Iran air disaster necessitates flight safety review

Abhijit Bhattacharyya

Abhijit Bhattacharyya
Life Member, Aeronautical Society of India

THE air disaster on January 8, 2020, the second in as many weeks, resulted in the death of all 176 aboard the Tehran-Kiev Boeing-737-800 NG flight. On December 27, 2019, a Fokker-100 had crashed at Almaty, Kazakhstan. Both aircraft crashed minutes after takeoff.

It’s now clear that the second air accident was totally avoidable as it occurred due to deplorable and mindless firing by the Iranians themselves, thereby killing their own countrymen — a cold-blooded mass murder of innocents and helpless, a few thousand feet above ground, within minutes of the craft taking off from the Tehran airport. What a shameful act by an irresponsible band of untrained, gun-toting non-professionals, as if missiles and machine guns are some sort of toys to be fiddled with and fired upon anyone and everyone, friend or foe, without tracking, identifying and verifying.

No wonder the crash surprised and shocked aviation watchers worldwide. How could a full-load airworthy craft crash in sunny weather, temperature 4°C, good visibility and calm wind, within minutes of takeoff?

Second, with the 13,700-feet-plus-long Tehran airport runway, when nothing could be better, or more comfortable, for the twin-engine Boeing 737-800 max takeoff weight between 70.535 and 79.015 tonnes (depending on the model D or E), to lift the craft between 7,000-8,000 feet and follow the flight path with ease!

Third, the flight was to cover the 2,346 kilometres (1,458 miles) Tehran-Kiev distance in approximately three hours at an average ‘indicated air speed’ of 800 kilometres (500 miles or 434 knots) per hour. Despite this ideal flying condition, the Ukraine Boeing could “never climb/make above 8,000”, according to data from flight tracking website Flight Radar 24, thereby allowing multi-front speculations to emerge from various quarters. Why? Because, it was shot down by the dead people’s own fraternity, not by any external foe. And the worst part is that the perpetrators of the crime kept quiet, like cowards, for several days and confessed to the crime only after world opinion pressured them to do so.

It now appears, in retrospect, that several people did know, or at least did have an idea, of the cause of the crash and decided in their wisdom to confuse the issue, taking umbrage under the ‘crash inquiry report’. Thus, the Iran Road and Transport Ministry claimed that it appeared that one of the engines caught fire and the pilot lost control of the aircraft thereafter. Iran’s head of the crash investigation committee opined that the pilot could not communicate with the Tehran air traffic control (ATC) during the last moments of the flight. A Ukraine official, of the privately owned largest air carrier, on the other hand, maintained that “it was one of the best planes we had, with an amazing, reliable crew.” But, the most puzzling of all speculations was the statement on the Ukraine embassy website, saying that the crash was caused by an engine problem and not terrorism, but was deleted later.

So, there we were once again in the realm of uncertainty, speculation, conjectures regarding the crash victims. Those who may or may not be blamed; but those who cannot come back to tell the real story, akin to the epitaph of the fallen soldiers’ cemetery: “When you go back home, tell them that we gave our today for their tomorrow.” Because “we were killed by our own countrymen and not by any external or western enemies.”

Understandably, the Tehran air disaster of January 8 brings to the fore the need to analyse the fundamentals of civil aviation flight safety and security.

To my mind, therefore, come at least three (shot down) air disasters. First, the September 1, 1983, Korean Air 007 Boeing-747-230B, downed by then Soviet Air Force, killing all 269 passengers aboard. Despite the ghastly crime, Moscow remained unrepentant, accusing the Americans of sending the civil aircraft for espionage and Washington, in turn, blaming the former for shooting down a civil craft which inadvertently swayed into the USSR airspace. Be that as it may, the end result was mass manslaughter by Communist Russia.

Almost five years later, however, the Americans, too, replicated the reprehensible act of the Russians on July 3, 1988 when an Iran Air 655 Airbus-300B2 (EP-IBU) was shot down over Tehran’s territorial waters, at an altitude of 13,500 feet by the USS missile cruiser Vincennes-fired surface-to-air missile, killing all 290 aboard. The act of the Americans was so brazen and stupid that even the Captain of another US Navy frigate USS John Sides, which operated alongside the firing US cruiser, wrote that “the Airbus was shot down for no good reason.”

The third airborne slaughter took place on July 17, 2014 when the Malaysian Airlines MH-17 Boeing-777-200ER Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight was shot down over Eastern Ukraine, which was a pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory. The craft was hit by a Moscow-built BUK surface-to-air missile which killed all 298 aboard, thereby once again painting a grim picture, and also reminding the world at large, of the future of the civil aviation over conflict zones of the globe.

Indeed, these air disasters were referred to in order to try and help recapitulate to build public opinion as profitability, at times, comes in the way of flight safety of the carriers all across the globe. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) aside, India should also carefully consider and weigh the pros and cons of overflying danger zones, like the western flight corridors which more often than not have proved to be very challenging.

Realistically speaking, the difficulties are likely to increase, as can be found from the above narratives. Korean Air 007 was shot down by an air-to-air missile. Iran Air 655 was downed by a ship’s surface-to-air-missile. Malaysian MH-17 was downed by a land-based high-altitude missile.

And now, the Ukraine Air Boeing was downed by a short-range missile of ‘fraternal fire’. What next? If takeoff can be shot so easily, one shudders to contemplate the landing craft in the sight of rogues of civil aviation. It’s time for collective action, led by the ICAO, to ensure flight safety. Else, unlike what happened to the League of Nations, ending as a toothless tiger, hopefully, the ICAO won’t face the same fate.