To whom it may concern:
Everyone has their own right to blame on the authority.
Each individual demands his or her freedom to do whatever they want and need.
In short, for better or for worse, individual needs to realize that any action that individual takes a purpose to hurt others or to help others - the result will automatically falls back on that decision maker.
In other words, individual learns to accept the responsibility and reward or punishment from itself from man-made or naturalized dangers from the past two world wars and Tsunami, hurricane, snow storm, avalanche, forest fires, volcanoes...
We can pray to God or our own kindness with all of our mighty to love all sentient beings like ourselves so that there will never be hatred, greedy, and lusty for triviality like power, beauty, fame and fortune on Earth. May in Toronto, Canada
A few thoughts:
1. Iran shot down this plane, not the US.
2. Iran really really really did not want this to happen.
3. It was avoidable and should have been avoided.
4. The missile installations were very close to a commercial (and maybe military) airport. They were probably there to defend the airport, reasonably enough.
5. The military and the airport operator should have been talking to each other based on planning for just such a situation.
6. No operations should have been allowed anywhere near the airport while missiles are being launched. (Yeah, duh.)
7. The US assassination was a very high risk decision.
8. In a situation of heightened risk, all sorts of unintended and unanticipated consequences arise, especially in an already-charged environment such as Iran-US tensions.
9. Some of those tensions are the result of a belligerent attitude on the part of the US which should know better after many decades of involvement in the Middle East.
9. Wars claim innocent lives.
10. The lessons of this will not be learned by anyone.
4
How much more evidence do we need for people to understand that Iran needs to be regime changed?
2
@djrichard
How much more evidence do we need for people to understand that the United Staes of America needs regime change?
6
@Greg
Here in the USA we have elections every two years, and we have real political parties that are dynamic and changing.
Iran is a theocracy, which has done little for its people because it diverts all of its income into support for terrorism.
No comparison between the two, obviously.
4
Canadians will not forgive Iran or the U.S. for their parts in this unspeakable tragedy.
2
@Daryl
The loss of life is horrific, but I regard your juxtaposition of the US and Iran to be misguided and irrational. Canada and the United States not only are neighbors and allies; we have a deep intelligence sharing relationship. You would be surprised at how closely we cooperate. Iranian support of international terrorism hurts Canada as much as the United States.
4
I just don't understand how you can mistake an airplane for a cruise missile.
6
It seems the people in the streets of Iran are not seeing the blame falling on the US in this incident.
27
@bellicose
That's because Iranians are, by and large, educated and can see through the lies of their regime.
Unlike too many Americans.
22
No matter how anyone sticks up for Trump - he started this without the O.K. from our country’s Congress and has blood on his hands.
176 innocent were terrified and perished unnecessarily. Their loved ones will never be the same. Their homelands will never be the same. We Americans who are sorry will never be the same.
As the family member of airline employees, this incident resounds over and over in my brain and heart.
My sincerest condolences. This never, ever, ever should have occurred.
110
@ME - The downing of flight 752 was the culmination of a series of tit-for-tat military actions: As school boys would yell, "You punch me, I'll punch you harder!"
Can you not grasp that Trump's personal authorization of the assassination of General Suleimani represented major provocation? You can't behave in that manner and not expect retaliatory action.
Had that assassination not taken place, I suspect the missile attack on the airliner would not have occurred.
However, I realize that facts seldom affect how Republicans think and act....
45
C'mon, he hit a hornet's nest with a baseball bat. And you're shocked that the hornet's stung?
24
@Jaroslaw Rudnycky'j Sadly fools do not see the reality, they only see what their masters propaganda wants them to see, has Iran been problematic for years? Yes, was General Suleimani a nice guy? No, but even i can see ( and I am no tactiion ) that killing him would anger the people and unite a whole nation against the US and would prompt a response and well a response there was ( the missile attack on the US base ), with the already escalated tensions the US started probing the Iran border with drones and fighter jets, something i am sure Iranian air defense was aware off, so with the assassination and the troop build up and the constant border probing is it any wonder this tragedy happened, it sadly was only a matter of time. You are correct in that had Trump not taken it upon himself then those people would still be alive.
15
How technology developed. I think nobody can escape from the u.s eyes.
