This archive report was first published on 11 January 2020.
On January 11, 2020, Iran's Revolutionary Guards shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all 176 people on board. In a shocking admission, the aerospace commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, accepted full responsibility for the tragedy.
Speaking on state television, General Hajizadeh explained that the missile operator who fired on the plane did so independently due to communications 'jamming'. He stated that the operator had 10 seconds to decide and, unfortunately, made a bad decision, leading to the catastrophic outcome.
General Hajizadeh also defended the Iran Civil Aviation Organisation, which had initially denied Western claims that the plane had been shot down. He explained that the organisation was acting in accordance with its own knowledge and was not aware of the incident at the time.
The general acknowledged that the armed forces had formed a team to investigate the incident before he reached Tehran and that they had provided the information but the investigation needed to be carried out. He stated that the reason it took several days before the incident was announced to the media was not that some had wanted to hide the issue, but that this was the procedure and the armed forces had to investigate it.
General Hajizadeh also explained why flights were not cancelled, stating that it was the responsibility of the relevant authorities to do so in a war situation. He acknowledged that the civil aviation organisation was not at fault and that the mistake and problem lay with the armed forces.
