From the linked article:
Images seen by OPSGROUP, shown below, show obvious projectile holes in the fuselage and a wing section. Whether that projectile was an engine part, or a missile fragment is still conjecture …
Projectile does not necessarily mean weapon, but that could still be the case.
Most of the passengers were Iranian, with a handful of Canadians. Few Ukrainians on board. So it really wouldn’t make sense.
Agree. This kind of internet speculation is how you eventually convince yourself there are cities on Mars.
All evidence points to a SAM, in which case it is likely an accidental shoot-down along the lines for USS Vincennes or the Ukraine disaster. The sort of civilian collateral damage that regularly happens when missiles start flying. Usually it’s only locals on the ground, this time it is important westerners-Canadians. /S
QANTAS 30 - oxygen tank explodes, blowing a 2 meter wide hole in the fuselage about 1 hour 17 minutes after take-off. Plane sucessfully makes emergency landing.
Air France 4590 - debris sucked into engine causes fire and engine failure causing aircraft to crash two minutes after takeoff.
ValuJet 592 - cargo chemical oxygen generators ignite hold fire that causes aircraft to crash ten minutes after takeoff
TWA 800 - short circuit ignites fuel-air mixture in center fuel tank causing aircraft to explode twelve minutes after take-off
There are photos being circulated of the guidance section of a missile, recovered several kilometers from the main impact site. The missile is likely to be one operated by Iran, not the US. But I do wonder if an Iranian crew was trying to shoot down a possible or confirmed US surveillance drone, and their missile accidentally locked on to the airliner.
Its only really TWA 800 which matches the scenario, but this was a brand new B738. Hardly relevant.
Apparently the government of Iran is refusing to release the black box data at this time.
There is no black box data at the moment, only a couple of damaged black boxes. This preliminary report strongly suggests the Iranians will run a professional investigation.
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That planes have unexpectedly exploded in flight for weird convoluted reasons seems a bit relevant.
Only one of the examples was an explosion like this. The others were more progressive failures. The TWA 800 failure was a center tank explosion in a Boeing 747. The engineering failures which made that possible have been addressed, and this B738 was nearly new, with fixes to its wiring which prevent explosions like that from happening now.
Airliners just don’t explode like this now. Yes, there is a remote possibility of a new failure mode, but the proximity of an active war zone makes that small probability very unlikely.
You’re assuming a mid-air explosion. The eye-witness reports I’ve seen via The Washington Post, AP and al Jazeera are of the airliner being on fire in the air and exploding on impact with the ground., with some internet commentators speculating that the aircraft broke up mid-air due to lack of a crater in photos. That could mean a missile. That could mean a bomb. That could mean a hold fire. That could mean an engine fire. That could mean a some really weird mechanical thing no one has seen before - and since a crash of a modern commercial jetliner is already a unlikely event you shouldn’t rule out unlikely weirdness ahead of time.
As for proximity to a war zone remember that Tehran is over 250 miles from Iraq and even further away from the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan. AFAIK that puts the airliner out of range of any American weapon, and while maybe the Iranians shot it down by mistake they would have had to be really, really trigger happy to fire on a scheduled flight hundreds of miles from a hostile border. A third missile possibility could be a MANPAD, but then you’re moving away from warzone accident and into terrorism, and hopefully no one is stupid enough to do something like give MEK a Stinger.
No one would be that…
OH there are definitely cites on Mars, underground!
There were 63 Canadians. Iran doesn’t consider them Canadians, but Canada does. Thirty from my town.
Yikes! That’s a LOT.
In every plane crash, it seems like the impact to the families of the victims never makes it into the news. I’m so sorry to hear this. Your community must be in a lot of pain right now.
Consider the source, but there is this:
I’ve a couple acquaintances in the Iranian expat community here, don’t know yet if they were directly affected; large number from Iran here, many second generation. Persian is how many identify themselves. Everyone I’ve ever encountered from that community has been kind, intelligent, and thoughtful; many are educators or engineers. CBC has been covering the impact on the families, many children, very sad.
Your experiences with ex-pats and second generation folks mirrors my own. Everything that’s happened in the last week is frustratingly sad.
@RickMycroft’s post above explains how that came about. The impact on their immediate communities must be devastating. For Canada as a whole it means the loss of dozens of young professionals and students with enormous potential.
