Thank you whats called a ukrainian plane to crash in tehran iran rejects allegations it mistakenly shot it down but ukraine and western countries are pushing for evidence so will the truth behind this crash be revealed and cold facts relating to wider political conflicts this is inside story thanks alex thanks hello and welcome to the program im Martin Dennis now theyve been claims counterclaims and outright denials the head of irans Civil Aviation body insists the ukrainian airliner that crashed near tehran this week wasnt shot down by uranium missiles but canada says it has intelligence and evidence indicating the plane was downed by iran but just 4 hours before the plane came down killing all 100 76. 00 on board iran had fired a volley of missiles towards bases in iraq that host u. S. Troops u. S. President donald trump says theres no question tehran is involved but many of wondering whether america is partly responsible for raising tensions in the region in the 1st place now iran has dismissed allegations that it was involved as psychological warfare and has invited the u. S. Play make a boeing to join the investigation we got a lot to get through with our guests in just a moment 1st so lets have this report from rob matheson. This video posted by the New York Times newspaper appears to show an explosion as Ukraine Airlines flight 75 to is struck the plane flies on for several minutes before turning back towards to han airport where security cameras capture the moment it hits the ground among the dead were 63. 00 canadians we have intelligence from multiple sources including our allies and our own intelligence. The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by entering the surface to air missiles at the time of the crash iran had fired missiles at bases in iraq hosting u. S. Troops irans military was prepared for a u. S. Response but iran says the plane was not hit by a missile had. Any statement made before extracting the information contained in the black box is groundless however id like to assure you that the aircraft was not hit spy a missile the aircraft was on fire for one and a half minutes after taking off so the pilot decided to return to the airport but he had many technical issues at hand. Iran initially refused to hand over to the u. S. The socalled black boxes used to record cockpit voices and flight data but iran has now invited the aircraft manufacturer boeing to be part of the investigation france made the aircrafts engines and says its too wants to be involved and the u. S. National Transportation Safety board says its assigned a representative to the investigation there are reports the debris has been bulldozed into a pile but one expert says the day may provide answers there could be evidence with literally within the bodies of the victims there could point to whether or not for example an explosion took place inside or outside of the air that ukraines president has laid flowers at a makeshift memorial at the airport where the plane was expected to land at least one vigil is being held into. Round 2 and counted how many of those who died had dual nationalities this claim about citizenship you want to see his mother on holidays. And i swear im. Greeted by. d some are furious that iran may have been involved in the crash others are waiting to find out when the bodies of their loved ones might return home rob matheson al jazeera. All right lets introduce our guests now in london we have david lee amount hes a consulting editor at Flight Global and a full of Royal Air Force pilot in dorset in the south of england on skype weve got just him bronc hes a Research Fellow at the Royal United Services institute he specializes in air power and technology and washington d. C. We have Jarrett Blanc of all the state Department Official who served as deputy lead coordinator for implementation of the j. C. P. S. Also known of course as the Iran Nuclear Deal welcome to your David Kennesaw with you at this particular juncture what is the most important what is the most pressing question that needs to be answered. We want to know why this aircraft came down its been clear right from the start before specific allegations about missile rework were brought up it was very very clear still is that that aircraft. Suffered a very very sudden problem and it was so all embracing that the pilot didnt have time or didnt have the capacity to put out an emergency call so if their craft was only airborne for a total of about 6 minutes something happened that was extremely dramatic and made the aircraft uncontrollable and then the aircraft crashed. It has been in my mind right from the start because of the sudden this of this that there was no on board technical issue that could have caused such and such a dramatic departure from controlled flight and therefore this had to be either an internal explosive or an external explosive those were the 2 possibilities just one further possibility and that was that some unauthorized highly dangerous freight had been loaded into the aircrafts baggage hold or freight told right ok coming to you now just in a youve written that you think that this Ukrainian Airlines plane came down as a result of stress fear and incompetence tell us more so as increasingly looks lightly is this was brought down by us to in fact sort of to a missile was fired by an iranian a 16. A claim by the way which intelligence officials in the u. S. Canada u. K. Now would not make without pretty succinct significant evidence probably in the form of overhead infrared surveillance as well as perhaps radar data