[ChiragM]

A Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 with 176 people on board crashed after taking off from Tehran, killing all. The plane was headed to Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.

The plane had taken off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in the Iranian capital when a fire struck one of its engines, said Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman for Iran's Road and Transportation Ministry. The pilot of the aircraft then lost control of the plane, sending it crashing into the ground, Biniaz said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

The majority of the passengers were Iranian nationals, Russia's RIA Novosti agency reported, citing Iranian authorities. The crash came hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting two bases in Iraq housing US forces in retaliation for the killing of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Tehran said the plane went down "due to an engine problem" and that "an act of terror is ruled out" for the moment. However, Ukraine's embassy in Iran issued a new statement later, omitting the mention of engine failure as the cause. Iran said it had found the two black boxes of the Boeing 737-800 plane that crashed but it will not hand them over "to the manufacturer (Boeing) and the Americans."

Source

Amateur footage of crash:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_iizkgIOfU

[Newpunter]

Iran was firing missiles towards US bases in Iraq around the same time. So I'm not sure if they hit the plane by mistake.
The Ukrainian embassy seems to have ruled out an act of terror too soon. But since then, Ukraine has suspended all flights to and from Iran, so there is something fishy going on.

[skanchan95]

Pictures of seeker head & wreckage of 9M331 missile found near PS752's crash site point to a possible shot-down by IRGC Tor-M1/SA-15 SAM. There looks to be holes possibly from shrapnel damage on the ill fated 737's engine, tail fin and skin as well.

They may have mistook it for a US warplane, expecting retaliation after launching those missiles at Iraq. Just around the same time as the 737 crash, there were rumours floating around that Iran shot down a US jet near Bandar Abbas.

[SmartCat]

Deja vu (sort of)

During Iran-Iraq War, the Americans shot down an Iranian Airbus A300 airliner thinking it was an Iranian military plane. 300 dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xulAVo85wWM

[balenoed_]

Originally Posted by skanchan95

Pictures of seeker head & wreckage of 9M331 missile found near PS752's crash site point to a possible shot-down by IRGC Tor-M1/SA-15 SAM. There looks to be holes possibly from shrapnel damage on the ill fated 737's engine, tail fin and skin as well.

Discussions are that how is it confirmed that the picture of the seeker head is indeed from this particular crash site.

Quite a lot of other crash site pictures here:
https://www.isna.ir/amp/98101813851/...mpression=true

[tsk1979]

It was a missile. Here is the video. NYT has confirmed its legitimate and various people have geolocated the location. The plane got hit, flew for a few minutes (was turned around) and then exploded

https://twitter.com/AlexKokcharov/st...42282007818241

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

It was a missile. Here is the video. NYT has confirmed its legitimate and various people have geolocated the location. The plane got hit, flew for a few minutes (was turned around) and then exploded

Why am I getting a feeling someone knew exactly where to look & at exactly what time...In the middle of nowhere in the dark sky. Its really a nasty world.

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by Reinhard

Why am I getting a feeling someone knew exactly where to look & at exactly what time...In the middle of nowhere in the dark sky. Its really a nasty world.

Pretty sad. Majority of the passengers were Iranian. How stupid for the government to kill it's own people if true.

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by Reinhard

Why am I getting a feeling someone knew exactly where to look & at exactly what time...In the middle of nowhere in the dark sky. Its really a nasty world.

When people hear a rocket, especially on a quiet night, they usually whip out their phones. So probably the case here. This video captures the last few seconds of the missile. So most probably somebody saw a rocket, and decided to film it.

[Newpunter]

Iran had just launched missiles on US bases around 4 hours before this flight, so it looks like they were expecting some strike back by the US forces and mistook the airplane for an incoming attack. It seems very similar to the downing of the Iran Air flight 655 in 1988.

It's very sad that civilians had to pay the price for a completely avoidable conflict.

[skanchan95]

Originally Posted by Red Liner

Pretty sad. Majority of the passengers were Iranian. How stupid for the government to kill it's own people if true.

Could be well be a trigger happy SAM site CO and crew. Highly unlikely that the Iranian govt would be involved in deliberate targeting of a civilian airliner.

Remember this crash happened just hours after the Iranian missile strikes. The Iranians were expecting some sort of retaliation, especially after Trump had threatened to target 150+ Iranian sites if they retaliated. In that fear and anticipation, they may well have mistaken/misread the 737 for a US Jet or Missile. Difficult to believe that such a dreadful mistake occurred, but it has happened in the past. The Iranians should have shut the airspace down after the missile launches to prevent such a disaster from happening. Their air defences would have been on the highest alert after those strikes. I am sure Iranian AF jets were in the air or were on scramble alert as well.

