Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1258433
Iran on 7th January, around 2300 UTC. It was expected that the Americans would respond, thus, the Iranian IADS was put into the „war" mode. Around 0100 UTC information emerged that US combat aircraft took off from bases in UAE. Furthermore, Iranian intelligence has shown that cruise missiles were launched towards the country. On 11th January, the Iranian authorities officially admitted that the airliner was shot down by the air defense assets protecting the capital. On 21st January the air crash investigation commission announced that the 737 was shot down by a Tor-M1 SAM system of Revolutionary Guard. The SAM system used to shoot down the Boeing 737 was deployed near a missile facility of the Guard. According to some sources, it was the Sayyad base that was used to launch the Shahab 3 ballistic missiles against the US bases. According to the Iranian authorities, the shot-down was caused by a human error. As the system operator could not get in touch with his superiors, he autonomously decided to launch two missiles. As explained on January 11th by the commander of the Revolutionary Guards' Air Force, the aircraft was detected 19 kilometers from the SAM site and it then was classified as a cruise missile. The operator had 10 seconds to Aircraft routes map - airliners taking off from the Tehran airport on 8th January 2020. As we can see, most of them were flying in the very same direction as the PS752. Image Credit: Flightradar24 Photo: Wikipedia www.fragoutmag.com