Did Fox claiming our stealth jets were flying over Iran's airspace anything to do with this?
1
@Matt Von Ahmad Silverstein Chong
More Iranian regime propaganda. No such report exists, on Fox or anywhere else.
2
Why is the "security camera" moving around as if it's hand held? It should be very stable if it's in an enclosure. Inquiring minds want to know.
2
@Rog
No. It is probably held by a bracket that isn't as rigid as it could be. It could just be wind. If it was a hand held camera the person would have followed the path of the plane. Inquiring minds now know.
1
@Michael (Boston):
"How in the world could a supposedly trained military official mistake a flying object steadily gaining altitude near an airport for a missile? "
How did the US Navy missile ship shoot down Iranian Air 655 in 1988? No single person made that decision to fire alone; the whole crews saw a plane coming and the commanding officer confirmed a quick (wrong) decision.
Surely the antiaircraft missile crew in Iran made a similar snap decision. Fear, the fog of war, quick decision (without sufficient information like tracking civilian transponders). Yes, that simple. That is how decisions are made by humans with limited information in the pressure of the moment in military situations.
2
What made the Ukrainian flight different from the 19 others that preceded it after the Iranian rocket strike? and what made the civilian transponder shut off? What made it look other than a commercial airliner to that Tor radar operator?
Lots of questions to be answered.
15
@Popsiq
From studying the timelines it seems that the transponder stopped transmitting about 1 - 2 minutes before the first missile arrived. If this is true, it made the plane vulnerable to attack.
1
It's in the article, "The new video appears to confirm that an initial strike disabled the transponder, before the second strike, also seen in the video, around 23 seconds later."
11
@Popsiq
..."an initial strike disabled the transponder..."
Please stop making excuses for Iranian military aggression. The whole world is discovering what happened.
8
Why is this video so wobbly? Looks more like a handheld camera, not a security camera, and if not fake, how did they know these missiles would be fired? If they did know, then this whole shootdown scenario is fraudulent, with operators bribed to fire on a civilian aircraft.
2
It's a wobbly handheld recording of a screen showing a static security camera, no? From what I can tell, the security camera does not move.
1
What's more significant is that 11 seconds after the first missile hits the airliner, the missile team fires again. What kind of cruise missile would survive the first hit? They were obviously shooting at a large target, like a transport plane, heavy bomber - or an airliner.
2
@mike
The TOR missile system routinely fires 2 missiles when a viable target is detected.. They are fired by the system, not a "missile team". However I understand that the team could have over-ruled the system
3
It is really sobering to see the video and placing yourself in the perspective of both onlooker and plane passenger. The passengers' last moments stretched into minutes of terror and shock. Shot down by an overly reactionary authoritarian regime without the skill or restraint to command their own military apparatus to prevent the killing of innocents. An inexcusable waste.
4
@Daniel H
"Shot down by an overly reactionary authoritarian regime..."
The TOR missile systems is fired by the software system, not by the regime. The on-site missile team could have over-ruled the system, if they had not been paranoid about attack from the American regime.
3
@Greg
There you go again, excusing the Iranian military for overt aggression against a commercial airliner.
The Iranian government is really working overtime trying to muddle the story here on the pages of the NYT.
I wonder what other online platforms Tehran is working?
2
Why on that video right on the top its written 2019 instead of 2020? From where it is certified?
2019 makes even on the Iranian calendar no sense.. You should check the calendar.
I am saddened that we’re at a point of such virulent bipartisanship that the commenters are already blaming this tragedy on Trump instead of the person who gave the order to launch the missiles.
Really, folks? That’s the same as saying that if a leader of another nation kills an American overseas, our Air Force would be justified in randomly bringing down an airliner of yet another nation, murdering citizens of several other nations.
Whatever you think of the Soleimani strike or Trump in general, have the decency to have that discussion separately. I don’t think the families of the crash victims want to see anyone use their pain as an opportunity to score political points.
27
@SA
The phenomenon that you describe is now a part and parcel of the US political dialogue. It is not merely sad; it is politically debilitating and PRECISELY what the Kremlin had hoped for.
It does not help, of course, that we have someone in the Oval Office who is not particularly suited for the job.
Thank you for your comment.
10
The plane was hit within 30 seconds of it's transponder stopping.
