Free Flight, Free Speech

If you've been watching the latest news the tragic crash/ shooting down of the UIA 737 just W/NW of the Imam Khomeini International airport is in the news. It is a cluster*bleep* of epic proportions.

The shocking thing to me is what sort of line of communications did the tower and controllers at OIIE have with the IRG missile forces? There had to be some level headed person running the airport who could have said "No! There will be no more flights in and out of here until we have a clearer picture of what our military is dealing with." How hard would it have been to put 173 people up for the night at a few hotels while things settle?

I'm not choosing political sides here but there does seem to be a lot of responsibility on the Iranian's lack of forethought and premptive actions to prevent this tragedy.

I read about it. Very tragic indeed!!

Forethought is not in excess, these days.

Here's what I think;

When they planned the missile strike they did not want to give it away, and the strike was executed in complete secrecy. If there is any retailiation, they could hide under the 'cover' of commercial flights. Of course they then misidentified a plane taking off for a bomber coming in for an attack - knowing that they (radar / missile operators) are the first targets to be knocked out, and filled with coffee monitoring the midnight duty, feeling jumpy and wanting to protect their own life, hit the Fire button (or gave the command to fire).

If you want to go into a rabbit hole of conspiracies look up Olena Malakhova who was a passenger on that flight. I'm not saying I believe it, but the whole conspiracy is technically possible, not that crazy.

I don't know if the shoot down could be fully mitigated in this case, given how complicated the tensions are in that area. Unlike the MH17 case, where a simple request to NOT overfly an area that had shot down planes just a few days prior would have prevented it, this one is just pure bad luck, because it was not known to anyone that a missile attack was ongoing / a retailiation was expected.