Caution Post-flight PS752 shoot down

The tragic downing of Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 by an Iranian surface to air missile took the lives of 176 people from 11 nations.

News media has highlighted the flight path, and video of PS752 falling in flames from the sky has been spread widely. We provide two New York Times provided videos.

NEW: Video @trbrtc obtained confirms Ukrainian airliner was hit. We verified location, altitude & direction matches path of #PS752. Verification details coming. https://t.co/27htZ0syZT

— Malachy Browne (@malachybrowne) January 9, 2020

"I heard a massive explosion, and all the houses started to shake." Witnesses describe the scene after a Boeing jet crashed on Wednesday in Iran shortly after taking off from Tehran, killing all 176 people on board.

Read more: https://t.co/wKWKLd7JeB pic.twitter.com/8zazre4bqh

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 8, 2020

Iran has vacillated on who they will allow to investigate the crash site. At first only Iran would be permitted, then yesterday we learned during Prime Minister Trudeau’s briefing to his citizens on the downing of PS752 which took the lives of 63 Canadians, that Iran has agreed to allow Canadian official personnel to enter Iran.

Similarly, the Iranian’s have invited representatives from the Ukraine to Tehran. Last night, Iran invited an investigator from the U.S. NTSB and Boeing to visit the crash site.

And while it is unthinkable the shooting down of PS752 was anything but accidental, place it in the context of Iranian’s President Hassan Rouhani’s Tweet of 06 January 2020 and it takes on a different hue of a bit of prescience. 

Those who refer to the number 52 should also remember the number 290. #IR655
Never threaten the Iranian nation.

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) January 6, 2020

Rouhani’s Tweet was a response to the U.S. President’s own Tweet about target 52 locations in Iran. Rouhani references the number 290, which were the number of souls on Iranian Air flight IR655, which was tragically downed in error by a US Navy surface to air missile in 03 July 1998 over the Straits of Hormuz.

The shooting down of PS752 clearly should have never happened. The technologies to identify civilian air craft have advanced significantly from 1998 to 2020. Western surface to air missiles are programmed to distinguish between a civilian Boeing 737 and a fighter jet. Russia, the provider of the missile system which downed PS752 has not put out a statement indicating that their systems had that capability. And if it did, one must ask, did the IRGC crew manning the system have the training appropriately use the technologies.

Is it safe to fly in the Gulf region. A quick review of air traffic in the vicinity of Iran shows the skies are full of commercial aircraft flying around Iran air space with a few exceptions. These exceptions include Kazan Air, Smart Wings, Qatar Airways, Oman Air, Kuwait Airways, Emirates Air and Royal Flight Airlines. Applications, like FlightAware are helpful in determining your aircraft’s expected flight path.

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