As of now, it seems to be a case of mistaken identity and a trigger happy SAM crew like Iran Air A300 shootdown by the crew of the USS Vincennes or the Malaysian B777-200(MH17) shootdown incident by pro-Russian Rebels.

Iran's Civil Aviation Authority wants the word to believe that it was an uncontained engine fire that caused the crash. But aircraft engines don't simply explode like that. The cockpit crew was highly experienced and its impossible to believe that would not have been in a position to shut down a malfunctioning engine

The pilots of the ill-fated flight were:
Captain Volodymyr Gaponenko (11,600 hours on Boeing 737 including 5,500 hours as captain)
Instructor pilot Oleksiy Naumkin (12,000 hours on Boeing 737 including 6,600 hours as captain)
First officer Serhii Khomenko (7,600 hours on Boeing 737)

[SnS_12]

This is really sad and also the decision of Iran to take away the black box and not hand over to Boeing makes sense now.

On that day once the news of the crash came in I was tracking the flight path of AI 131. After a few hours when the government declared that Indian airlines won’t fly over Iran, Iraq this flight was exactly over Iran

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

When people hear a rocket, especially on a quiet night, they usually whip out their phones. So probably the case here. This video captures the last few seconds of the missile. So most probably somebody saw a rocket, and decided to film it.

Considering the distance from which the video seems to be filmed, I doubt this. SAMs aren't loud enough to be heard from such a distance I think. Anyway - I'm hopeful that it was a pure unfortunate accident too. So that's that.

Originally Posted by skanchan95

As of now, it seems to be a case of mistaken identity and a trigger happy SAM crew like that Iran Air A300 shootdown by the crew of the USS Vincennes or the Malaysian B777-300(MH17) before this.

Yes, I feel so too. Compounded maybe with some technical issue or pilot error by the Ukrainian pilot resulting in disabling the ID squawk. If the transponder was squawking properly, the SAM radars would have identified it as a civilian.

Poor pilot training and planes with malfunctioning equipment being used in service isn't something new for eastern European and Eurasian countries.

Originally Posted by SnS_12

This is really sad and also the decision of Iran to take away the black box and not hand over to Boeing makes sense now.

Anyone would do the same. Handing over the box to Trump's country wouldn't be something a direct adversary would want to do. Obvious trust issues. Thanks to the political situation, its highly likely that we'll never know the mathematical certainty of what happened. This one might remain speculation for decades.

Originally Posted by SnS_12

On that day once the news of the crash came in I was tracking the flight path of AI 131. After a few hours when the government declared that Indian airlines won’t fly over Iran, Iraq this flight was exactly over Iran

Yeah AI131, BOM-LHR non stopper. My usual flight in fact. It always takes this route over Balochistan-Iran. Most Indian flights over to EU/North America take the route over Iran as it avoids flash-points around Turkey-Syria region & Iran has been a friendly nation. Now this downing makes things complicated.

[SoumenD]

Originally Posted by skanchan95

As of now, it seems to be a case of mistaken identity and a trigger happy SAM crew like Iran Air A300 shootdown by the crew of the USS Vincennes or the Malaysian B777-200(MH17) shootdown incident by pro-Russian Rebels.

Quite possible. And probably that's why Iran govt quickly said they aren't sharing the blackbox with either Boeing or anyone else.

[spyder_p8]

Originally Posted by Reinhard

Considering the distance from which the video seems to be filmed, I doubt this. SAMs aren't loud enough to be heard from such a distance I think. Anyway - I'm hopeful that it was a pure unfortunate accident too. So that's that.

Yes, I feel so too. Compounded maybe with some technical issue or pilot error by the Ukrainian pilot resulting in disabling the ID squawk. If the transponder was squawking properly, the SAM radars would have identified it as a civilian.

Poor pilot training and planes with malfunctioning equipment being used in service isn't something new for eastern European and Eurasian countries.

Anyone would do the same. Handing over the box to Trump's country wouldn't be something a direct adversary would want to do. Obvious trust issues. Thanks to the political situation, its highly likely that we'll never know the mathematical certainty of what happened. This one might remain speculation for decades.

Yeah AI131, BOM-LHR non stopper. My usual flight in fact. It always takes this route over Balochistan-Iran. Most Indian flights over to EU/North America take the route over Iran as it avoids flash-points around Turkey-Syria region & Iran has been a friendly nation. Now this downing makes things complicated.

The plane was almost a 2 year old Boeing 737. FlightRadar has posted flight data from this particular flight already in the public domain. So the ID squawk and transponders were definitely working and giving expected signals.