The Ukrainian commercial plane that crashed on the outskirts of Tehran (Iran) on Wednesday could be shot down by an Iranian missile. This is suggested by images of American spy satellites, as official sources have indicated to the NBC network.
The Ukrainian secretary of National Security, Oleksiy Danilov, has indicated hours before on the social network Facebook that they are analyzing the unconfirmed reports about the discovery of fragments of a Russian ground-to-air missile at the site of the catastrophe, according to the newspaper The New York Times
It would not be the first time a similar incident occurs.
On July 17, 2014, a passenger plane of the Malaysian airline flying from Amsterdam (Holland) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) with 298 people on board exploded while flying over Ukraine. The Dutch authorities concluded that he was shot down by a Russian missile , allegedly fired by allies of that country in the hostilities that took place at that time in Ukrainian territory.
In the case of the plane wrecked in Iran, it would be explained, however, in the context of the war tensions caused by the death on January 2 in Iraq of the Iranian main general in Iraq, ordered by the president, Donald Trump .
In the device dropped in Tehran, a Boeing 737-800 , 176 people were flying from Iran (82), Canada (63), Ukraine (11), Sweden (10), Afghanistan (4), Germany (3) and United Kingdom ( 3). They were complete families, students, a newly married couple ... There were no survivors
The plane had taken off at 6:12 in the morning (local time), with a delay of one hour, from the Imam Khomeini International Airport, and crashed minutes later without having reached 8,000 feet .
It was packed with fuel for a 1,430-mile trip to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, and burst into flames against the ground near Shahedshahr municipality.
Earlier, the pilot tried to return to the airport , according to an official Iranian report, although at no time did he send an alert signal. The report, unveiled Thursday, says it caught fire in the air , according to The Washington Post.
"The trajectory of the collision indicates that the plane was moving west first, and then, after facing a problem , turned to the right and was approaching the airport at the time it crashed," said Ali Abedzadeh, director of Civil Aviation, in the report.
A security camera captured images of what happened:
https://twitter.com/raavionline/status/1215004215828865024
The Iranian Ministry of Transportation said the device suffered a fire in an engine and the pilot lost control .
They have recovered the black boxes that recorded the last few moments, but Iran has not wanted to share that information so far, as is usual in these cases, neither with Ukraine nor with Boeing, which is an American company with important ties with the Department of Defending.
The Iranian authorities have initially blamed what happened to a mechanical failure. The device was three and a half years old. The airline has said: "It was one of our best planes, " he said, "given the experience of the crew, the probability of error is minimal , we don't even consider that possibility."
Boeing 737-800 aircraft have suffered several fatal accidents in recent years, including one in Russia in 2016 with 62 victims and another in India in 2010 with more than 150. Last year they underwent inspections and repairs after reported cracks in their wings
It is in any case a different model to the Boeing 737 MAX , which was temporarily removed worldwide after two fatal accidents within five months with 346 fatalities.
Major international airlines have diverted their flights over the Middle East as far as possible, which has affected up to 15,000 passengers a day, causing delays of 30 to 90 minutes, according to the news agency The Associated Press.
"In a war situation, the first victim is always air transport," an expert, Mark Martin, told the agency.