Ukrainian Jet Shot-Down By Two Missiles – NYT Report

According to The New York Times which accessed the security camera footage in Tehran has reported that two missiles hit Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 on Jan 8 instead of one. The missiles were launched from an Iranian military site around 13km from the plane. 

The new video also explains why the plane’s transponder stopped working, seconds before it was hit by a second missile. The new video now seems to have clarified that an initial strike disabled the transponder, before the second strike, also seen in the video, around 23 seconds later.

Neither strike downed the plane immediately. The new video shows the airliner on fire, circling back towards Teheran’s international airport. Minutes later, it exploded and crashed down, narrowly missing the village of Khalaj Abad.

https://youtu.be/JBZOB7XRkng

Mr Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s airspace unit, said that missiles were launched from a base near there.

Iran’s military blamed human error for the strike and said the Ukranian jetliner had been misidentified as a hostile target. But the plane’s flight path would suggest otherwise. It was climbing at around 2,000 feet per minute on its ascent from the airport when the first missile was fired, according to NYT analysis of flight data.

Flight activity from Teheran’s international airport was normal on the morning of Jan 8, the flight data showed, and Flight 752 followed its regular route. It was one of 19 planes that took off from Teheran in the hours after Iran launched missiles at military bases in Iraq housing US troops.