A properly functioning SA-15 missile battery would have had multiple means of identifying Ukraine International Airways Flight PS 752 as a civilian airliner. Here's what could have gone wrong.
Share to linkedin... [+]Updated Jan. 10, 11:40 a.m.One of the basic tasks of an air defense battery is to discriminate between friendly aircraft and foe. But amid a state of high alert after Iran had launched a barrage of ballistic missiles at U.S.
The SA-15 operators also would have considered the path and speed of the plane on radar. “Is it operating at low altitude, at high speed, headed toward a sensitive area”? Deptula asks. Flight PS 752 was rising toward 8,000 feet at a relatively sedate speed of 275 knots when flight tracking data from its transponder cut out, a normal profile for an airliner, he says. “It is departing the area, climbing through medium altitude, not trying to hide its signature, looking like a routine operation.
“Your incentive balance sways over to shoot first, ask questions later,” says Michael Elleman, senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
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