Ukrainian Plane Crashes in Flames in Tehran - Shot Down By Iran's IRGC

[derwoodii]

Iran announces its military 'unintentionally' shot down Ukrainian plane after initially denying responsibility

Iran has announced that its military 'unintentionally' shot down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing all 176 aboard.

The statement, run on Iranian state TV, came on Saturday morning and blamed "human error" for the shootdown.

Content from external source

https://7news.com.au/news/world/ira...-down-ukrainian-jetliner-killing-176-c-643039



the very new report is consistent with other world news sites

http://news.metabunk.org/

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I'm not at all an expert, but here's my guess as to the basic situation:

The number of Iranian personnel behind this is pretty small. Perhaps the crew of a single mobile unit. They are only partially trained. They were given the most basic directives, which they interpreted as, "Shoot at whatever crosses into your zone." They were not capable of seeing the bigger tactical picture, because they had limited equipment and/or limited knowledge of the equipment. I'm guessing their mobile unit was meant for a limited area of a hot combat zone, not for the general defense of a large area, and lacks the capability to provide a big picture.

They are basically incapable of abstract thought, but were not given the training and procedures to guide them through a complex scenario. They should have been given specific and simple directives from a sophisticated, interconnected system of specialized units. But either they had no effective communication with such a system, or there was no such system. They were on their own.

They may have been either seeking glory, or scared of not following orders and letting something through. And they were over-tired from being on constant alert for days on end. (Or they could have been third rate replacements for a first line but exhausted crew.) The limited range of their weapon put extreme time constraints on them. They had no time to put together any real awareness of the situation.

All this means that the direction of travel, speed, altitude, etc. - or even transponder - meant nothing to them. They had no way to realize it was a commercial airliner that had just taken off from a local airport. It was just something in their zone.

 

[Agent K]

It wouldn't be the first airliner that's been shot down by mistake. USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655, a Russian Buk shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Ukraine shot down Siberia Airlines Flight 1812, etc.
On the other hand, TWA Flight 800 crashed due to a fuel tank explosion, but there are conspiracy theories that it was shot down.
Metabunk has threads about airplanes being mistaken for UFOs, drones, and even missiles by people who should know better.

And it wasn't the first airliner that Iran fired on by mistake.

"Wary of Israel, Iran Is Said to Err in Strikes"
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/...srael-iran-is-said-to-blunder-in-strikes.html
The Iranian military was so apprehensive about the threat of an Israeli airstrike on its nuclear installations in 2007 and 2008 that it mistakenly fired on civilian airliners and, in one instance, on one of its own military aircraft, according to classified American intelligence reports.
The civilian planes were fired on by surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft batteries and intercepted by Iranian fighter jets.
“Iranian air defense units have taken inappropriate actions dozens of times, including firing antiaircraft artillery and scrambling aircraft against unidentified or misidentified targets,” noted a heavily classified Pentagon intelligence report, which added that the Iranian military’s communications were so inadequate and its training deficiencies so significant that “misidentification of aircraft will continue.”
In June 2007, the report noted, a Revolutionary Guards air defense unit fired a TOR-M1 surface-to-air missile at a civilian airliner. In May 2008, an antiaircraft battery fired on an Iranian reconnaissance drone and a civilian airliner. That same month, an antiaircraft battery fired on an Iranian F-14 fighter jet.

Content from external source

 

[TEEJ]

New footage. CCTV with the incorrect date but that is not uncommon.

The footage does appear to match up with 2 missile launches and then the fireball of the aircraft as it makes its turn.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeMoXqbqLBA