-control teams under the most difficult conditions: her ship-wide firefighting water main had been breached in multiple places, her electrical power had been progressively lost, and her commanding officer Captain Brindel had been forced to direct operations by voice rather than through the ship's intercom system. By 21:00 on 18 May 1987 the fires had been contained.
37 of Stark's 221 crew died, all in the initial missile impacts or in the immediate aftermath. 29 were wounded. The ship did not sink.
The Legacy
The Iraqi government's response to the Stark attack was unexpected. Saddam Hussein personally apologised to the United States within 24 hours, described the attack as a misidentification caused by the Iraqi pilot mistaking Stark for an Iranian vessel, and offered compensation. The apology was accepted by the Reagan administration after some initial rhetoric about potential military retaliation; the Iraqi government subsequently paid approximately $27.3 million in compensation to the families of the 37 dead.
The American investigation of the attack, conducted by Rear Admiral David N. Rogers of the U.S. Navy, produced several findings that have shaped subsequent American naval warning-and-response doctrine. Among them: that Captain Brindel had not taken adequate measures to warn the Iraqi aircraft; that the ship's rules of engagement had not permitted defensive action against aircraft that had not yet fired; that the Phalanx CIWS had not been activated because the threat had not been correctly identified in time. Brindel was formally reprimanded; he was not court-martialled but his career was effectively ended, and he retired in 1988.
USS Stark was repaired and returned to service. She sailed to Bahrain for emergency repairs over 18-24 May 1987, then to the Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Virginia for full restoration over June 1987 through August 1988. She rejoined the Atlantic Fleet in September 1988 and served through the Cold War, the Gulf War, and subsequent operations until her decommissioning on 7 May 1999. Her name has not been carried by any subsequent American warship.
The Stark attack was, until the 2000 USS Cole bombing, the worst American naval casualty incident of the post-Vietnam era. The American Navy's subsequent emphasis on rules of engagement training, on pre-emptive activation of defensive systems, and on improved identification of inbound threats was shaped directly by the Stark investigation's findings.
The 37 dead of USS Stark are commemorated at the USS Stark Memorial at Naval Station Mayport, Florida, where the ship had been home-ported, and at the Florida Veterans Memorial in St Petersburg. Their names include two petty officers and 35 seamen, all asleep in the crew berthing compartments struck by the first Exocet. The Stark attack is the single most deadly missile attack on an American warship in the post-1945 period.