Ukraine: Recordings show Iran knew jetliner hit by a missile

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By YURAS KARMANAU and JON GAMBRELL

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A leaked recording of an exchange between an Iranian air-traffic controller and an Iranian pilot purports to show that authorities immediately knew a missile had downed a Ukrainian jetliner after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 people aboard, despite days of denials by the Islamic Republic.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged the recording’s authenticity in a report aired by a Ukrainian television channel on Sunday night.

In Tehran on Monday, the head of the Iranian investigation team, Hassan Rezaeifar, acknowledged the recording was legitimate and said that it was handed over to Ukrainian officials.

After the Jan. 8 disaster, Iran’s civilian government maintained for days that it didn’t know the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had shot down the aircraft. The downing of the jetliner came just hours after the Guard launched a ballistic missile attack on Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces in retaliation for an earlier American drone strike that killed the Guard’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad.



FILE - In this Jan. 8, 2020, file photo, rescue workers search the scene where a Ukrainian plane crashed in Shahedshahr, southwest of Tehran, Iran. The downing of a Ukrainian jetliner near Tehran highlights the limits of the civilian arm of Iran's government against the absolute power of the Shiite theocracy and the paramilitary forces beneath it. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/940f1abd51a7389eb2cf36f4ae3feb25

[rickyhall]

1. Cause: Trump.

[Devil Child]

6. Cause: 9M330 surface to air missile from a TOR missile system

Operated by members of the Iranian military. No one but Iran is responsible for the downing of this Ukrainian civilian airliner.

[rickyhall]

7. Except Trump illegally murdered their general.

[James48]

9. False.

Trump is directly responsible for creating an environment where the Iranians were on high alert and launched. Had Trump not decided to:
1. Pull out of the nuclear accord, and
2. Kill Soleimani at the Airport in Bagdad,

Then:
1. Iran’s anti-aircraft units would not have been deployed, awaiting an American strike; and
2. Iran’s anti-aircraft battery would not have spotted a jet leaving Tehran airport, and fired a missile.

[Devil Child]

10. So I guess that rationale absolves the US of responsibility for the shoot-down of Iran Air Flight 655

Since we can blame the Iraqi government for military actions in the Straight of Hormuz which initiated a series of tit-for-tat responses between the Iraqi, Iranian, and US military. Should they be held responsible for the USN pulling the trigger on a civilian airline for the tense environment they created?

Also, Iran would not have been expecting a massive military response had they not fired SRBM onto American Facilities or had a IRGC general green light attacks on the US embassy which triggered his assassination in the first place. Iran escalated this and paid the price and showed the world their ineptitude and impotence in responding militarily towards a foreign power.

[SWBTATTReg]

2. I've noticed that IRAN has been awful quiet after this terrible incident. I guess what can they ...

say? Overreacted way too much and shot down the airliner of an independent country.

Nice way to become leader of the 3rd world, eh? The damage to Iran and its reputation can be solely pointed to one person and one person only, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. I know that there are other reasons why Iran is viewed negatively on the world stage by some, but the delay in accepting blame didn't help afterwards either.

No excuses, nothing can suffice to bring back the victims of this terrible incident.

These religious theocracy needs to go. This is what happens to a country when religious nuts (kind of like where we are at w/ the rump administration) go hog wild, and do stupid things without thinking. They alone, know what is best for everyone else so basically, everyone else should shut up.

Another nail in the coffin for organized religions. No wonder membership are down across the board as survey after survey of our younger generation see the pitfalls and dangers of these nuts and their misguided organizations.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. They expected Shock And Awe.

After all, we destroyed their next door neighbors for pushing back politically.

[Warpy]

5. Iran is a young country, meaning the average age is very low there

and most young Iranians, who have no memory of the Shah or SAVAK or the horrific abuses that led to the revolution also want the Mullahs to stick to religion and go back to secular government. Unfortunately, the west has long played into the hands of the current theorcats every time they start rattling their sabres, as there is nothing better than an external threat to get people to rally around a bad government. See: Dubya and 9/11.

I don't see it changing, either, since bad international policy seems to hang on forever. See: Cuba.

[Ghost Dog]

3. Here's the meat (from the article):

... A transcript of the recording, published by Ukrainian 1+1 TV channel, contains a conversation in Farsi between an air-traffic controller and a pilot reportedly flying a Fokker 100 jet for Iran’s Aseman Airlines from Iran’s southern city of Shiraz to Tehran.

“A series of lights like ... yes, it is a missile, is there something?” the pilot calls out to the controller.

“No, how many miles? Where?” the controller asks.

The pilot responds that he saw the light by the Payam airport, near where the Guard’s Tor M-1 anti-aircraft missile was launched from. The controller says nothing has been reported to them, but the pilot remains insistent.

“It is the light of a missile,” the pilot says.

“Don’t you see anything anymore?” the controller asks.

“Dear engineer, it was an explosion. We saw a very big light there, I don’t really know what it was,” the pilot responds.

The controller then tries to contract the Ukrainian jetliner, but unsuccessfully.

Publicly accessible flight-tracking radar information suggests the Aseman Airlines aircraft, flight No. 3768, was close enough to Tehran to see the blast.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. "This action by the Ukrainians makes us not want to give them any more evidence"

That's certainly the attitude they were taking earlier today:

Iran plane downing: Tehran ends co-operation with Ukraine

"We will no longer provide any documents to the Ukrainians," the head of the Iranian investigation team, Hassan Rezaeifar, told Iranian news agency Mehr on Monday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51356626

Get caught starting a cover-up, and then attempt another cover-up in retaliation.