Boeing 737 Crash in Iran...

"The military was at its “highest level of readiness,” it said, amid the heightened tensions with the United States."

Does that not read like a lame attempt to redirect blame?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
"The military was at its “highest level of readiness,” it said, amid the heightened tensions with the United States."

Does that not read like a lame attempt to redirect blame?
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sure does.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
"The military was at its “highest level of readiness,” it said, amid the heightened tensions with the United States."

Does that not read like a lame attempt to redirect blame?
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It’s Trump’s fault...?
Didn’t we do shoot down airliner years ago, IIRC we paid restitution without admitting it?
 
In an attempt to keep this somewhat apolitical...I've been wondering if the Russian missile system can receive ADS-B. I cannot find much about it other than some advertising videos mostly in Russian. You'd think if they saw an ADS-B transmission it might temper the desire to shoot.

Was the aircraft headed towards any sensitive military or political sites? Was the speed and altitude profile indicative of a threat?

And last but not least, WTF were they thinking, allowing commercial traffic in the air at a time like that...just when they were expecting something bad to happen?
 
In coming ! all new meaning
oops wrong target.
 
The Aegis system had misidentify the target as an F-4 if I remember correctly and we were in full blown operations with Operation Earnest Will in the Persian Gulf. If you think like a Mullah the shoot down was probably preplanned and coordinated to coincide with U.S. retaliation that never happened.

Targeting your own population and pointing to the enemy seems to be a common middle eastern tactic having whiteness several examples in my lifetime.
 
In 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner, mistaking believing it was a F-4 fighter jet on an attack course. I’ve never read a convincing description of how that happened, but at least one other nearby ship, the USS Sides, identified it as a civilian plane.

When that incident happened, there had been numerous harassment attacks in the previous months and things were very tense. A year earlier, Iran had executed an unprovoked missile attack on the USS Stark and continued with speedboat harassment around all ships in the region. As a culture, Iran seems to like to bait the bear, to tease attacks and sometimes to execute them.

None of which explains why they would have fired on a “hostile” aircraft taking off from their own airport.
 
bflynn said:
A year earlier, Iran had executed an unprovoked missile attack on the USS Stark and continued with speedboat harassment around all ships in the region.
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You got that mixed up. The Stark was deliberately attacked by Iraq using a french made missile.
 
bflynn said:
In 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner, mistaking believing it was a F-4 fighter jet on an attack course. I’ve never read a convincing description of how that happened, but at least one other nearby ship, the USS Sides, identified it as a civilian plane.

When that incident happened, there had been numerous harassment attacks in the previous months and things were very tense. A year earlier, Iran had executed an unprovoked missile attack on the USS Stark and continued with speedboat harassment around all ships in the region. As a culture, Iran seems to like to bait the bear, to tease attacks and sometimes to execute them.

None of which explains why they would have fired on a “hostile” aircraft taking off from their own airport.
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USS Stark was Iraq’s doing. The little known naval battle (Praying Mantis) with Iran that occurred during 1988, was started by the USS Samuel Roberts hitting a mine. I was actually promoted to WO1 by a pilot who received an Air Medal for destroying an Iranian speedboat during that year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis
 
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DaleB said:
No. We did shoot down an airliner, but owned up to it immediately.
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No, we didn't own up immediately. First we said it was descending at high speed, it wasn't, it was climbing at at a routine climbout. We said it was outside the corridor, it wasn't. It took a very long time for the truth to come out on that one. The Pentagon issued a 53 page report blaming the pilot.

The fog of war blinds everyone equally.
 
The MC has decided to merge the various restarted threads on this subject and reopen the thread on the 737 that was apparently shot down in Iran.

This is a highly charged topic that involves multiple governments (not just the US and Iran). However, it does remain aviation related since it was an aircraft (civilian, no less) which was shot down. While this does mean that some sort of talk about governments is expected, the MC expects the members to stay away from political statements.

Should the thread move to become a "spin zone" thread, warnings with points will be issued (including for people who attempt to start a new thread to discuss the same topic), the thread will be permanently closed, and we will be forced to tell you all "This is why we can't have nice things."
 
They were brought down by a SA-15 (NATO nomenclature) a relative compact self propelled launcher which can operate on its own or tied to an early warning system...what we always worried about because it could get down in the weeds like a manpad...slant range altitude was limited as well as range which meant for quick engagements. It was effective for slower and lower targets. ADSB is not even a factor in any ADA engagement. Our systems often rely on a signature produced by a given airframe. First time I had an AWAC’s call traffic for me from 100 miles away he could also tell me the type. They only talked-to stop an an imminent collision.Technology is only better.
 
bflynn said:
In 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner, mistaking believing it was a F-4 fighter jet on an attack course. I’ve never read a convincing description of how that happened, but at least one other nearby ship, the USS Sides, identified it as a civilian plane
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Here is what happened (The VINCENNES shoot down was naturally a big topic when I went through AEGIS console operator training as a young Ensign).

