The timing of the crash of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was always too coincidental to actually be coincidence. The flight went down minutes after leaving Tehran airport shortly after Iran launched more than a dozen missiles toward U.S. occupied bases in Iraq. It seemed almost certain that the aircraft and the 176 people on board had been victims of the conflict.
For several days following the crash, Iran insisted that the aircraft had suffered a “technical problem,” but the reluctance in turning over the black boxes, a refusal to cooperate with plane manufacturer Boeing, and the quickness with which crews descended on the crash site to began removing bodies and debris before any investigation could take place, all pointed to the idea that they were to blame. And knew it.
After the U.S. intelligence indicated that they believed that Iran was behind the shoot down, Canada on Thursday was more explicit, with Prime Minister Trudeau indicating that he had evidence of Iran’s responsibility. And finally, early on Saturday Iran confessed that they were responsible.
As The New York Times reports, both the president and foreign minister of Iran have admitted to a “tragic mistake.” But while they have identified the issue as human error, they’ve also pointed the finger at “American adventurism.” However, the fault here seems to be not just with the Iranian military that fired an anti-aircraft system at a civilian plane, but with Iranian officials in general who failed to close their airspace to civilian travel as they were carrying out military actions.