Originally Posted by
A30_737_AEWC
So you posit that the Iranian SAM defence batteries :
(i) do not have the capability to identify 'non-threats' in the broad terminal area of one of its major commercial airports, and
(ii) identified an (unknown) foreign aircraft/air vehicle incursion in that same airspace at around that time that they considered it appropriate to respond to with a SAM ?
Any air defence system worth its salt has the capability to sort the 'wheat from the chaff' so to speak. Commercial RPT flights that squawk on what is effectively a civilian version of a IFF system shouldn't be processed as a target for the system to respond to.
Don’t ever underestimate the ability for humans to make mistakes or otherwise screw up. I lived in Iran for a number of years working as in instructor pilot for the F-14 program. The ability for Iranians to commit blunders was astounding. The first in-country F-14 flight performed by an Iranian pilot resulted in two million dollars’ worth of damage during the very first landing attempt in spite of me warning this particular Major not to try landing the Tomcat like he normally (incorrectly) landed his F-5. I’m still dumbfounded at some of the things the Iranian pilots and other IIAF personnel did. That was many years ago, but recent events tell me that not much has changed since then.
Of course, mistakes/blunders are to be found in any organization. The shoot-down of Iran Air 655 by the U.S.S. Vincennes is a perfect example. The Navy crew made a tragic mistake, but the pilots of the Iran Air flight put themselves and their passengers at risk by operating a civilian flight in an area of military hostilities. Naturally, that doesn’t justify what happened, but it does show how unintended consequences can lead to tragedy when civilians enter a zone considered hostile by a military force.
I wonder if the Ukraine 737 crew was aware of the fact that they were starting their flight shortly after a ballistic missile attack launched by Iran? It strikes me that every surface-to-air missile site in Iran would have been on high alert at that moment just like the crew of the Vincennes was years earlier. You say that any air defense system can easily “separate the wheat from the chaff”. True, but the Aegis system and the crew on the Vincennes failed to do so, didn’t they?
I remember looking down when turning final at Mehrabad International Airport, then a joint use airport and the only one serving Teheran at the time. The Iranians had just installed the British Rapier short range missile defense system. The crew manning the sites around the airport perimeter tracked us every time we landed and I assume they tracked plenty of civilian aircraft too. These were live missiles and we were one switch away from being accidentally shot down. Based on the crazy blunders I saw each day; I was rightfully nervous.
Could an excited Iranian missile defense site commander or one of his underlings get trigger happy and finish off an airliner with an engine fire, perhaps not showing an IFF code and making an unusual flight path toward the capitol city of Teheran? Unlikely, but so are many accidental shoot-downs.