Pentagon official claims Ukrainian plane that crashed in Iran killing 176 was shot down

A Ukrainian airliner that crashed in Iran killing all 176 people on board was accidentally shot down by an anti-aircraft missile, a Pentagon official claims.

The Ukrainian Airlines Boeing 737-800 that crashed in Tehran early Wednesday is believed to have been downed by a Russian made Tor M-1 anti-aircraft missile system.

A senior US intelligence official and Iraqi intelligence official made the same claim to Newsweek, although none of the three sources would speak on the record.

The missile system which is now suspected of downing the plane moments after it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeni International Airport is believed to have been activated following last Friday’s assassination of Iran’s top General Qasem Soleimani.

Iran forbade American officials from getting involved with the investigation into the crash, as images appearing to show bullet holes along the plane’s wrecked fuselage appeared online. Fragments of a Tor M-1 missile were also found in a Tehran suburb on Wednesday afternoon.

Iran has so far refused to release the contents of the obliterated plane’s black boxes. Any confirmation the plane that the plane was shot down likely to further stoke tensions between Iran, the US, the Ukraine and Russia.

It has also been reported that the plane’s captain and first officer did not have time to issue any kind of distress call before the jet slammed into the ground.

US government officials have yet to release a statement confirming the shoot-down claims.

The doomed plane, which was en route to Boryspil International Airport in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, had 82 Iranian people and 63 Canadians on board.

Other passengers killed were from Sweden, Afghanistan, Germany and the UK.

The plane was shot down five days after Soleimani was blown up by a missile fired from a US Reaper drone as his car left Baghdad last Friday.

President Donald Trump ordered the hit, and says he did so because Soleimani was a terrorist responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US servicemen and civilians.

Trump also claimed that Soleimani was plotting future attacks.

The crash happened as Iran fired 22 missiles Iraqi bases that house US soldiers.

No-one was injured or killed during that raid, with some analysts claiming Iran wanted to launch its own attack to save face, but not injure or kill any US soldiers to avoid further escalation.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned that the bombing was a mere ‘slap in the face’ and that worse was to come from his forces.

But Donald Trump struck a conciliatory tone while addressing the US on Wednesday morning, claiming that he was happy to de-escalate the situation, and that he wanted ‘peace’ with Iran.

Many airlines have now banned their flights from crossing into Iranian airspace over fears of another shootdown.

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