hooke.s_law: 27 flights were counted before, in&out Tehran airport.
27 flights went in and out of the Tehran airport...WITH TRANSPONDERS working. Something happened to this airplane, that cut all of it's communications, including transponder. The plane was headed practically right at
Prada's air defense site, not squawking, not talking, in the dark, toward soldiers on high alert, anticipating an attack.
Naturally, they shot it down.
I think the key question then is, what caused the transponder and radios to cease working, at the end of the radar plot?