A pilot can switch off a transponder - seems it would be better if they could not. This was an issue on malaysia flight 370 also.
3
@Paul There were two missile strikes. The transponder stopped after the first strike and before the second.
11
@Paul “The new video appears to confirm that an initial strike disabled the transponder, before the second strike, also seen in the video, around 23 seconds later.”
10
@Paul I'm not sure I follow your logic. The article says the first strike knocked out the transponder and then the second strike came after the transponder was disabled.
7
Something doesn't seem to add up:
Plane takes off at 6:12
Plane crashes at 6:19
Time between 1st missile hit and crash about 1 min 10 seconds (counted from video)
Hence 1st missile hit about 6:17 to 6:18
Transponder not working about 6:16, 1-2 minutes before hit.
Could lack of commercial airline transponder signal for about 2 minutes have attracted missile system?
1
@Greg
Greg, I have been following your posts carefully for the last year or so. You have consistently defended Iranian support for terrorism; I recall one post where you said that Iran's terror policy was consonant with the UN Charter.
Now you are defending Iran in the face of clear evidence that the Iranian command and control system failed terribly and resulted in the loss of 167 innocent lives.
I hope that the NYT publishes my comment, and that readers of the NYT draw the appropriate conclusions.
3
@David H
I am seeking the truth and justice and fighting for both. What I defend is Iranian support of Palestinian legal and human rights. The UN authorizes the fight for those rights and does not define it as "terrorism".
Back to the subject at hand:
Is your "clear evidence" what you read in the article or is it based on what you've thought through yourself? I would appreciate your views on the errors you detect in my comment.
BTW the Iranian command did not fire those missiles by pushing a red button or instructing others to do so. They would have commanded the activation of their defence system, which is understandable in the situation. The missiles were automatically fired by that system. We need to know the truth about why and when they were fired. We do not need yet another cover-up.
1
the GOP is the most dangerous terrorist organization on the planet- Noam Chomsky
10
I am appalled at all the comments here blaming Mr. Trump foir "initiating a chain of events" that led to the downing of this commercial airliner.
Why not step back a bit further and blame the founding fathers of the USA for conceiving of a system of government and a Constitution that allowed American's to vote in an election that put Mr. trump into office?
Nonsensical, to put it mildly.
4
Anyone with a legal background understands the doctrine of proximate cause which requires a foreseeable consequence which is caused by a specific action. The proximate cause of the downed plane was the missile shot by the Iranians not Trump’s order to take out Suleimani, which was the proximate cause only of his death not the events that followed. Many of the Democrats are lawyers and know better.
3
Finally, a voice of reason. Thanks.
3
@David H I am appalled at the people that are incapable of seeing the chain of events that lead to this happening, even the NTSB use the tried and true method of figuring out what happened and then tacking it back to the primary trigger point and figuring out what prevention points there might have been.
list of events are: Trump orders the assassination of that guy that causes inevitable Iranian retaliation that causes US troops to be sent in and US fighter / Bomber jets to fly up and down probing the Iranian border as an show of power/provocation with threats of war, naturally making the defense guys fearful and on high alert.
Like the NTSB crash process, the trigger point for this was Trump and his choices and with out that primary trigger point the events that lead to the incident would not have happened and so the incident would not have happened, so sure while he did not push the button he sure shares the blame for triggering the event.
Kinda like someone backing you into a pitch black room full of odorless flammable gas, knowing you have matches then closing and locking the door and turning off the light and throwing the key into the room somewhere. Now who is to blame when you have no choice but to spark up a match to find the key and well burst into flames? Here is a tip its the person that backed you into that position and triggers the events.
To be on alert with armed surface to air missiles, and not suspend normal commercial aviation, is gross negligence. Don't punish the guys at the command posts. Blame whoever it was who ordered the high alert without suspending normal commercial aviation in the area.
11
Wondering why I see no mention that Russia ordered the strike. Seems to many I asked, that everything points to this, and NOT a "mistake".
1
I don't think it's too many dots to connect to say that if Trump hadn't pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, those 176 people would still be alive today.
Yes, the Iranian government was responsible for this, but only after the U.S. had been swatting at the hornet's nest for weeks and months on end. The nuclear agreement's collapse led to instability, growing tension, the assassination, and finally Iran's response.