from. Standoff aircraft such as an r. C. One through 5 of the knesset 65 control radar launch sequence. If this was the case there were huge numbers of mistakes that had to been made before such a thing could happen this was an aircraft which had just taken off from an iranian airport was flying. According to create arranged flight plan. Was a regularly shut your flight and it was squawking the correct transponder codes so even if n. S. A. 15 crew were not looking at any other situation awareness than what their own radar provided which anyway would be a reasonably unusual way to operate as. They still should have been able to secure area of civilian transponder codes b. The fact that this was a very large aircraft compared to any military threats theyd be looking at that was climbing out relatively slowly low altitude and was on a regular flight all of this should have been obvious to them so the fact that somehow they convince themselves probably through a combination of bad assumptions probably core training possibly exhaustion maybe normal or some days. That this was somehow a threat that then confirmation bias took over and even though they could see things that should have told them this was an over into the fact that they were sort of worried about this pending potential u. S. Attack coupled with their own kind of misjudgment started to add up and they just didnt see those signs right jarret in d. C. And if indeed it does turn out to be the case the that this plane was hit by it raining in launched service to air missiles do you think that the United States and president transpacific lee should carry some of the blame some of the responsibility at least for creating this federal climate in which this dreadful mistake we assume has taken place. Well i think iran fired the missile if iran fired missile then they are responsible for the consequences if iran failed to shut down civilian air traffic during a military operation that was going to put them on high alert. If as your other guest has described they had exhausted missile operators despite knowing that this was going to be a high tension moment then the responsibility lies 1st and foremost with iran for a terrible set of decisions that said you cant deny that war has consequences and this consequences often come in the form of innocent civilian casualties whats going on right now between the United States and iran is a kind of war its not full scale conventional combat but it is a sort of a gray or covert war that is the result of a series of crises that have been created by choice by by president trip and all of this is its not to lay the responsibility at his feet which i think would be very inappropriate but it is to acknowledge that there is a reason that we seek to avoid a crisis conflict and war right and im saying with you jarett much of the briefing has been coming from u. S. Sources from the that is being quoted by the media and in fact created by Justin Trudeau the canadian Prime Minister but the pentagon itself as with speaking has remained silent do you find that curious. Not necessarily. The forms of intelligence that would be necessary to evaluate this kind of claim are all pretty highly classified. It the theyve been shared apparently with allies and partners those allies and partners have been able to make highly informed judgments about whether the data bear out the claims a full scale briefing on the intelligence either from the pentagon or from the Intelligence Community if it ever comes would presumably take much longer so i think that leaks as opposed to formal information at this point is not terribly surprising right and david what happens now we we had in the 1st instance at least we had iran saying that it was not prepared to deliver the black boxes in the data flight recorder to wasnt going to send them to the United States wasnt going to communicate with boeing the manufacturer of the plane what needs to happen in terms of this investigation in order for it to provide a credible result. Well 1st of all iran is in charge of this investigation that is by International Protocols the state in which the accident happened is responsible for administering the investigation. And they they can seek assistance if they wish it but they are not obliged to. What normally happens is that if a state doesnt have sophisticated d. Coding a quick moment from for the data that comes from the car the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder they can send the the these 2 black boxes to an investigator it doesnt have to be the usa iran does not have to get the usa involved in this it would be difficult though because of course the certificate the certification or thora t. The people who validated the aircraft design were the u. S. Federal Aviation Administration and the manufacturer of course is american an American Company boeing so not getting the americans involved would make life unnecessarily difficult but if eventually if the iranians come to the conclusion that they wish to get the americans involved because it makes a lot of sense to do so they can save face by saying well this is the International Protocol and were going to stick to it right and just in some hours ago the head of the iranian Civil Aviation organization early a bad day he said scientifically its impossible that a mistrial hit the ukrainian plane such rumors he said are illogical scientifically is it impossible that missiles could have hit this plane its certainly not scientifically impossible even manned movement portable shoulder fired missiles could have an