Breaking: Ukrainian 737 Crashes in Iran. Possibly Shot Down. 160-180 Dead.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Which is why the bottom line answer turns out pretty simple: it’s reckless and grossly negligent to allow commercial airline flights to depart at night from my airport, if my AD forces are being authorized to shoot at potential night attackers anywhere remotely near it.

This seems to keep getting obscured in the thread by debating the largely moot point of what the AD unit itself could have done to prevent this given that airliners might be around, and sometimes comparing that to past cases of other AD operators which made mistakes firing at airliners their civil authorities had no control over. But again the fundamental difference here is that Iran could easily have prevented this or any airliner from taking off under such conditions and obviously should have, that doesn’t require any hindsight. No AD system can ‘shoot around’ airliners and maintain anything remotely like normal civil aviation safety standards. Especially at night. And all the more far fetched to suppose this could be accomplished if an air attack did in fact materialize using sophisticated electronic and cyber warfare measures against the AD system as well as employ VLO a/c and small low flying cruise missiles which would only appear fleetingly to the system’s radars and thus need to be engaged very quickly to have much hope of success. It’s crazy to allow airliners to take off into that kind of situation, and again this case is different than virtually any other past one in that the country making the shoot down mistake could have just ordered the airliner to stay on the ground.

82

The timeline put together on the Wikipedia article indicates that the departure of flight 752 was delayed nearly an hour from its scheduled 05:15 departure to its 06:12:47 actual departure. That was still about an hour before the 07:14 sunrise in Tehran.

83

I’m surprised that Iran is admitting fault. That’s a positive step in this senseless tragedy.

I’m not sure what comes next? Reparations to the families?

Nothing will ever erase the pain the families are experiencing.

Western nation’s will need to proceed carefully. The dangerous tensions in that region could easily ignite into a war no one wants.

84

Imho this is one time the US needs to stay quiet. Anything said would just inflame the problem.

Let the leaders of the nations with victims on the plane decide what comes next.

I assume Iran’s public admission of guilt was negotiated with these countries. Reparations has probably already been discussed.

85

interesting article. Iranian Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh of the IRGC Aerospace Defense had recommended a no fly zone. Apparently the suggestion wasn’t followed or the flight delay was after it was rescinded.

The plane was hit with a proximity fuse missile so it was not targeting engines but simply detonates as it gets close to an object. Pictures show what looks like sections of the tail along with large sections of the passenger compartment which suggests the plane was severed well forward of the tail.

You would think they would coordinate missile defense with air traffic. Many countries saw the danger of the situation independently and redirected their flights.

86

This is really as bad as it gets, in terms of incompetence. Only a full investigation can shed light on what led the Iranian SAM crew to think they were being threatened by a passenger jet with transponder on, two minutes out of their own airport, climbing along a commercial route. Other than the obvious fog of war. It’s tragic and very embarrassing given the history with Iranian Air Flight 655.

It remains to be seen whether there was any US activity going on in the vicinity. So far there are no indications that might be the case. My money is on a nervous, poorly trained crew.

87

Yes, Iran has admitted they shot it down. But only after their original explanation of engine failure was widely refuted. Now they claim the plane was nearing one of their bases. I guess there is no coordination between the military and air traffic control. I still blame Trump for having inflamed the situation.

And can anyone explain why Trump and Netanyahu are so anxious to see Iran develop a nuclear bomb?

88

The missile was apparently fired from an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base. This may indicate poor communications between the the IIRGC (who would also have been the ones launching the earlier rocket attack on the base in Iraq) and the regular military and air traffic control authorities.

The SA-15 identified as the weapon used, per Wikipedia, “The digital computers allowed for a higher degree of automation than any previous Soviet system of its type. Target threat classification is automatic and the system can be operated with little operator input, if desired.” The launcher may have been set to an automated mode that would fire on any aircraft moving towards the base, either though operator error or deliberately for faster engagement of expected fast-moving US cruise missiles or stealth aircraft. Again, poor communication concerning continued civilian air traffic is likely a factor.

I don’t think that civilian transponders would normally appear on a military anti-air defence system display, as the frequency bands they use would be different.

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A transponder code is meaningless unless used with other information. Someone would have to track the plane from take off to know if the assigned code was accurate.

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I have always believed that TWA 800 was shot down. The evidence is too great, as is the U.S. military’s denial.

I spoilered that because saying that is usually gets the same reaction as does saying that the earth is 6,000 years old.

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I’d ask “what evidence?” but then I don’t really see what it has to do with this thread.

FWIW, since you brought it up, I reject your hypothesis.

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What I wonder about is what will happen to the crew who launched the missile and to their immediate commanding officer. Blowing up a civilian airplane and killing a lot of civilians (also, the majority of them being Iranians or of Iranian origin)… I think that those guys are in for a world of hurt. I also think that this massive screw-up will damage the image of the Iranian government and/or military in front of their own population, right after they likely got a boost of support following their missile retaliation against American bases.

93

Never mind transponders, from what I’ve seen the shooting happened close enough for the plane to be visible from the AA battery, the missiles used have a maximum range of 12 kilometres and from the video of the shooting there doesn’t seem to be any clouds, the navigation lights (which neither cruise missiles or stealth planes use, obviously) from the plane would had been plainly visible.
And it’s not as if would had been an unexpected appearance, since obviously the morons in charge would had been seeing and hearing airliners following the same route constantly.

