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I couldn't understand how engine failure was determined before the black boxes and wreckage were examined, especially with no distress call. I read on the BBC this morning that the site was being bulldozed.
Regardless, it really is tragic.
Several flights in the air at the time so why would the Iranians target a Ukrainian flight. A US aircraft would seem a more more likely target.
Might be a similar to the chain of events that led to the USS Vincennes shooting down the Iran Air flight # 655 Airbus in 1988, 290 people died.
In the case of the USS Vincennes, the ship had been in combat with Iranian naval forces all morning. Then an airliner took off from Tehran and headed toward the ship. Admittedly, later there was concern at the Pentagon that the ship's systems had not been tested in an environment where multiple powerful RF emitters are operating and that may have led to an inaccurate radar presentation. But just as in this case, no one ever thought anyone would be stupid enough to route a commercial airliner through a combat area.
While in the West we think of war and peace as being distinct and separate conditions, it seems that in Muslim countries they are always simultaneously at war and at peace. The idea of doing something differently because there is shooting going on never occurs to them, perhaps because in their societies there is always combat of some kind going on somewhere.