Iran mistakenly shot down the passenger jet that crashed on Wednesday killing all 176 on board, Canada and the UK said last night.
Flight PS752 was destroyed just hours after Tehran launched attacks on two US military bases in Iraq in revenge for the American killing of its military leader Qassem Suleimani.
Sources now believe the Ukraine International Airlines jet may have been destroyed by accident by surface-to-air anti-aircraft fire because Iran thought it was under attack. Last night, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became the first world leader to officially point the finger at Iran.
He said: ‘We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies, and our own intelligence. The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. This may well have been unintentional.’
Insisting ‘the best British experts’ should be involved in the investigation into the incident, Boris Johnson said last night: ‘The loss of life is a tragedy. There is now a body of information that the flight was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. This may have been unintentional.
Boris Johnson (pictured above) said there is a ‘body of information that the flight was shot down by Iranian forces’
Rescue workers recover bidiesof victims at the scene where a Ukrainian plane crashed in Shahedshahr, southwest of the capital Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Jan. 8
‘We are working closely with Canada and our international partners and there needs to be a full, transparent investigation. The UK continues to call on all sides urgently to de-escalate to reduce tensions in the region.’
The comments by Mr Trudeau and Mr Johnson came after the US and Iran seemed on the point of war this week before stepping back from the brink.
Last Thursday, Donald Trump ordered the drone strike that killed General Soleimani, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s top commander, as he left Baghdad airport.
The US President claimed last night that he ordered the assassination because Soleimani was plotting to bomb the US embassy in Iraq.
President Donald Trump on Thursday said he has serious doubts that the Ukrainian plane crash in Iran was caused by mechanical failure after Pentagon officials claimed that the jet was shot down
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau later echoed Trump’s concerns, saying that evidence indicates an Iranian missile downed the and that the strike ‘may have been unintentional’
Iran’s promised retaliation came late on Tuesday, hours after Soleimani was buried, when 22 ballistic missiles hit bases in Iraq where Western troops are based.
Now it seems that while on high-alert for retribution from the US, an Iranian anti-aircraft missile was fired in error at the Ukraine International Airlines flight just minutes after it had taken off at 6.12am local time from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport, bound for Ukraine.
The jet had climbed to nearly 8,000ft before it suddenly vanished from radar.
Yesterday, Iranian officials, who have denied firing a missile at the jet, said that, inexplicably, it was in the process of turning back to the airport when it crashed.
Questions were first raised when pictures of the plane debris appeared to show shrapnel holes in the fuselage. US officials now say they detected two missile launches just before an explosion, believed to have come from the jet
There was no SOS call. It had been thought that three Britons were killed in the disaster, but this was updated last night to four – probably because of the inclusion of a passenger with dual nationality.
The countries that suffered the highest loss of life include Iran, with 82 citizens, Canada with 63, Ukraine with 11 and Sweden with ten.
Mr Trump said last night he believed ‘someone could have made a mistake’ and brought down the Boeing 737-800.
Pentagon, Whitehall and Iraqi security sources also agreed it was ‘highly likely’ the jet was struck by a missile. Officials said satellites detected infrared signals indicating two missile launches, followed shortly by another infrared signal of an explosion, thought to be the plane hitting the ground. The missiles are thought to have come from a Russian Tor-M1 launcher. Iran bought 29 in 2005.
Mr Trump said he did not believe the plane was downed by mechanical error, as suggested earlier. Saying he had ‘suspicions’, he added: ‘It was flying in a pretty rough neighbourhood.
‘Someone could have made a mistake. I have a feeling that… something very terrible happened, very devastating.’ The US news channel CNN said sources claimed an Iranian strike on the plane may have been the result of confusion, adding: ‘It could be that this is a fog of war incident.’ It said a possibility being considered was that the ‘Iranian missile unit… perhaps saw something on their radar… thought they were under attack and fired’.
Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s security council, said its officials were in Iran looking for missile debris, adding: ‘A rocket strike, possibly a Tor missile system, is among the main working theories, since there is information on the internet about elements of a missile found near the crash.’
Reports from the crash site suggested the wreckage, six miles from Tehran airport, had been bulldozed, making forensic analysis difficult.
The plane had had a mechanical inspection at Tehran airport two days before the disaster, and was delivered new to Ukraine International Airlines three years ago. Ukraine’s Tehran embassy initially blamed engine failure for the crash, but suspicions were aroused when Iran refused to share the jet’s black box recorders, which contain data and cockpit communications.
Iranian officials promised Ukraine would have access to their contents, but aviation experts say only a few countries can analyse black boxes – notably Britain, France, Germany and the US.
It raises fears of a whitewash by Iran, which refutes the idea that it shot down the plane, dismissing this as ‘psychological warfare’.