(OPINION) The Sun – A plane that crashed killing 176 people hours after an Iranian missile strike on US bases was “likely” shot down and wreckage shows “obvious projectile holes”, experts say. The Kiev-bound Ukraine International Airlines jet came down shortly after taking off from Tehran Airport in Iran this morning, killing everyone on board.
The tragedy came just hours after Tehran fired at least 15 ballistic missiles at two US bases in Iraq, sparking fears it could have been shot down by mistake by jittery Iranian air defenses. Iran blamed “technical problems” for the deadly fireball, and have locked down the crash site and refused to release the black boxes to international authorities. But aviation experts have now suggested a “shootdown” was the most likely explanation for the disaster.
The OPS Group, an aviation risk monitoring group, said: “We would recommend the starting assumption to be that this was a shootdown event, similar to MH17 – until there is clear evidence to the contrary.” They highlighted pictures of the crash site which they said: “show obvious projectile holes in the fuselage and a wing section”. FULL REPORT