The level of incompetence needed for this to happen is such that I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened because the person in charge put the AA system on automatic to go for a toilet break.

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The operator displays and controls for the system will likely be indoors or otherwise covered. On top of that, anyone sitting in front of the controls will necessarily have eyes that are not quite adjusted to darkness thanks to staring at the illuminated displays, even if there is no other interior lighting. Plus there will be the glow of city lights to further washout the lights of any aircraft. Maybe automation played a part, but taking the time to try and visually correlate a target with a radar contact may not be quite as easy to do in the time allotted as you would think.

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Dunno, thinking an asending Airbus is an attacking F14 is pretty stupid. Medal winninly stupid.

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The SA-15 is a mobile vehicle-mounted system, with the crew operating it from inside the vehicle. If there is an optical sight this would be a backup in case the radar is jammed by enemy electronic countermeasures, and would not be used otherwise.

I suspect the initial denials were due to the privileged position and political power of the at-fault Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and possibly also to delays by the IRGC in passing on any information to outside parties at first.

97

Well in Trump’s case, the default assumption must be that the destabilization of the region benefits Putin. That’s always the simplest explanation for any of Trump’s actions.

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I’ve been reading the Airliners.net forum thread about this incident, there’s a translation from a Russian article of an interview with a radar engineer (presumably with experience in the system used to shoot down the plane),post hereand excerpts from the translation:

*"- The Ukrainian plane took off with a delay of about an hour. “It doesn’t matter, the message to the commander should have been received anyway.” But the point is not even in the schedule. The plane took off from a civilian airfield and went along a standard highway. A passenger plane cannot fly anyhow, it goes along a dedicated corridor.

The commander of the air defense system’s crew must see that the target is in the corridor allocated for passenger aircraft. This alone should show him: before him is not some American drone, but a civilian airliner. "

"- No one could confuse a passenger plane with a cruise missile under any circumstances. Unless it was just a monkey with a grenade, but a drunk monkey with a grenade. This means that Iran no longer knows what to lie.

At the Tor air defense system, as I told you last time, there are two locators. One is a panoramic one that rotates continuously and captures everything that flies around. When the plane took off from the airfield, the survey locator saw it in twenty seconds. And then all the while the plane flew, all six minutes, on the screen of the surveillance radar was the track. That is, from the very beginning of the flight it was clear where the target flew from. “Did they see the cruise missile launched from a civilian airfield?”

  • Of course. While only the survey locator was working, one would still think that something military was flying next to a civilian plane. But then the missile guidance locator turns on. The missile is aimed at the target by a very narrow beam, of the order of one degree wide. He distinguishes everything so well that there can already be no mistake. The probability that not only a civilian aircraft, but also something else military will fall into this beam is zero."*

Also in that thread there is a link to a video of the TOR-M1 system in use, at the 1:00 mark it shows an optical tracking system opening up and a short view of the screen from that system inside the crew compartment at 1:31.

Also in that thread I saw the link to a video showing both missiles being fired at the airplane, the first one hits the plane at around 0:20, the second one is fired 14 or 15 seconds later. It’s clear that there was a direct line of sight from the AA battery to the airplane and the distance, from what I’ve gathered was about 5 kilometers.

The should have known it was a civilian airliner and they should have seen it too.

I’ve talked about this with an Iranian friend of mine over lunch, the people are livid about what happened there but he told me he expects nothing more than one or two low rank, expendable people to be thrown under the bus to appease the masses.

Meanwhile the Iranian government demonstrates their priorities (and level of competence):
[Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards had taken a person who posted a video last week of the missile striking the plane into custody.

But an Iranian journalist based in London who initially posted the footage has insisted that his source is safe, and that the Iranian authorities have arrested the wrong person.](Iran plane downing: Person who filmed video 'arrested' - BBC News)

And:

“Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said that several people had been detained over the downing of the plane.”
No, not the people who shot it down, “30 people had been arrested for “taking part in illegal gatherings” - an apparent reference to recent anti-government protests”

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Re: Ale

I continue to maintain that none of this is as easy as some might make it seem.

It has an optical sight. Okay, so what? What’s the resolution on it? What’s the zoom it’s capable of? How well does it work at night? How well can it slew to and track an object flying inside a few kilometers?

The plane was traveling in a known civilian flight corridor (highway, as the translation from Russian says). Okay, again, so what? Actually, first, how do they know that for sure? Second, so what? How much of the air space around and above Tehran isn’t subject to regular overflight by commercial aircraft? If the answer is “not much” then being in such an area doesn’t really help to distinguish a threat aircraft from a non-threat. Use of designated or known commercial flight paths is great to help distinguish military from civilian in the middle of nowhere, but not so much when significant portions of the area to be defended are long or within a number of intersecting routes, or when the missile system itself is place directly in the path of such a corridor.

If I seem passionate about this, it’s not because I can’t countenance the idea of being wrong, it’s because the “it’s so easy, it’s like a video game” (my words) mentality is precisely what the regime WILL use to throw a bunch of junior personnel under the bus as it insists that higher ranking military and civilian officials did nothing wrong and made no errors in judgement or protocol in creating the conditions that led to this event.