Hold Your Fire! Plane Down!

-

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (St. Matthew 5:4). Perhaps you are too young to remember or maybe you were not born as yet. In 1988, the US Navy (accidentally) shot down an Iranian passenger jet, Iran Air, Flight 655 killing all 290 civilians on boards.
On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines, flight 17 (MH17) a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down while flying over eastern Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. Fast forward to January 2020 and a Ukrainian Airline passenger plane which was en route to Kiev in the Ukraine crashed in Tehran, Iran killing all 176 passengers. Interestingly, the crash of the Boeing made Ukrainian airliner came only a few hours after Iran bombed bases in nearby Iraq which houses US troops. The plane's operator, Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), said 167 passengers and nine crew members were aboard when the plane took off from Tehran International Airport en route to Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, at 6:10 a.m. local time (9:40 p.m. ET). It disappeared from the radars a few minutes after departure. According to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko, 82 people on board were Iranian, 63 Canadian, and 11 Ukrainian, including the nine crew members. Ten passengers were from Sweden, four from Afghanistan, three from Germany and three from the United Kingdom. A great number of the Canadians were international students returning to universities. Canada has been hit hard. The crash ranked among the worst losses of life for Canadians in an aviation disaster. The flag over Parliament in Ottawa was lowered to half-staff. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday afternoon, January 9 that intelligence indicates the Ukrainian jetliner crash that killed 176 people was the result of a shoot-down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. “We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence,” Trudeau said. “The news will undoubtedly come as a further shock to the families who are already grieving in the face of this unspeakable tragedy.”  Apart from Iran, the majority of the passengers killed are Canadians. Jean, my cousin informed me that vigils will be held in Ottawa and Brampton on Thursday as a mean of solidarity to give support to grieving families. This is so senseless!  A report in The New York Times stated that two missiles fired from an Iranian air defense system, the SA-15, shot down the airliner. These Surface to Air Missiles used by the Iranians are supplied by Russia. Are you seeing a pattern? American satellites, designed to track missile launches, detected the firing of the Iranian short-range interceptor. United States intelligence agencies later intercepted Iranian communications confirming that the SA-15 system brought down the Ukrainian airliner, officials said. The same source added that a security camera captured the impact, first the predawn darkness, then a series of blinding bursts of light in the distance, followed by a storm of burning debris in the foreground. Iran added insult by her refusal to hand over the airline’s black boxes to Boeing, the manufacturer of the plane. This move by the Iranians clearly raised doubts early in the investigations as Iran claimed the passenger jet was downed due to mechanical issues. The word of the Iranians means very little on the international scene, especially in light of how Iranian State media reported over 80 US troops were killed during the attacks on the bases in Iraq. Many Europeans airliners do not fly to Iran; this is certainly going to make matters worse. Lufthansa is perhaps one of the few major international airliners which fly to Iran. Will Iran be brought to justice for this wicked act?  Any loss of human life is regrettably. Just imagine an airline filled with passengers; the loss is unspeakable.  Then on Saturday, January 11 news emerged that Iran admitted to the international community that their military mistakenly shot down the Ukrainian airliner. In a tweet, the Iranian President Hasan Rouhani said,  “Armed Forces’ internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane and death of 176 people. Investigations continue to identify and prosecute this great tragedy and unforgivable mistake.” 
In the words of Joan Bauer, you cannot measure the loss of a human life. It's all the things a person was, all their dreams, all the people who loved them, all they hoped to be and could give back to the world. Wayne Campbell is an educator and social commentator with an interest in development policies as they affect culture and or gender issues.
waykam@yahoo.com
@WayneCamo
#Ukraine #Iran #aviation #Canada
Wana News Agency/Reuters

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Insecticides, Air Travel And Safety

-
Image
We are not insects, we are human beings. To travel by air is a privilege. Air travel is a costly adventure as well.   Those of us who have been fortunate to travel oftentimes experience some amount of excitement leading up to that moment. This heightened sense of emotion happens to almost all of us irrespective of whether we are a frequent flyer or a first timer. This buzz never goes away regardless of whether you travel economy or first class. However, for some folks there is a sense of nervousness during travel. There are numerous lessons we can learn whenever we travel. For example, our outlook on life is often altered due to the interaction with other peoples and cultures. Once the airplane takes off and you begin to ascend into the clouds, sometimes of altitude unbelievable to those without this experience, one can feel like someone who is imprisoned until your flight lands and you disembark. It is usually at those altitudes that the airline crew informs you that they are going to
Read more

Vessels of Honour: Celestial Treasures

-
Image
“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”- Psalm 51:10. Many of us have a skewed understanding of God our creator. In many instances we believe or are led to believe that in order to be used by God we must be pure and sinless. This tainted view undoubtedly also impacts our relationships we have with God. Having such a distorted view of God and what God demands from us oftentimes lead us into disobedience. The same is true concerning the weight of condemnation. It is for this reason why it is critical for us to spend time in the Word of God which is the Bible. We all need to know God for ourselves. We often make excuses to study the Bible, yet, we will spend hours on social media or hours gossiping people’s business. Nowhere is gossiping more pronounced than in the church. The church as we know it is not a place of honesty. Why do I say this? Oftentimes we turn to the church in our moments of weakness and vulnerability yet, the solace and compassion that
Read more

Interrogating Black Fatherhood

-
Image
“What I've realized is that life doesn't count for much unless you're willing to do your small part to leave our children all of our children a better world. Any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father. It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father.”- Barack Obama. Fatherhood, especially black fatherhood oftentimes is not as celebrated as it should. As a result we continue to hear of the arguments surrounding my mother who fathered me. There are specific roles concerning the sexes and frankly speaking mothers cannot father children, likewise fathers cannot mother children. Indeed as a society we need to move the discussion away from these examples of oxymoron. This flawed premise has been around so long and unfortunately has become normalized in many societies. However, the time has come for us to have a serious and honest discussion as this argument must be interrogated and replaced with a sense of responsibility. In fact, there is one m
Read more