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#UkraineAirlines752 shootdown: How could this have happened?

Published

6 years ago

January 13, 2020

I am a defence analyst and writer specializing in air defence, radar and electronic warfare. Herewith some thoughts on the failures that may have resulted in the loss of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 over Tehran on 8 January, writes Dr. Thomas Withington, Military Radar, Communications, Electronic Warfare.

1) Identification Friend or Foe (errors) - The Russian SA-15 missile system supplied to Iran uses an IFF system to determine if an aircraft is friendly or hostile. This receives a coded radio signal from the aircraft giving its identity, speed and altitude. As the loss of MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 illustrated, there are serious concerns regarding the performance and proficiency of Russian IFF systems.

2) Procedures - Iranian IFF may have failed to identify the aircraft as friendly. Although Iranian air defenders were on a 'hair trigger' as a result of regional tensions with the US, procedures should have been in place to stop such an incident occurring even when on high alert. It appears they were not.

3) Training - It should be extremely difficult to shoot down an airliner by accident. Sufficient training should prepares air defenders to detect anomalies in normal day-to-day air traffic, enabling them to detect suspicious activity and hence a threat. An airliner making a standard, scheduled departure as briefed on its flight plan should not have raised suspicions. Even if the aircraft's IFF signal had for some reason malfunctioned, procedures should have been in place to ID the aircraft via radio communications.

4) Lack of communications - The 737 crew would have filed a flight plan, detailing departure times, routes etc. This will have been shared with Iranian air defenders (civilian ATC and air defence personnel often work very closely together) and thus the aircraft will have been following its flight profile as the plan would have briefed.

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