airliner a 1000 seats on. Im out theres plenty of surface to air missile. Batteries there on international as well so an iranian f. 14 space quite nearby on the other side of which has its own self as to a missile batteries for protection and the whole system is on high alert what it should be is procedurally how to run been following the procedure as you would expect from a country on high alert d d winds at an air Defense Network that is supposed to be reasonably capable and also a reasonably capable supposedly Civil Aviation authority and that Traffic Control service it should be precede your really almost impossible because to have happened the fact that it seems almost certain to have happened this way any way certainly doesnt make it mean its scientifically impossible its perfectly rational to put the chain of events together it just reflects incredibly badly on iranian professionalism both at the higher level in terms of Political Organization of the military and liaison with civilian authorities and of course on their own sammul praises. Again though i was was mentions one of the other guests this did come at a moment of extremely high tension and it should be remembered that the operators of the u. S. If dean in this case will not only have been attentional up on and off for days might have been extremely tired but if the u. S. How did deed. Undertaken some sort of counter strike after the iranian Ballistic Missile attack on air bases in iraq. Being in an essex 15 mira major iranian at base is a very very dangerous place to be in that scenario because one of the 1st things that we typically happen is that the American Strike wave would target any particular point to science surface to air missile batteries that were in its way to clear the way for 4 strikes our main targets so for those operators sitting near the end of the night so near to on where is most likely kind of window for such a strike to occur they were probably terrified and also perhaps terrified of their own regime after all this is a pretty brutal regime if there had been some attack and they had you know decided not to fire and thats an attack comes through you probably really pretty pretty terrified of the consequences there as well right ok so a scenario where you can see a bunch of mistakes being made absolutely quickly can i come back to you david and put it to you that it seems very much as a one of the fundamental mistakes no matter how this plane came down was the fact that civilian airspace wasnt closed at this particular time of a such high tension quite a few airlines though Foreign Airlines had decided that they werent going to use iranian airspace any longer in fact very large numbers of them and a number of aviation authorities were advising that the space should be closed and lines should find other ways of getting through that area which is possible can i just point out for context that there have been a couple of mistaken shoot downs in the last you know so yeah im going to get is that that actually dangerous. Ok thats fine ill leave you to judge it out all right no i mean carry on to make the point now seeing as youve raised it i mean. The u. S. It circles was responsible for mistakenly shooting down the iranian passenger jet in 1988. Correct that was the u. S. S. Vincennes so that was the the u. S. Navy you know battleship. Left you know literally misidentified or didnt take care to identify an aircraft which was flying a show jewel druce on time out of bounder about us just flying briefly across the gulf and landing at dubai it was an airbus a 300 carrying more than 300 people and everybody bought onboard died just because the americans were not careful but the was another event in 2001 and that was a military mistake it was the ukrainians this time a russian aircraft carrying out a flight between tel of even. Novosibirsk in russia a civilian aircraft flying legally it was shot down over the black sea because the ukrainians at the time work carrying out an exercise shooting at the target drones but the missile missed the target drone and honed in on the aircraft so if mistakes do happen of course everyone will remember the m 817 in 2014 over Eastern Ukraine but let me go now to you jarrett in washington d. C. Because this particular what could turn out to be a catalogue of errors is coming at a time which would provide a huge amounts potentially of Political Capital for President Trump and his administration. Well. It certainly theres a theres a moment here where both to iran and washington can make the situation worse or make the situation better in the way that they improve the investigation of this tragedy so if iran continues on the course the early reports suggest of manipulating or destroying evidence making it harder to get to the bottom of whats happened i think thats going to create a tremendous amount of of of mistrust in iran and throughout the International Community certainly as European Airlines consider the question of whether or not to resume flights to tirant at some point in the future. On the other hand if they as some indication suggested overnight open up to requesting assistance from boeing from the n. T. S. B. The national Transportation Safety board and are more transparent about the mistakes that have been made it does suggest a possible opening that might have also political or diplomatic consequences the same is true on the washington side for boeing or n. T. S. B. To participate in this investigation they will need licenses from the u. S. Treasury department because of the Civil Aviation