Ukrainian Aircraft down in Iran

[karona]

Originally Posted by jolihokistix

Agreed that Iran has come clean on this 'relatively' quickly. Good for them.
In their announcement it still claims that the aircraft 'turned' towards a sensitive military installation. Is there any evidence (that we have not yet seen here) that it turned before the first impact?

Flightradar have produced a graphic showing the last departure plotted against previous flights, track and climb vectors are identical. There was nothing 'different' about the flight until the missile hit.
Sorry, can't post the link, search Flightradar24 on Twitter

[clareprop]

I have to praise the Iranian leadership for their behavior in this unbelivable situation. Only three days after the tragedy they not only admitted their fault but also apologized for it.

Yes, but only when they were faced with mounting pressure and incontrovertible evidence. They knew they were responsible within minutes but still tried to cover up.

[fatdeeman]

While I'm glad they have come clean, I think it has more to do with the undeniable amount of video and photo evidence in addition to the missile launches being detected by satellite.

Their very own civil aviation authority was more than happy to outright lie yesterday and claim that it would be impossible for a plane to continue flying after an AAM hit. They were in full on deception mode until they realised there was no getting away with it.

[Twitter]

Videos

Not only smartphones can take videos.

There are security cameras and dash cams running pretty continuously, which have picked up previous aircraft incidents and accidents...

As for “coming clean” - the crash site clean up points to another intention - until the last second.

Whether this sad affair and international and national protests might lead to a change in the political situation remains to be seen.

[Tegularius]

The Iranian government certainly deserves no credit for coming clean at this point. What if the United States had shot down, say, an Air France airliner 3 miles out of Chicago's O'Hare, and then denied it for 3 days as evidence mounted, and then only admitted it after the governments of Canada, France, and Britain said they had proof. Would we be applauded for "getting out in front of it"? The Iranians thought they could cover this up and only admitted it when it was clear they could not. Even then they blamed the United States! Unbelievable!

[aox]

Originally Posted by jolihokistix

Agreed that Iran has come clean on this 'relatively' quickly. Good for them.
In their announcement it still claims that the aircraft 'turned' towards a sensitive military installation. Is there any evidence (that we have not yet seen here) that it turned before the first impact?

Dont know, but will this just below or something like it come to be seen as relevant?

From the Wikipedia article about Iran Air 655, shot down by USS Vincennes in 1988:

When questioned in a 2000 BBC documentary, the U.S. government stated in a written answer that they believed the incident may have been caused by a simultaneous psychological condition amongst the eighteen bridge crew of Vincennes, called "scenario fulfillment", which is said to occur when persons are under pressure. In such a situation, the men will carry out a training scenario, believing it to be reality while ignoring sensory information that contradicts the scenario. In the case of this incident, the scenario was an attack by a lone military aircraft.

[Auxtank]

Well done to all here who stayed their hand on outright speculation and instead, with a cold hard methodical approach analysed the data as it came available.
Well done to the mods who pruned away the idle chatter and bollocks leaving the pertinent posts.
It is what we feared from the beginning - but, like others have said, we may be, in small measure part of the pressure that has forced Iran to admit responsibility.

RIP PS752

[Tegularius]

"Scenario fulfillment" is a good description of what happens. You fall back on your training that you've been drilled on over and over, and that involves following orders automatically. The captain puts together the information and issues the orders which go down the chain of command. The crew does not gather information and then have a debate and a vote.
I can see where punishing the crew that fired the missiles might be satisfying to the outside world but perhaps unjust in the circumstances. They thought they were at war, which was not an unreasonable assumption. Perhaps move the crew to another MOS that doesn't involve lethal weapons. In the case of the 18 crewman do a thorough evaluation, and perhaps break them up into different commands. I would be afraid that they would be too hesitant to launch on another occasion.

[fdr]

Originally Posted by nonsense

There's a world of difference between unintended consequences and foreseeable outcomes. While missiles flying, even missiles flying with innocent victims, was foreseeable, this particular outcome was not.

