Originally Posted by
cappt
The real question here is why the Iranian airliner was off its filed route, over a sensitive military installation,,
The Mahan Air Aircraft seemed to be following a standard route to the north east of Syrian Highway 2. It involves a WNW track after crossing the Iraqi/Syrian border. Although it is barely transited by civil aircraft there were reports of QR jets using the same route and coming within the same distance (approx 5-10nm) NE of al Tanf as the Mahan Air flight did. On FR24 the only active flight as I make this post is a Syrian Air IL-76 that flew fairly close to al Tanf as well, seemingly without being intercepted. MEA and Iraqi airlines have been reported to use this route too.
I also believe al Tanf is not marked on aeronautical charts as a sensitive military installation. As far as the controlling body for that airspace (Damascus FIR) is concerned it doesn’t exist.
EDIT
Actaully on second inspection the track of the Syrian IL-76 was both lower, closer and more directly headed towards the al Tanf garrison than the Mahan Air flight was.
https://avherald.com/h?article=4da54d79&opt=0
From the flight track on the map at the avherald link you can see Mahan Air was never directly headed towards al Tanf, and stayed to the north/east of that dry salt lake to the north of al Tanf.
Now Syrian Air isn’t in any more contact with the US military than Mahan Air is, so why weren’t they intercepted (along with what seems to be Qatar, MEA and Iraqi airliners as well) while Mahan Air was on the same route?