56
@Brian Iran started this back in 1979
3
@Brian It's as if you are totally oblivious to everything Iran has done for the last 40 years....Utterly amazing...
5
@Mike. Well, if we're going down the Way Back Machine, let's recall the 1953 CIA-supported coup that installed the Shah of Iran over the popularly elected govt there.
9
My thoughts are with the passengers and their families. Watching this video it is difficult to think of how it must have been to be aboard that plane as one, and then two missiles hit. It is one thing to hear about the result. It is another to see it unfold in real time. These few seconds seem like an eternity. This tragedy stems from multiple failures on multiple levels, starting with the Trump administration and the Iranian government and their military and civil aviation authorities. But maybe in the resultant blaming competition we should also take time to consider the victims too. My condolences to all the passengers' families, friends and loved ones.
91
How in the world could a supposedly trained military official mistake a flying object steadily gaining altitude near an airport for a missile?
If one person was responsible, were there no command and control safeguards in place.
A terrible, avoidable tragedy.
26
@Michael
There needs to be coordination between the civil aviation authority and the military.
It would appear that Iran is NOT the scary military power that the regime in Tehran has tried to lead everyone to believe.
5
@Michael Well here is the thing, Air defense does not have all the ATC data and the defense radar does not go from ground to air it actually starts pretty high up, it is a pretty common flaw shared by all defense radar systems and it is often exploited by attacking forces, like as reported in the Iraq war where defense forces reported contacts suddenly appearing and then rising up before dropping bombs / shooting missiles, now if you look to this tragedy, to the defense operator a blip would have appeared high in the sky over the city and reportedly close to a sensitive isolation where no plane should have been at that time ( it was an hour late taking off) Add to that the US have apparently been flying drones and fighter bombers along the Iranian border, it is easy to see it was a accident waiting to happen.
6
@Michael
The missiles were fired by the defence systems software, supposedly under human supervision which could have been inadequate, paranoid, or intentionally aggressive.
3
Iran claims this was an accident. In my opinion, this was no accident.
5
But why was an "all clear" given for the plane to take off under these circumstances? Couldn't the pilots refuse? Were they misled? Odds are, we'll never know, but arresting individuals for collateral damage, as Iran is doing, won't fix this, and neither will "sorry" from POTUS for initiating the chain of events that brought the plane down. May they rest in peace.
5
@E. Smith
More self-flagellation.
Mr. Trump did not push the button that caused the deaths of 167 innocent people. And Mr. Trump did NOT force Iran to respond in the manner it did.
Iran is NOT the country that it portrays itself to be. This incident shows that it does not coordinate its civil aviation authority with its military. That is simply inexcusable.
Iran is now on the defensive. It can no longer have its cake (supporting terrorism) and eat it to.
I think we are witnessing a tectonic change in the way Iran comports itself. Let's hope so.
9
@E. Smith
The Quds Force has been designated a theorist organization. Iran initiated the chain of events by sending the commander of the Quds Force to Iraq to plot future terrorist attacks with Mahdi al-Muhandis, the commander of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, which also is designated as a terrorist group. The two met at the Baghdad Airport and both died in the Drone attack.
5
@David H
"This incident shows that it does not coordinate its civil aviation authority with its military. "
like the US did on 9/11.
It is indeed very strange to confuse a climbing Boeing 747-800 (137' long and 112' wing span) with a descending subsonic cruise missile, the biggest of which in the US arsenal has a length of 21' with a wingspan of 12' (AGM-86 if I'm not mistaken)!
But what's even more strange in the vicinity of an international airport, is the the lack of any communication (with the plane itself or air-traffic control) to eliminate the possibility of it being a airliner.
On that note, one missile strike could have been the culmination of a series of improbable but not impossible human errors. The second missile strike, if confirmed leaves the possibility at least of something more sinister.
22
@Ben Judgeson Were you alive or informed in 1988 when the US ship Vicennes did the exact same thing downing Iran Air commercial jet losing 290 lives? A tragic mistake, and Iran thought they had grounded commercial air traffic. But I firmly believe it was a mistake, and we should not be too judgmental based on our mistake in 1988.
