Ukrainian plane carrying 176 passengers crashes outside Tehran airport killing all on board, Ukraine says

[Geee]

Fox News

A Ukrainian airplane carrying 176 people -- including passengers and crew -- crashed Wednesday morning shortly after takeoff near the airport in Tehran, killing all on board and turning farmland on the outskirts of the capital into fields of flaming debris, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's office confirmed.

Iranian state-run IRNA news agency reported the plane crashed just minutes after takeoff from the Imam Khomeini International Airport. The flight was bound for the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. All 167 passengers and nine crew members from different nations perished, both Iranian emergency officials and Ukraine's Foreign Ministry Vadym Prystaiko said.

No Americans were killed in the crash, Ukraine’s foreign minister said. Three Britons, three Germans, 63 Canadians, 10 Swedes, 11 Ukrainians, 82 Iranians and four Afghans died.

The crash of the Ukraine International Airlines flight came hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. soldiers, but both Ukrainian and Iranian officials said they suspected a mechanical issue brought down the Boeing 737-800 aircraft.

[Geee]

U.S. FAA bans airlines from flying over Iraq, Iran after missile attack on U.S. forces

[Valin]

Ukraine embassy in Iran drops reference to engine failure as cause of plane crash

January 8, 2020

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine’s embassy in Iran dropped an initial reference to engine failure as the cause of a Ukrainian plane crash outside Tehran on Wednesday.

It said in a second statement that the causes had not been disclosed and that any previous comments were not official.

Asked at a briefing in Kiev if the plane could have been downed by a missile, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk cautioned against speculation until the results of an investigation were known.

He also said that Ukraine had banned flights through Iranian airspace by its airliners from Jan. 9.

 

H/T ELINT NEWS

[Valin]

 

[Geee]

@Valin Too much of a coincidence to believe it was not 'collateral damage'.

[Valin]

4 minutes ago, Geee said:

@Valin Too much of a coincidence to believe it was not 'collateral damage'.

 

I hear ya....As I understand it it was past its scheduled maintenance check.

[Geee]

Russian missile strike eyed as one of many possible causes that led to plane crash in Iran: Ukraine

A Ukrainian official said Thursday the country is considering a Russian missile strike as one of several possible causes for a Ukrainian passenger plane crash that happened shortly after the flight took off from Tehran’s international airport early Wednesday morning.

"A strike by a missile, possibly a Tor missile system, is among the main (theories), as information has surfaced on the internet about elements of a missile being found near the site of the crash," Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's Security Council, told media in the country.

Ukraine is waiting for permission from Iran to look for missile debris at the crash site.

Iranian investigators on Thursday said the black boxes that belonged to the plane have been damaged and some parts of their memory were lost.

[Geee]

Ukrainian airplane shot down by mistake by Iranian anti-aircraft missile, Pentagon officials believe

The Ukrainian passenger plane that crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran’s international airport Wednesday was shot down by mistake by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile, Pentagon officials told Fox News.

Officials said U.S. intelligence increasingly points at the airliner being accidentally struck by a Russian-made missile, killing all 176 people on board the flight, just hours after Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles targeting two military bases housing American and coalition troops.

The revelations come as Ukrainian investigators reportedly are awaiting permission from Iranian authorities to examine the crash site and look for missile fragments. Iran's head of civil aviation was quoted by the ISNA News Agency as saying Thursday that it was "impossible that a missile hit the Ukrainian plane" bound for Kiev, according to Reuters, and its officials have blamed a technical malfunction for the aircraft’s doom.

[Valin]

CLOWN SHOW EXPERT:

 

Susan Hennessey is Executive Editor of the Lawfare Blog, a Brookings Senior Fellow, and a CNN National Security Legal Analyst and former Intelligence Community lawyer. She’s also, as you can see, a dishonest idiot. These are the “experts” Trump is supposed to have deferred to. Disgraceful, and a pretty good explanation of why our foreign policy has been a dumpster fire for the last three decades.

Related: The Suicide of Expertise.

Plus:

 

(Snip)

[Draggingtree]

 

1/10/2020

Iran Denies Downing Ukrainian Plane: We can say with certainty that no missile hit the plane

Filed under: General — Dana @ 12:09 pm

[guest post by Dana]

From the AP:

Iran on Friday denied Western allegations that one of its own missiles downed a Ukrainian jetliner that crashed outside Tehran, and called on the U.S. and Canada to share any information they have on the crash, which killed all 176 people on board.

Western leaders said the plane appeared to have been unintentionally hit by a surface-to-air missile just hours after Iran launched around a dozen ballistic missiles at two U.S. bases in Iraq to avenge the killing of its top general in an American airstrike last week.

“What is obvious for us, and what we can say with certainty, is that no missile hit the plane,” Ali Abedzadeh, head of Iran’s national aviation department, told a press conference.

Further, there are now concerns being raised about the integrity of Iran’s investigation into the crash:

The site of a crashed Ukrainian airliner near Iran’s capital Tehran has been cleared of all large pieces of debris and locals are trawling over the remaining wreckage, as calls grow for a full and transparent investigation into the disaster.

The lack of security at the scene has raised concerns over the inquiry’s credibility, just a day after western intelligence officials said Iran shot down the jet with surface-to-air missiles. Iran has denied any hostile act, calling the assessment a “big lie.”

An eyewitness at the crash site told CNN that looters and “garbage men” were “wandering around,” picking up debris, objects made of aluminum and anything else deemed valuable, as police and Revolutionary Guard Corps tried to disperse them.  http://patterico.com/2020/01/10/iran-denies-downing-ukrainian-plane-we-can-say-with-certainty-that-no-missile-hit-the-plane/