On January 8, 2020, a Ukraine International Airlines 737-800 was shot down after takeoff from Tehran, killing the 176 people onboard. Iran initially denied that they did this, claiming that the plane had a catastrophic engine failure, but very quickly changed their tune. Well, reports now suggest that another commercial plane was "almost" shot down…
Continue reading: An A320 Was “Nearly” Shot Down Over Syria
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
It’s Israel’s fault that Iran is using Damascus airport in Syria as a strategic weapon storage... like there is no deserts etc. that can and should be used for that purpose like every other country does, In other words using humans as shields, then blame Israel if the shields are hurt...
Shielding military ops behind civilian flights is SOP in the region, by all sides. Often with the full knowledge and compliance of the civilian operator (although probably not in this case given who the parties involved were). This isn't the first time something like this has happened and also won't be the last.
Sanaa/Damascus/Mogadishu FIRs aren't for the faint of heart.
C'mon, is there any airspace that does not have civilian planes crossing it during surgical quick strike military operations.
You guys seem to be commenting as if Syria's story was the truth. A suggestion: do not believe anything that the Assad regime tells you. They are not to be trusted.
@Lucky - To my comment above:
Agreed, but I would also not trust Israel or Russia to tell the truth about anything like this either
The posted information is incomplete. based on what I understand of the information, Israel did not endanger the civilian aircraft, it was the Syrian anti aircraft forces that did.
Transporting war matériel near civilian aircraft to deter attacks violates customary international law rules prohibiting the use of human shields. Using civilian aircraft to deter counterattacks violates the same rules. As a rule, all sides are committing war crimes in the region...
Not certain why you are even covering this story.Do you anticipate any of your readers may be interested in visiting Syria any time soon?
Next time politics comes into this site I will be finished with it.
Interesting tidbit from avherald:
"The aircraft remained on the ground in Latakia for about 100 minutes, then flew to Damascus as flight WN-622 (typo in the ICAO code for the transponder, SWA-622/WN-622 entered instead of SAW-622/6Q-622) and continued schedule."
So it looks like Southwest operated a one-time domestic flight in Syria
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/wn622
Very glad you are covering this story. It is quite relevant to this blog despite what certain snowflakes like Steven are saying. I guess he likes burying his head in the sand and pretending that nothing like this is really happening
Israel - perhaps the country most constrained and victimized by the use of human shields in the world - being condemned for "hiding" behind an A320 by Syria is pretty rich.
More likely is Israeli F35's evaded Russian detection and to avoid hurting the sales of their S-400 system - the only thing they're producing that anyone actually wants to buy - they come up with this nonsense.
The Russians seem angry with the Israelis, and are releasing this to get at them. How true this is is hard to tell.
In a previous incident when Syrian air defenses shit down a Russian spy plane (with 20 or so killed) during an Israeli attack the Russian story was that Israeli F-15s hid behind a slow-moving Il-20, which seems nonsensical.
While I can't say I trust anything announced by Russia, particularly with regards to Syria, it does fit Israel's MO. They've been caught using civilian shields many times during time of war - this isn't out of character.
It's interesting that so many people seem to think it's fine to shoot through civilian shields because "they shouldn't be there in the first place". (Though I'd imagine most of them would justify anything Israel does and wouldn't believe that if it was Israeli citizens in the shield)
If you're being attacked through a civilian shield you could justify attacking it in self defence (collateral damage is unfortunate but largely unavoidable during war). Attacking through it (or using it yourself) when there isn't an imminent threat seems pretty unjustifiable to me?
My wife and I had plans to fly from Boston to Dubai on January 8th (and on to Bali 2 days later) but when we heard Iran was shooting misses at US air bases the day before, I cancelled the routing and flew to Bali through HKG instead. When we heard the Ukraine flight was shot down, and now this, makes us very glad we weren’t in the airspace then.
What Russian actions/statements made you all so skeptical about the Russian version of events? Because CNN says they are not to be trusted?