Iran admits fired 2 missiles at Ukrainian jet
Print Edition
Iran acknowledged yesterday that its armed forces fired two Russian anti-aircraft missiles at a Ukrainian jetliner that crashed after taking off from Tehran’s main airport earlier this month, killing all 176 people on board.
Iran said it had asked the US and French authorities for equipment to download information from black boxes on a downed Ukrainian airliner.
The new preliminary report by Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization, however, stopped short of blaming the TOR-M1 missile for the crash of the Boeing 737-800, flown by Ukraine International Airways.
For days after the January 8 shootdown, Iran denied it had fired missiles at the plane, initially blaming a technical malfunction and engine fire for the crash.
But after the US and Canada blamed missile fire for the crash, Iran’s armed forces said anti-aircraft fire from the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard had downed the flight.
The new report identified the missiles fired at the aircraft as coming from the TOR-M1. In 2017, Iran received the delivery of 29 TOR-M1 units from Russia under a contract worth an estimated US$700 million.
However, the report said: “The impact of these missiles on the accident and the analysis of this action is under investigation.”
Surveillance footage showed two missiles were fired at the plane. The two minutes of black-and-white footage purportedly shows one missile streaking across the sky and exploding near the plane. Ten seconds later, another missile is fired. Some 20 seconds after the first explosion, another strikes near the plane. A ball of flames then falls from the sky out of frame.
The TOR short-range air defense system, code-named the SA-15 by NATO, was designed during Soviet times to shoot down aircraft and precision guided weapons.
It is mounted on a tracked vehicle and carries a radar and a pack of eight missiles. Each vehicle can operate independently. Tor has a range of up to 12 kilometers and can hit aerial targets at altitudes of up to 6km.
TOR missiles explode near their target, taking it down with shrapnel that devastates engines, fuel tanks and other vital components.
It came clean on January 11, with the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace commander Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh accepting full responsibility.
But he said the missile operator who opened fire had been acting independently.
The 737 was downed when Iran’s air defences had been on high alert hours after its armed forces fired more than 20 ballistic missiles at US troops stationed in Iraq.
That was carried out in reprisal for a January 3 US drone strike that killed Iran’s most prominent military commander Qasem Soleimani, near Baghdad airport.
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