We were involved in hostilities with Iran at the time. USS VINCENNES was at that time engaged in running gun battle with Iranian patrol boats and naturally expecting further action (the Iranians had fired at a US helo in the Strait of Hormuz and VINCENNES was returning the favor).

That was what was going on at the time the Airbus departed from Bandar Abbas. The Bus was flying a normal airline flight profile squawking the appropriate ATC code. VINCENNES was tracking the Airbus along with everything else in the air.

What happened from there could be described as confirmation bias facilitated by lax operating procedures.

CO of VINCENNES likely expected further escalation. An aircraft had departed Bandar Abbas (a joint civil/mil airfield where Iranian fighters were based) heading towards them. While they were tracking the contact under heightened tensions, someone (without identifying what watch station they were standing) blurted out over the intercom the statement that 'he's descending' at which point the CO assumed they meant the contact heading towards them was descending and he gave the kill order.

It is believed that what happened is that at one of the air defense consoles the track data being displayed had swapped from the Airbus to a nearby F-14 descending to land on the carrier and whoever made the statement was watching the radar picture of flight heading toward them while looking at the altitude display data for the wrong track.

So, in essence lax procedures combined with heightened tensions and a ship leaning a little too far forward in the saddle (after STARK, no CO wanted to be the first to take a hit before firing back) led the CO to believe he was being attacked and he responded accordingly.

A tragic accident without malicious intent. I suspect that something similar happened with the Ukranian 737.

Hope that helps explain it.
 
Velocity173 said:
USS Stark was Iraq. The little known naval battle (Praying Mantis) with Iran that occurred during 1988, was started by the USS Samuel Roberts hitting a mine. I was actually promoted to WO1 by a pilot who received an Air Medal for destroying an Iranian speedboat during that year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis
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The STARK effect is that in the aftermath, no US ship CO wanted to be the first one hit. STARK had essentially watched the missile fly right into them.
 
A simple check on FlightAware or Flightradar24 would have shown this was friendly, not foe.. or a copy of commercial air travel time tables, or simply listening to the freaking local ATC.. surely the plane received a takeoff clearance and departure frequency

Makes sense, this does not
 
Tantalum said:
A simple check on FlightAware or Flightradar24 would have shown this was friendly, not foe.. or a copy of commercial air travel time tables, or simply listening to the freaking local ATC.. surely the plane received a takeoff clearance and departure frequency

Makes sense, this does not
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Things that make sense to us sitting at home in sheltered environments don’t necessarily make sense to those on the front lines with itchy trigger fingers.
 
Tantalum said:
A simple check on FlightAware or Flightradar24 would have shown this was friendly, not foe.. or a copy of commercial air travel time tables, or simply listening to the freaking local ATC.. surely the plane received a takeoff clearance and departure frequency

Makes sense, this does not
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Well that’s assuming this ADA unit was using some sort of civilian app for IFF. They were expecting all out war. They could have easily been directed to cease using any unsecured electronic devices.

Even if they were using something like Flightradar24, as Fearless pointed out, in extreme stress, people don’t react in a normal or rational manner. The Vincennes incident is a perfect example of this and actually taught in fratricide classes in the military. They had everything they needed to determine friend from foe but failed to recognize the signs. Young crew, under stress, poor communication and maybe not proficient in their tasks or ROE for that matter. That’s all it takes. “Fog of War.”
 
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Fearless Tower said:
Things that make sense to us sitting at home in sheltered environments don’t necessarily make sense to those on the front lines with itchy trigger fingers.
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So they blow anything out of the sky? Close the airspace then
 
I agree...airspace should have been closed at least long enough for tensions to ease before allowing commercial airline traffic to resume.
 
The worlds leaders are irresponsible. Not thinking carefully enough or not caring about what might result from actions taken: Stop caring about power and wealth, start carrying about helping others and respecting a persons beliefs. Power, money, beliefs and discrimination is why this plane was shot down.

Live and let live
 
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Tantalum said:
Then close the airspace
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Well I don’t have the Iranian SCATANA 101 playbook but I agree, some sort of airspace closure probably would have been prudent. I can’t speak to the Iranian government’s decision on airspace command and control. I was just simply replying to why an ADA crew might fire on a civilian aircraft.

