The shootdown was a tragedy of errors

The shootdown was a tragedy of errors. Tehran’s international airport should have been closed at a time of razor-sharp tension with the US. The commanding officers of the anti-aircraft unit did not answer a pre-dawn call for permission to fire. But, an interim report last July blaming a poorly calibrated radar did not convince experts interviewed by the AP’s Isabel Debre. Justin Bronk, air power research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, said: “The level of incompetence required for someone to shoot down that plane is actually beyond belief.”