Iran admits its rocket shot down PS752... "but Trump!"

Iran's president has finally acknowledged what Walt and almost everyone else have suspected from the getgo. It was indeed an Iranian missile that downed Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 on Wednesday, killing all 176 people (mostly ethnic Persians) on board.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran deeply regrets this disastrous mistake," Hassan Rouhani said late Friday in a post on Twitter. "My thoughts and prayers go to all the mourning families. I offer my sincerest condolences." Walt's lifetime pct .984.

Iran announced Saturday that its military "unintentionally" shot down the Ukrainian jetliner that crashed earlier this week, killing all 176 aboard, after the government had repeatedly denied Western accusations that it was responsible. The plane was shot down early Wednesday, hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on two military bases housing American troops in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in an American airstrike in Baghdad. No one was wounded in the attack on the bases.

A military statement carried by state media said the plane was mistaken for a "hostile target" after it turned toward a "sensitive military centre" of the Revolutionary Guard. The military was at its "highest level of readiness," it said, amid the heightened tensions with the United States. An Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander said his unit accepts "full responsibility" for what happened. In an address broadcast by state TV on Saturday, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that when he learned about the downing of the plane, "I wished I were dead." Walt thinks that can probably be arranged.

But the responsibility is not that of Gen. Hajizadeh alone, nor even that of the mad mullahs who form the government of the Islamic Republic. The "heightened tensions", we are asked to believe, were caused by the assassination of Gen. Soleimani, the mastermind behind Islamic terrorism that has plagued the Middle East sandpit for years and caused 1000s of deaths to Muslims and infidels alike. And who ordered Soleimani's assassination? Why, Still-President Trump, of course!

"In such a condition, because of human error and in a unintentional way, the flight was hit," the military said. It apologized and said it would upgrade its systems to prevent future tragedies. For its part, the Iranian government, through its foreign minister, expressed "profound regret" for the "incident". So that's all right then.

Credit where credit is due Dept.: Meme scraped from Blazing Cat Fur.

Not only "bad guys" shoot down commercial airliners

Agent 3 e-mail to chastise me for mentioning in my coda to yesterday's piece on the apparent shooting down of Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 by an Iranian missile, only the downing of Korean Airlines KAL007 by Soviet air forces. Agent 3 reminds me of two even worse "incidents", and possibly a third.

How quickly we forget [YOU forgot! Ed.] the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which crashed in July of 2017 near the border of Russia and Ukraine. The B777 -- a bigger plane than the B737-800 -- was supposedly flying at 10,000 metres (33,000 feet), at which altitude it could only have been hit by a large and sophisticated surface-to-air missile, probably the same Russian-built Tor-M1 missile system used by the Iranian military. See "Russian Missile System Suspected of Bringing Down Ukraine Airliner: Short Range, Fast and Deadly", Moscow Times, 10/1/20.

Who did that? The government of Vladimir Putin is keeping shtum, but the prime suspects were and remain the Ukrainian rebels, backed by Russia, trying to separate the eastern Ukraine from the motherland. Whoever did the dirty deed must surely have made a horrible mistake, firing on a civilian airliner. Right?

That tragedy was preceded, nine years earlier, by the shooting down of Iran Air flight IR655. On 3 July 1988 the Airbus A300 was en route from Tehran to Dubai when it was hit by an SM-2MR surface-to-air missile fired from... wait for it... USS Vincennes, a guided-missile cruiser of the United States Navy. The aircraft was destroyed and all 290 pax and crew were killed.

The large jet was hit while flying over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, along the flight's usual route, shortly after departing Bandar Abbas International Airport, the flight's stopover location. The Vincennes had entered Iranian territory after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits. According to the American government, the Vincennes crew mistook the Airbus for an F-14 Tomcat, an American-made jet fighter that had been part of the Iranian Air Force inventory since the 1970s. Rather a glaring error.

The US Navy claimed the Vincennes made ten attempts to contact the aircraft on both military and civilian radio frequencies, but received no response. The Iranian government said the cruiser negligently shot down the aircraft, which was transmitting IFF squawks in Mode III, a signal that identified it as a civilian aircraft, and not Mode II as used by Iranian military aircraft.

The event generated a great deal of criticism of the Paranoid States of America, and particularly Vincennes captain William C. Rogers III, for "overly aggressive behaviour in a tense and dangerous environment." Walt expects to hear phrases like that a lot, in the aftermath of this week's tragedy. In the days immediately following the incident, President Ronald Reagan issued a written diplomatic note to the Iranian government, expressing deep regret. Walt expects a similar note to be issued by the mad mullahs of the Iranian government, any minute now.