3
@laddsmith Yes, of course I was alive and I'm also well about that incident both as an aerospace engineer and a dual Iranian national. Not to excuse that incident but these are two completely different beasts.
First and foremost, the USS Vicennes was not operating near an international airport - this is a very important consideration as far as the extra duty of care.
Secondly, they did make an attempt to contact the Iran Air flight on both civilian and military channels but received no response - this is not not the case here.
Thirdly, the Iranian Airbus A300 in level flight was mistaken for an F-14 in level flight. Although they would have had different radar signatures, it would be nowhere near the order of magnitude that exists in this case between a Boeing 737-800 and a MUCH smaller cruise missile. But more importantly, we're not talking about mistaking an object that is ascending with one that would be descending
- this is perhaps the most important issue.
Last but not least, the US Vicennes was engaged in a military battle with the IRGC at the time of the incident which significantly reduced response times and increased the possibility of human error.
Again, none of this excuses that very unfortunate chain of events and tragedy but the chain of mistakes that were made in this latest incident would have had to be a lot more serious for the situation to end as it did. I'm not saying it's impossible but it is improbable without gross and willful negligence.
7
@Ben Judgeson Read the Fogarty report, released by our government after the incident: Data from the Vincennes Aegis system confirmed that the Iranian airliner was on a normal commercial flight plan profile in the assigned airway squawking Mode III 6760; was in continuous ascent in altitude from takeoff at Bandar Abbas to shoot-down (neither in level flight, as you contend, nor a more menacing descent); and was over Iranian territorial waters (we initially covered up the fact that the Vincennes was in Iranian waters). Additionally, Iranian flight 655 was not equipped to receive 7 of the 10 transmissions from the Vincennes which were in a military frequency and the other three, in civilian frequency, were not clearly specific to that airliner (wrong airspeed noted, etc.). The Aegis tapes, reviewed after the incident, noted the Mode III and noted that it was a civilian aircraft, as did two additional US warships nearby.
This was a massive screwup on our part, due in large part to the temperament and mindset of the captain of the Vincennes, William Rogers.
Also worth mentioning, the compensation we eventually paid to the victims families was about one-tenth the amount per victim that we demanded from Iraq for their attack on the USS Stark.
1
Any aircraft accident is seen by the NTSB as a chain of events. The idea being that if one can interrupt the chain at any point, the accident can be prevented.
In this case, there are numerous points that could have been points for interruption. The biggest one being what a plane was doing flying in a "war zone"?. The inputs for this are many.
BUT.... let us never forget who sits at the very top of the chain. It's the President of the US that started this needless and it turns out, increasingly illegal assassination of Solameini, and why? All because he needed to change the narrative about his impeachment.
17
Nowhere have I read or heard it that Trump was ultimately responsible for this tragedy. The assination of Suleimani was an illegal act, an immoral act, even if he was an evil man.
Why hasn't this been commented on?
14
@Ruth Hall
I don’t follow your reasoning: Trump illegally assassinates an Iranian and is therefore directly liable for Iran’s subsequently reckless missile strike against the citizens of their own country and Canada?
10
@Ruth Hall
Because most sensible people, I suspect, do not believe that Mr. Trump was responsible for pushing the button that fired the missiles at a commercial airliner.
10
I believe this was a planned attack on this particular plane. The truth will hopefully come to the fore.
Unfortunately, like the Jamal Khashoggi killing, the perpetrators, and not the plotters, will be sacrificed by the plotters.
6
@Richard Nichols And the reason the Iranians would intentionally shoot down a passenger plane full of Iranians is ...?
5
I understand that two missiles fired is standard automatic procedure in the Tor defence system.
The critical question remains exactly when the transponder stopped working; at the time the first missile exploded or before the first missile exploded. IF it was turned off before, it would have attracted the missile attack.
4
@Greg In the war in Vietnam USA aircraft were able to sometimes evade a missile fired at them by a sharp turn at the last second which the missile could not follow. Firing a second missile would be a counter measure to this tactic.
Certainly the US monitored the electronic and other emissions of this event to enable improving our counter measures to Iran's air defenses.
1
@Greg
The critical question remains why Iranian air defense personnel shot down a civilian airliner in the first place. Please do not try to alter the discussion or the reality.