One thing is for certain, if this thing developed further, that would just be the first misidentification of many on both sides. I know of pilots who feared our own Patriot Missiles in OIF over the enemy SAMs. Fratricide is an inevitable part of warfare.
 
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Velocity173 said:
One thing is for certain, if this thing developed further, that would just be the first misidentification of many on both sides. I know of pilots who feared our own Patriot Missiles in OIF over the enemy SAMs. Fratricide is an inevitable part of warfare.
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I seem to remember at least one Patriot friendly fire incident in that environment. An F18.
 
Velocity173 said:
One thing is for certain, if this thing developed further, that would just be the first misidentification of many on both sides. I know of pilots who feared our own Patriot Missiles in OIF over the enemy SAMs. Fratricide is an inevitable part of warfare.
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So true...the the ALQ-144 we flew with could deference SA-7/14 but useless against a Stinger. An early engagement during Earnest Will we figured out that Stingers had migrated from Afghanistan and the Mujahadeen to Iranians as a stinger was launched from a platform but the target helicopter was inside the 400m effective min range.
 
DaleB said:
I totally agree; I would never want to breathe a world leader.
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“Irrespirable” - hey I learned a new word today!

It seems to be very rarely used. Only a handful of hits when I searched the NYTimes archives, once each in 1863, 1865, 1928, and 1981
 
AKBill said:
The worlds leaders are irrespirable. Not thinking carefully enough or not caring about what might result from actions taken: Stop caring about power and wealth, start carrying about helping others and respecting a persons beliefs. Power, money, beliefs and discrimination is why this plane was shot down.

Live and let live
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Power, money etc ..is also why the plane was build in the first place so what is your point ?
 
Warlock said:
So true...the the ALQ-144 we flew with could deference SA-7/14 but useless against a Stinger. An early engagement during Earnest Will we figured out that Stingers had migrated from Afghanistan and the Mujahadeen to Iranians as a stinger was launched from a platform but the target helicopter was inside the 400m effective min range.
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Yep. Back in 2003 and getting ready to go into Iraq in a few days, I was reviewing the effectiveness of our 144s against different MANPADS. Not reassuring. :(
 
Fearless Tower said:
A tragic accident without malicious intent. I suspect that something similar happened with the Ukranian 737.
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That much was fairly clear.

What I don't understand today is how you could shoot down an airplane taking off from your own airport. Did they think the US had a secret airbase at the commercial airport?
 
bflynn said:
That much was fairly clear.

What I don't understand today is how you could shoot down an airplane taking off from your own airport. Did they think the US had a secret airbase at the commercial airport?
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There was some speculation there were previous mystery targets aloft nearby on similar radial courses toward where the airliner was headed, but really only the people looking at the scope (which has also been pointed out in other sources, isn’t anything much like an ATC radar depiction/user interface) will ever know what they saw and what their orders were.

All warring aviation equipped militaries have flown things in such a way as to decoy the enemy by making their weapons look like airliners. It’s a two way street.

The fog of war hasn’t lifted yet. Never will.
 
denverpilot said:
There was some speculation there were previous mystery targets aloft nearby on similar radial courses toward where the airliner was headed, but really only the people looking at the scope (which has also been pointed out in other sources, isn’t anything much like an ATC radar depiction/user interface) will ever know what they saw and what their orders were.

All warring aviation equipped militaries have flown things in such a way as to decoy the enemy by making their weapons look like airliners. It’s a two way street.

The fog of war hasn’t lifted yet. Never will.
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I thought they turned off their radar...so it could not be targeted by radar seeking missiles?
They know we have stealth aircraft, so even if they did it may not have mattered. The soldiers are probably green, they panicked, and launched the missile.
 
Velocity173 said:
.... I know of pilots who feared our own Patriot Missiles in OIF over the enemy SAMs. Fratricide is an inevitable part of warfare.
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For good reasons, especially after the Patriots splashed a GR4 and a Hornet. At one point, I recall a SEAD Viper comment “If that Patriot spikes me again, I’m going to shoot it.”

Next words from the Viper were “Mud Spike, Magnum” and that’s how we lost a MPQ-53. It also helped drive the decision that Patriot could no longer operate autonomously against air breathers.


ETA: if you’re familiar with Patriot doctrine, they were operating with as their own HEU. I did the RADAR assessment on the GR4 incident and know why it occurred, though it should not have and would not have had they not been autonomous.
 
yup....bless their hearts.... :D

you do realize that some need to be treated and housed like animals.....and possibly even exterminated? Those are not able to understand your kindness.
 
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