True, but it should be within the risk analysis of a military to comprehend what is the extent of mayhem that is unleashed with the commencement of action. That goes for all sides.

1. That there would be retaliation of some form following the targeted assassination of a foreign government person is foreseeable.
2. That the retaliation response would incur a response was a stated and expected outcome, That resulted in the twitter storm on the matter from one side, discussing action including attacks on cultural sites.
3. That the missile crew are under stress, and probably fatigued will be highlighted in the investigation.
4. The missile crews themselves are probable targets for SEAD suppression attacks had the retaliatory response occurred in that area, they had a reason to be concerned.
5. The spin up time on the missile system is around 8 seconds, not much time to correct a failure in SA arising from any anomalous observation, or any observation that is erroneously assessed as anomalous. In this status, a simple hiccup of a power supply to the ADSB OUT signal would be enough to start off a disastrous response.

A B738 departing from a nearby airport, climbing out at a sedate speed and altitude by no means looks like a air strike, yet, the wreckage stands in mute testament to the failure of the human side of critical decisions made under uncertainty and under stress. It is not unique, it is not dependent on creed, race, religion, it happens because we have humans in the system, and as often as humans are remarkable in their adept handling of complex issues, we collectively fail, and bad stuff happens. The 3C is always frail and limited by the time available to intervene before an irreversible action is taken. The only two ways to avoid these issues is to remove civil traffic from regions of warfare at any level, (not going to happen, that covers more fo the world than not) or to stop wars, which was discounted by Plato, "only the dead have seen the end of war".

This time, it was Irans fearsome error, last time, it was Russia's, the time before, well that was Ukrainian. Going back, past the the USS Vincennes, there was the DC9 off the left coast of Italy, civil planes have been attacked all over the world, Cathay Pacific, KAL (twice) and almost countless others. On too many occasions, the civil aircraft is deliberately targets, as furtherance of some agenda. Many of these aircraft have had sophisticated SSR identifying their status, yet it continues to be disregarded, which remains the fundamental problem, the non combatant status gets lost in the noise.

Unless we quarantine the airspace around hot spots, these events will continue to happen all too often, breaking hearts all round.

[marie paire]

"... had earlier said it would not work with the US or Boeing in the probe, but on Friday reversed its position....."
This is a lie. What they sid is that they ould not hand over the black boxes to Boeing (and the USA?).
Such position is entirely in line with the procedures laid down in ICAO Annex 13..

[Less Hair]

Looks like they immediately fired at it when picking it up. I read somewhere Tor can be set to auto fire mode. As soon as it's radar picks up anything the missiles go off. No button pressing needed, squawk doesn't matter.

Tor M1 handbook (russian):
http://library.voenmeh.ru/cnau/09ZffWX1yllVMet.pdf

[Coborn C6]

Originally Posted by Von Kitebender

...In spite of Iran's world standing I do feel sorry for them and am glad they have finally admitted guilt. Let's leave them to take the appropriate measures and hope the entire situation can be de-escalated.

Although the cause has now been established it is still important for a thorough aircraft accident investigation to be completed. There may yet be findings that are valuable in preventing or reducing the severity of future incidents.

Whether Iran can credibly continue to take the lead on that investigation is highly doubtful, not least when the man leading the responsible organisation was saying only yesterday that science precludes the possibility of a missile strike.

Hopefully another country will now be invited to take over the investigation, particularly the downloading and analysis of the black boxes, and for forensic examination of the surviving wreckage.

[lapp]

Originally Posted by jolihokistix

Agreed that Iran has come clean on this 'relatively' quickly. Good for them.
In their announcement it still claims that the aircraft 'turned' towards a sensitive military installation. Is there any evidence (that we have not yet seen here) that it turned before the first impact?

