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