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Flight 752: How easy to target a civil plane as hostile?
Tehran, Iran - The Iranian government has admitted that UIA Boeing 737-800 was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile. On Jan. 8, the Ukranian International Airlines Flight PS752 crashed shortly after Iran hit the American bases in Iraq with ballistic missiles, a period when the Iranian Air Defense forces could be on high-alert status. (airlinerwatch.com) Mais...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
The iranian general who took the responsability of the accident told about a "radio jamming" that prevented the missile launching officer from getting the launch order and then took the decision himself. Since there are plots of the plane from different community ADSB/AIS platforms, it seems the transponder of the flight was in function. Sh... how they did not see it !!
The Iranian general made several claims, most of which were not believable. I *do* believe they shot it down by accident. I don't believe there was any radio jamming or transponder whatever nonsense.
My theory: the fat-fingered the launch button by accident (very unlikely) or they somehow mistook it for a drone (more likely). But we'll never know the truth.
My theory: the fat-fingered the launch button by accident (very unlikely) or they somehow mistook it for a drone (more likely). But we'll never know the truth.
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Get a grip John
The real truth: Got a guy barley making ends meet, sitting in the back of a pickup ready to pull the trigger and scared as hell he is about to die.
Some of the comments posted seem to imply that the plane shouldn't have been flying. This comes very close to the situation where a criminal says the victim asked for the crime to be committed. The criminal is still the bad guy, and the victims had little to no input in the situation. The poor person who pushed the button has to live with killing many of his fellow citizens. Many of our troops come home with PTSD from what they've seen and done. I imagine it's no different for Iranian troops.
My first reaction upon hearing of the 'accident' in Tehran was "what the hell was a civilian aircraft doing flying around there at that time!" And I immediately assumed it had been shot down. With rockets and missiles flying around it should have been a no-brainer to suspend flight operations. Any airline that accepted the risk of operating at that time owns the result irregardless of the other ingredients in the pie.
You are assuming the airline even knows about it. That's not the job of the airline, it's the job of whoever controls the airspace. This is what you get when you put modern(yes even this old system) into to the hands of incompetent people. Most likely the system was set to automatic launch. Due to the size of the target it followed up with a second launch.
No one has revealed exactly what the particular Iranian airspace protocols were at the time of this tragedy, but it appears that with imminent retaliation expected, Iran was attempting to get some key people out of the country on Ukraine PS752, including, apparently SIX nuclear scientists and some 60 Canadians who were working in-country.
Most likely neither Ukraine Airlines or Iranian authorities anticipated sabotage/electronic hacking of the flight several hours after Iran launched missiles into U.S. assets. With hacked avionics, e.g., no transponder, no comms, no electrical and no nav-lights, the crippled airliner was purportedly attempting to RTB when it was struck by two exploding TOR missile warheads. Iran's Russian made TOR defense missile system works by seeking out FRIEND OR FOE. In this case, Ukraine 752 appeared as a FOE hostile, like a cruise missile, and it was mistakenly fired upon in the fog of war.
BTW, you can hold a lit match over a 50-gallon open drum of JET-A and nothing happens. But if you suddenly compress JET-A and cause both compression & misting of the fuel with an ignition source, JET-A will explode. Visions of TWA-800 on July 17, 1996 with the China Lake like expanding warhead that sliced off the nose and cutting through the forward part of the center fuel tanks. See some of the video examples from the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Weapons Testing Center in California. Very nasty stuff.
Most likely neither Ukraine Airlines or Iranian authorities anticipated sabotage/electronic hacking of the flight several hours after Iran launched missiles into U.S. assets. With hacked avionics, e.g., no transponder, no comms, no electrical and no nav-lights, the crippled airliner was purportedly attempting to RTB when it was struck by two exploding TOR missile warheads. Iran's Russian made TOR defense missile system works by seeking out FRIEND OR FOE. In this case, Ukraine 752 appeared as a FOE hostile, like a cruise missile, and it was mistakenly fired upon in the fog of war.
BTW, you can hold a lit match over a 50-gallon open drum of JET-A and nothing happens. But if you suddenly compress JET-A and cause both compression & misting of the fuel with an ignition source, JET-A will explode. Visions of TWA-800 on July 17, 1996 with the China Lake like expanding warhead that sliced off the nose and cutting through the forward part of the center fuel tanks. See some of the video examples from the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Weapons Testing Center in California. Very nasty stuff.