Obsviously it didn't, I believe Iran is trying to leverage the fact that "it turned -period-", incidentally toward the base which had been identified very early, and from where with good likeliness the missile was fired.
That just to beef up the excusing factors. Clearly it turned after impact, but the "detail" that it happened as a consequence is left out. Remember their communications are largely destined to be absorbed only domestically.
Then with time this "detail" will lose any importance and become forgotten. Their task ahead is to bring this to closure quickly, so I don't expect they will be to disputing further, now the general attention must be shifted away from this very sad accident.

posted by fox_niners before

[AndyJS]

Originally Posted by jolihokistix

Agreed that Iran has come clean on this 'relatively' quickly. Good for them.
In their announcement it still claims that the aircraft 'turned' towards a sensitive military installation. Is there any evidence (that we have not yet seen here) that it turned before the first impact?

I'm not impressed at all. They should have admitted it immediately, not waited 3 days.

[Teevee]

Originally Posted by AndyJS

I'm not impressed at all. They should have admitted it immediately, not waited 3 days.

I am always surprised at the number of people who think 'they' are just the same as us. There have been a couple of enlightening posts on here that have indicated the internal situation in Iran. The illusion of ONE nation is just that, an illusion. Factions just waiting for other factions to slip and concede an advantage which might yield more than just a few extra political points, others maybe literally willing to slip more than a metaphorical knife into someone else's ribs mean that truth and honesty can be double edged and potentially dangerous. Frankly I'm astonished it has only taken three days and am intrigued by what has gone on behind the scenes to facilitate this.,

[andrasz]

One lingering question remains, and hopefully the investigaton will shed some light on this. There appears to be a gap between the last transponder position and the postion of the missile strike. This may of course be easily explained by the known granularity of FR24 data, but in theory it COULD indicate a loss of transponder signal, which under the stressed conditions could have triggered the events.

[parkfell]

Originally Posted by andrasz

One lingering question remains, and hopefully the investigaton will shed some light on this. There appears to be a discrepancy between the last transponder position and the postion of the missile strike. This may of course be easily explained by the known granularity of FR24 data, but in theory it COULD indicate a loss of transponder signal, which under the stressed conditions could have triggered the events.

Would it not be the case that the Air Defence unit be notified by ATC that the aircraft was about to depart on a specified SID.
If this coordination failed to occur, then perhaps you could see how a trigger happy ADU would react?

If the whole truth is ever told, the human factors with sizeable SWISS CHEESE will undoubtedly emerge.

[MFC_Fly]

Originally Posted by lapp

Then regarding the question about why someone would have been out in the cold early hours with a smartphone ready to film, I think it's very possible that many in Tehran got to know of the Iranian launches, or even if they didn't, they went out to document any possible development, even if that could have been the last thing they did in their life. And they filmed, survived, and shared, we should be thankful.

I think it is much more likely that several people would have been 'out and about' at that time (06:15'ish), returning from salat al-fajr (pre-dawn prayer), which was at 05:44 in Tehran that morning. I am sure several of them would have had their mobile phones with them, possibly in their hand, and possibly several of them would have been using them at the very time. How long does it take people (I am talking the younger generation, not the decrepit old farts like me) to quickly select the camera on a phone that is in their hand and already unlocked, when they see something very out of the ordinary?

[lapp]

Originally Posted by andrasz

There appears to be a discrepancy between the last transponder position and the postion of the missile strike. This may of course be easily explained by the known granularity of FR24 data, but in theory it COULD indicate a loss of transponder signal, which under the stressed conditions could have triggered the events.

I don't think so. IF target tracking / IFF had lost transponder signal after the last plotted point, AND IF this fact alone was enough to trigger, THEN the missile would have been fired at a successive time (order of 10 - 30 secs ?), so the hit point would be more to the West, and the crash site not the same. To me it seems that timing of events is consistent with the hit being very close to the last transponder data.

[SAMXXV]

As an ex SAM operator (for 7 years) I found this very well written set of theories interesting & believable..... https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...nnocent-people