A report by
BBC indicates that the government of Iran mistakenly shot down the Ukrainian
plane that crashed on Wednesday, January 8, near Tehran with 176 people on
board.
CBS news
reported that US officials said they believe the Ukrainian international
airlines Boeing 737-800 was hit by a missile.
Ukraine
earlier said it was examining whether a missile strike brought down the
aircraft but was ruled out by Iran. The crash came just hours after Iran
carried out missile strikes on two airbases housing US forces in Iraq.
According to
the report, CBS news quoted US intelligence sources as saying a satellite
detected infrared “blips” of two missile launches, followed by
another blip of an explosion.
The report
noted that the Newsweek had quoted a Pentagon and senior US intelligence
officials, as well as an Iraqi intelligence official, as saying they believed
the Ukrainian plane was hit by a Russian-made Tor missile. US President Donald
Trump on Thursday, January 9, said that, “I have my suspicions” over
the plane. “Somebody could have made a mistake.” It would be recalled
that amid tensions heightened by the US killing of top Iranian general Qasem
Soleimani on Friday, January 3, Iran has said it would not hand over the
recovered black box flight recorders to Boeing, the plane’s manufacturer, or to
the US.
Under global aviation rules Iran has the right
to lead the investigation, but manufacturers are typically involved. BBC
further stressed that in separate reports, CBS news and Newsweek said US and
Iraqi intelligence officials were confident the Ukrainian plane was brought
down by a missile fired by Iran.
CBS
published a brief report on Twitter, saying the officials were confident the
plane was shot down. It said this information was based on US intelligence,
which sources said picked up signals of a radar being turned on. US satellites
also reportedly detected two missile launches shortly before the Ukrainian
plane exploded. Newsweek quoted US and Iraqi officials as saying they believed
the aircraft was hit by a Russia-built Tor M-1 surface-to-air missile system,
known as Gauntlet by Nato.