On 12 Tir 1367 (3 July 1988), Iran Air flight 655 (IR655) was shot down enroute to Dubai over the Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf by the USS-Vincennes simply (as they reasoned) mistaking that Airbus A300B2-203 aircraft (reg# EP-IBU) as a hostile fighter, killing all 290 people onboard. This happened towards the end of Iran-Iraq war and sure these innocent people paid the price of that stupid 8 year war as it was finally ended on 27 Tir 1367 (18 July 1988), just 15 days after the shooting down of IR655.

20 years later on the 15th Environmental Art Festival held at the Persian Gulf and as a remembrance of the above mentioned tragic event, the Iranian environmental artists decided to both pay their tribute to the killed people and seek peace in the Persian Gulf region the artistic way. SO they chose a place on the southern coastline almost next to the spot where IR655 was shot down and crashed,

draw the outline of an aircraft on the sand, placed pebbles and stones on the drawn plane and created the flight number IR 655 next to it as well, poured good amount of the powdered red sands of Hormuz on it and then waited for the high tide.


Soon as the high water occurred, the waves began to wash the cost and therefore vanish the drawn aircraft. So what was the artistic point or rather use of taking all the trouble of creating such huge aircraft on the sands to have it destroyed by the forcing waves? Well, the answer lies in the red sands poured on the the stones. Every time a wave crashed against the coast, not only was it returned to the gulf with the pebbles but also with the powdered red sands as well turning the blue water of Persian Gulf bloody red reminding one of the tragic death of the passengers of the shot down Iran Air aircraft.

At the end, the only thing remained was IR 655 to indicated that its memory lasts forever.

Then the artists put messages about the incident and a poem on peace written in both Persian and English in the bottles which were collected from around the beach and throw them into the Persian Gulf. The chance is somebody somewhere would collect it, read it and think about the peace and a world with out war.