sanctions have been put against iran if those licenses are forthcoming are broadly written it demonstrates a willingness to have a somewhat more open and trusting relationship if theyre not forthcoming then i think thats going to be a big problem in iran and also with the International Community for the United States similarly if the u. S. Sort of gloats about this and tries to take political advantage i think it will backfire if it plays it straight and tries to provide assistance without doing what trump i think is often inclined to do which is to claim some sort of credit for a tragedy then i think that there is the possibility for maybe modestly reducing the terrible tensions that have led us to this point all right and just in dorset where do you think. This this tragic loss of life actually places or what sort of impact or other do you think its actually going to have on this ongoing. Fraught situation between the United States and iran on the one hand and the wider region of course. Well i mean as was just stated it very much depends on how both washington and tehran choose to handle the next steps certainly the act of bulldozing the wreckage and removing it is very very bad sign in terms of irans willingness to allow a proper investigation and indeed to face up to whats happened as of the statements of its head of the iranian Aviation Authority so early indications are not good but as was just stated if both sides approach this as the accidental tragedy that it is to have been and look honestly at the mistakes in public i think its possibly a decent channel for some sort of deescalation frankly this tragedy reflects very badly on both the trumpet ministration and his art isnt around on the sea so i dont think theres much to be gained from anything other than a sober and fairly honest. Appreciation of the mistakes that been made and its also worth noting just in relation to other tragedies that have occurred this one does stand out in terms of misidentified airliners being shut down in most cases there was at least a closer pool if not likely or credible military threat assumption that you could see operators talking themselves into whether its the case the u. S. S. Funds which was after all had just engaged you know had had a Helicopter Shot out by an arabian fast attack craft and is a major about iranian base so at least iran 655 was potentially on threat vector m. H. 17 was coming from west to east just as any iranian flight Ukrainian Military flights were doing to reste truck supplies to the sea to reentry into the border and on bus and weve seen with things like k. A. L. 007 again that actually violated some its aspects that while these misidentifications have happened. In many cases before its never happened where a state has shut down and i know that using its own space just taken off from its own accord under control of its own air Traffic Control and following a flight plan right this is particularly dark but alright lets give the final word then to david because i mean weve already made mention then of several mistaken actions that have led to the downing of civilian airplanes in the past when indeed its been established that a state has been responsible what actions are taken against the state if any if indeed iran is is found to have been guilty of mistakenly shooting down the ukrainian plane what will happen i think it all hinges on whether this was deliberate which i think is unlikely but the possibility is there whether it was deliberate or whether this was the dreadful mistake which all 3 of us your guests have been you know were painting this really jointly as an unintentional event probably resulting from a fair degree of incompetence now if that is the case then im quite sure that there will be diplomatic sanctions but i think thats where it will stop its only if there is some chance that there was a degree of deliberation in this that that anything more dramatic than diplomatic action will take place. Gentlemen thank you all very much indeed interesting conversation david lim and justin bronc and jarratt blanc thank you all very much indeed and as ever thank you for watching the program you can see it again anytime you like again to the website aljazeera dot com should you want more discussion you can go to our Facebook Page facebook dot com for a. J. Inside story and theres always the twitter sphere of course at a. J. Inside story im at Martin Dennis from the whole team here in doha is by from alex thank you. For the congolese the journey to work all aboard means unimaginable hardship i prefer to lie down because they might get the bulk into chancing life and limb on a dangerous journey through the jungle. I fell onto the rails for nearly died. Our children go to school and live because of the train. Risking it all the democratic republic of congo on aljazeera. When you see big groups of people walking through europe theyre all individuals with children the long life so you have to deal with them and to cheat to listen to it in respects. This is al jazeera. Youre watching the news hour live from the headquarters and. Coming up in the next 60 minutes we will cut off billions of dollars of support to the Iranian Regime and we will continue our enforcement of other entities the u. S. Announces new tougher sanctions against iran with the goal of further damaging irans economy. And our entire nandan when top stories from europe including determined to save the nuclear deal european Foreign Ministers meet to try to find a way to bring iran and the u. S. Towards agreement and away from confrontation