Monday, January 27, 2020

Iran's Military Knew It Accidentally Shot Down A Passenger Plane Moments After It Happened

Debris of the Ukraine International Airlines plane that crashed after taking off from the airport near Tehran on Wednesday. Nazanin Tabatabaee/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Business Insider: Iran's military knew it accidentally shot down a passenger plane moments after it happened, and a stunning new report details how it was covered up — even from Iran's president

* On January 8, a passenger plane carrying 176 people crashed outside of Tehran, in Iran. Everyone on board was killed in the crash.
* The plane was shot down by two antiaircraft missiles fired, by mistake, by Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Iran's military was on high alert in early January after the United States ordered a drone strike in Iraq that killed Iranian military commander general Qassem Soleimani.
* According to a new report in the New York Times, Iran knew that it had accidentally fired on the aircraft immediately — but the country's Revolutionary Guards hid the truth for days, even from Iran's president Hassan Rouhani.

Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, carrying 176 people, crashed in Iran on January 8. Everyone on board was killed in the crash.

The cause of the crash, Iran's government initially reported, was unknown. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps — a military division that answers directly to the country's supreme leader — suggested a potential mechanical failure on the Boeing 737 plane involved.

But days later, following claims from multiple foreign governments suggesting the plane was shot down, Iran admitted its mistake: A Revolutionary Guards soldier, on high alert in the wake of the US-ordered drone strike on Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, accidentally fired two antiaircraft missiles at the passenger flight.

That's according to a new piece in the New York Times on Sunday, which reports that Iran's Revolutionary Guards knew it had made the mistake immediately after the missiles were fired.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: It was Iran's Revolutionary Guards who shot down the plane, and they are answerable to to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As far as they are concerned, they did their job by notifying their superior on what had happened. I can also understand why the IRG wanted this information kept secret .... they did not want their anti-aircraft operators to have any doubts on doing their job. The question that needs to be asked is why did Ayatollah Ali Khamenei decide to keep this information secret from his President.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The degree to which Business Insider attempts to play with words to cover for Iran, is astonishing. They say " The plane was shot down by two antiaircraft missiles fired, by mistake, by Iran's Revolutionary Guards." But one can no fire a missile "by mistake". Firing a missile is a deliberate act. The Missile Battery commander may have mistakenly thought the civilian aircraft was a hostile military target, but those missiles were fired on purpose.

Anonymous said...

Agree with Anon above.

Anonymous said...

"The question that needs to be asked is why did Ayatollah Ali Khamenei decide to keep this information secret from his President."

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a godly man, who is convinced that he is getting into heaven, that everything that happens is god's will, who is deathly afraid of temporal consequences, ...

Roger Smith said...


Saying the shooters mistook the airliner for a cruise missile doesn't say much for Iran's military and seemed questionable at the time.

Bob Huntley said...

,,,