Iran blames misaligned radar for shooting down of Ukrainian jet

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation has released the most detailed report to date on the shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger jet by the country’s military in January, blaming human error and a mistake in aligning a radar system for the tragedy in which all 176 passengers and crew died. The Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800, flight PS 752, was bound for Kyiv and “following a normal path” on January 8 when it crashed moments after take-off from Tehran, according to the report released at the weekend.  The tragedy happened hours after Iranian missile strikes on US forces based in neighbouring Iraq, in retaliation for the death of Qassem Soleimani, a senior commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, in a US drone strike days earlier. Tehran first denied any mistake had been made and said the aircraft had crashed for yet-to-be-determined reasons. But three days later and following international pressure the government acknowledged the military had mistakenly shot down the plane. The report by the Iranian civil sector’s investigation team — which has not yet been finalised — said that on the night of the tragedy, there had been a “procedural change” in which the military took over issuing flight clearances from the civil sector. This meant that “only the flights already detected and cleared for flight operations by the defence network could be permitted to start up”. Story has details.<br/>