To round out this list, let's not forget Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, a B777 which vanished into thin air... or deep water... five years ago this coming March, with 239 souls aboard, now presumed dead. The Malaysian government declared the loss an accident, but no-one has yet been able to say for sure what happened to the large airliner. I continue to believe that the plane was shot down by either Indian or (more likely) American forces operating from the US military base on Diego Suarez. That would have been an accident... of course.

PS752: Cue Iran's "sincere apology"

Here's the headline Walt expected: "US officials say 'highly likely' Iranian missile brought down Ukrainian airliner". Lifetime pct .983.

The rest of the story, so far (the news is breaking just now) is that American satellites detected the launch of two missiles shortly before the Ukrainian International Airlines B737-800, operating flight PS752 from Tehran to Kyiv, crashed shortly after takeoff.

Reuters and The Associated Press both report that US officials say they believe the shooting down of the aircraft was "accidental". When Still-President Trump was asked about the crash at a presser a few minutes ago, he told reporters he had a terrible feeling about the downed airliner but offered no additional details. "Somebody could have made a mistake," he told reporters at the White House. "I have my suspicions."

As to the consequences, Walt's prediction is that there will be no retaliation by the USA, Ukraine, or anyone else. The government of Iran will express its "sincere regret" about the "incident", and will pay millions of petrodollars in compensation to the families of those killed. That will suffice for the US government, since doing anything else -- shooting down an Iranian airliner, for instance -- would provoke a war which, in truth, the Americans do not want.

There is a precedent for my prediction -- the case of Korean Airlines flight 007, which was shot down on 1 September 1983 by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor while en route from Anchorage to Seoul. The B747 deviated from its original planned route and flew through Soviet prohibited airspace. The Soviet Air Forces treated the unidentified aircraft as an intruding American spy plane, and destroyed it with air-to-air missiles, not accidentally but deliberately. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed.

Ukrainian Airlines tragedy: suspicions of terrorism mount

Sometimes silence speaks louder than words. ["The dog that didn't bark". Ed.] Here is what is known, now, about the last moments of Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752. The B737-800, fully loaded with fuel, lifted off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport at 0612 Wednesday, almost an hour late, for the four-hour flight to Kyiv. No reason for the delayed departure has as yet been given.

Tracking data suggests that the plane had reached a speed of about 500 km/h and an altitude of just over 2400 metres, when, about four minutes after takeoff, it suddenly plunged to earth, crashing near a soccer field and irrigation canal outside the town of Parand, 30 km northwest of the airport.

There was no distress call or other communication from the cockpit in the moments before the crash. The aircraft just disappeared from the radar == there one moment, gone the next.

Our aviation expert (Agent 17) says the sudden disappearance from the radar, combined with radio silence, indicates a sudden catastrophic event. If the plane had lost an engine or had other mechanical/technical trouble, there should have been time for the pilots to alert air traffic control and, perhaps, declare an emergency. But nothing was heard. Just silence.

The timing of the tragedy -- just four hours after the Iranians launched a barrage of missiles at two bases housing American and other international military personnel in Iraq, an initial reprisal for the Americans' January 3rd killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani -- raises suspicion that the plane may have been sabotaged or shot down... accidentally or on purpose. Stay tuned.

UPDATED: Crash of Ukrainian airliner work of Iran/Islamic terrorists?

New just breaking... Ukraianian International Airlines flight PS752 crashed just after takeoff from Tehran's international airport this morning, killing all 176 passengers and crew. Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Vadym Prystaiko said 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians and 11 Ukrainians were on board. The Ukrainian nationals included two passengers and the nine crew. There were also ten Swedish, four Afghan, three German and three British nationals, he said.

Some reports say the aircraft -- a Boeing 737-800 (not the same type as the Max8) -- was on fire when it crashed. That could indicate a mid-air explosion. May Walt be forgiven for wondering if this tragedy is in any way connected with the retaliation promised by the Iranian government for the killing of Gen. Qassem Suleimani by a US drone strike, late last week. Stay tuned.

UPDATE ADDED at 1230: Latest reports are that the Iranian government will not hand over the "black boxes" (=flight data recorders) from the crashed plane to either Boeing or America. Iran's semi-official news agency quoted the head of Iran's civil aviation organization as saying it was not clear which country Iran would send the black boxes to for analysis, but it would not give them to Boeing, which is based in the United States, a country with which Iran has no diplomatic relations. What does that tell you?