The more interesting issue is the dramatic shift in Iranian policy that we will now be seeing. For years Iran was able to engage with the international community AND support terrorism.
My assessment is that those days have come to an end. Its a horrible shame that 167 innocent people had to die at Iran's hands to make this policy shift happen.
10
And this is a country Trump is now allowing to go nuclear.
2
@Amanda Jones
Really? It is the same country Obama signed the JCPOA with but no objection to that?
8
@Amanda Jones
By "go nuclear" are you referring to building a nuclear weapon?
If so what makes you think Iran is going to "go nuclear"? What is their incentive for doing so? Iran is a large and powerful nation and has no fear of invasion from a foreign power. Why do they need nuclear weapons?
Creating the *impression* that Iran is "going nuclear" and actually doing so are two very, very different things.
And at the latter, they have succeeded brilliantly.
3
@David H
Sorry, that should read "and at the FORMER they have succeeded brilliantly."
2
Thank you for great article.
Is it true that, tragically, the flight took off an hour late, so it was not necessarily on any list of flights expected/scheduled to be in the air at that time?
And @Malcolm, I agree the seconds tick by agonizingly in the video, after the first and then second missile strikes: one can only imagine the pain, fear, and despair as the burning, crippled plane comes slowly apart.
Maybe it is illogical, but I feel ashamed of our (USA’’s) part in bringing a hellish inferno upon those innocent people.
19
@JPD I'd say it's absolutely no illogical. Ask yourself would this have happened if we didn't kill Soleimani. There's your answer
3
THere is something really wrong on those two videos. The date stamp is for the last year! The start of the stamp is 2019-10....
Most video takers would have the date stamp correct.
1
@Tab Persian calendar... Covered in the article.
12
@gp No, 2020-01-08 would be 1398-10-18 in persian calendar.
1
I blame Trump for creating an environment that gave the Iranians an excuse to intentionally shoot down a commercial airliner.
11
@Ryan , why "intentionally" ? Don't say that if you don't have proof for it.
9
@Ryan You are part right in that Trump created the environment for this to happen, however the shooting down was not intentional as there would be no reason to do so its not like murdering over a hundred people so publicly is a win win for Iran, because it is not and if anything has angered and redirected the public hatred from the US back to the Iranian leader.
No this was all set in motion by the orange man when he took it upon himself to assassinate General Suleimani and in so doing angered a whole nation prompting a retaliation on a US base that Trump then used as a reason to send in troops and start constantly probing the Iranian border with drones and manned fighters, it was only a matter of time till something happened like this
7
@ghisline ... Respectfully, what proof do you have that it was unintentional other than what the Iranians have publicly stated? The same Iranian government who denied that they shot down the plane in the first place until the pressure from the international community became too great. Based on the totality of the situation I think it's more likely than not the Iranians intentionally shot down this plane. I can't tell you why they would have done so but the video evidence of TWO missiles being fired at the plane strongly suggests this was not an accident. I believe the writer of this piece is implying this same conclusion but is not allowed to state that view explicitly due to editorial standards.
2
One Missile is a Mistake - Two is a targeted intentional downing of a Civil Airliner.
Low level minions will wear the blame similar to the Kassagi Murder.
A terrible tragedy that was triggered by an insane ruler !
22
@Nothernobserver , how do you know that they were sure it was a commercial flight?
4
@Nothernobserver This is a defense by a Russian manufactured anti-aircraft radar guided missile battery. As the name implies, there are several missiles "in battery", meaning within a compact area and controlled by a launch computer. Once a target is identified the entire array of missile launchers are included in the computer "solution", which will begin launching as soon as the command to hit the target is released. Only the missiles with likely "hits" are launched at first - in this case, two of them. This kind of intense and rapid response is characteristic of current air defenses where attacks and flight times to intercept are measured in seconds, and "shoot; don't shoot" decisions, once released by a human controller, are made by the computers.
7
The Iranian government has come clean because it got caught
21
@Bos
Unlike our President.
Was this a multiple failure on multiple levels? With just one missile I would agree, but with two?
Is there another shoe that's going to drop? Are we going to learn in the days ahead that there was someone on that flight the Iranians were targeting? Why were two missiles fired?
17
@Stephen George Seems how the system works.