USS Stark, a Perry class guided missile frigate, was under the command of Captain Glenn R. Brindel and was part of the Middle East Task Force.  She was sailing off the Saudi Arabian coast near the Iran–Iraq War exclusion boundary, the area of sea off Iran and Iraq. The Iraqis attacked with a French built Dassault Mirage F1 armed with 1,500 pound Exocet missiles.  It took off from the airbase of Shaibah at 20:00 and headed south into the Persian Gulf also along the coast.