If it was a terrorist attack I would expect someone to have taken credit for it by now—otherwise there’s no point in committing the attack in the first place.
That leaves two likely possibilities:
IIRC, this particular plane had been undergoing maintenance recently. Maybe someone screwed up there, and that led to the crash. Wouldn’t be the first time.
It really was odd how the Iranian government put out a statement blaming a technical issue almost immediately after the crash. No way investigators would have had confidence in the root cause so quickly, even if they had immediate access to video showing parts falling off the plane or whatever.
Right, and if the plane really was shot down by either Iran or (possible but less likely) the US then that adds another 176 dead civilians to the body count already piling up around Trump’s escalation of hostilities with Iran (which also includes dozens of mourners killed in a stampede during one of the gatherings for Soleimani’s funeral).
This raised a red flag for me too. It had all the feeling of a soviet era cover up.
Bad post. Iran missile almost most certain the cause. Unexplained is why an airplane leaving an airport would be targeted rather than something incoming.
A complete fuckup by highly stressed and not-too-competent person in charge of a missile launcher?
That’s the question…
That’s the answer, and in hindsight it hadn’t even occurred to me.
But when I think about it, it makes sense. Sending a barrage of missiles towards a U.S. base in Iraq is BALLSY to say the least. It had everyone on HIGH ALERT. The chances of a direct retaliation by airstrike or by missiles from the “world’s greatest military might” was – to their thinking – a given. I’m sure there was a lot of frantic and nervy communications between the radar command and the kid with his hand on the trigger. Alsoi, in the wake of the assassination of one of their highest ranking commanders and ensuing terrible decision to strike back, the feet on the ground probably hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a few days.
According to Iranian accounts, communications between command and the SAM site were down during the incident. Protocol is that the SAM site is to get command authorisation before firing, but to use their own judgement if comms are down. The timespan from alert to firing was apparently something like thirty seconds.
And having comms down would probably increase the fear that there was already a retaliatory attack under way. The scenario makes sense, but does not change the tragic outcome.
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