Air Safety !

One hundred and seventy six passengers and crew in a Ukranian aircraft climbing to its cruising height out of a Teheran airport met a fiery death when the plane was intercepted by a surface to air missile.  The shrapnel simply tore the aircraft apart and the debris landed over a wide area of multiple fires.

This tragedy is part of political tension between Iran and the United States of America which saw a prominent Iranian General die from a missile fired from an American drone as he drove away from an Iraqi airport.  In response, the Iranians fired seventeen missiles at two American bases in Iraq and the Iranian defence posture was on high alert in expectation of a possible American counter strike.  It is highly likely that a responder simply mistook the passenger jet for an incoming strike - and acted accordingly.

Initially, the Iranians tried to put the blame on the American built Boeing aircraft and refused to hand over its " black box " information records, but the intercepting SAM was visible on radar and the Iranian authorities had no option other than to come clean and admit it had been a ghastly mistake on their part.

Over the years there have been several passenger aircraft destroyed when similar identification mistakes have taken place in conflict zones.  A Malaysian passenger jet was shot down over Ukraine when a Russian invasion was taking place and the Americans destroyed an Iranian passenger jet when it was misidentified as posing a strike threat to an American warship.   In such situations the order to fire leaves little time for further evaluation if it is to be effective.

The danger can also be caused by a slight navigation error.  A South Korean passenger jet was destroyed by a Russian fighter plane when it strayed off course close to a Soviet defence installation.  In the course of the average day probably hundreds of passenger aircraft flying international air routes are being tracked and evaluated by the SAM defence batteries of countries over which they overfly.  It is an interesting conjecture to wonder how many have come close to destruction by a similar error that downed that jet in Iran  ?

Jet flights are automatically disrupted when volcanoes shoot volcanic ash high into the sky and this caused jet engines to choke and shut down, but they keep flying to maintain international flight schedules when disputes between countries reach razor edge.  Communications and the interchange of people between countries is important to world commerce and the peace process so that air services are maintained in almost every circumstance.

Many world airlines will assure their passengers that air routes have been carefully rescheduled to avoid danger but in many parts of the world the people who fly in planes can be sure that their journey is being tracked by SAM sites with the potential to shoot them out of the sky.

In particular, there is a danger zone over the South China sea which is at the fulcrum of many air routes.  That is claimed as sovereign territory by China, despite that claim being unanimously rejected by the United Nations.   Just something to muse on while you relax and enjoy the journey !