B2 The Daily of Geopolitical Europe. News. Files. Reflections. Reports

News Blogair defensePolice Terrorism

Flight PS752. A rapid recognition of responsibility by Tehran

(B2) Iran's act of contrition is exceptional. It is rare for a State to recognize its responsibility so quickly and fully for an act of its armed forces against civilians. Recent or past examples

June 27, 1980, leaving Bologna the DC-9 of the Italian company Itavia never arrives at its destination: Palermo. She sank at sea near the island of Ustica (Sicily). 81 dead. The hypothesis of an accident is denied. Traces of explosives are recovered. But the responsible is not identified. On the Italian side, France is officially blamed for having, by mistake, fired on a civilian plane. Paris denies its responsibility. Forty years later, the disappearance of Flight 870 still remains enigmatic.

July 3, 1988, the Iran Air Airbus 300 was shot down by an American missile fired from the American cruiser USS Vincennes. This in full Iraq-Iran tension. 290 dead (including 254 Iranians). The United States first fiercely deny any responsibility for flight 655 connecting Tehran-Dubai. Then Ronald Reagan, in the middle of the election campaign, lip service to the origin of the shooting, justifying it by a defensive measure, without really making excuses. The black boxes are not found. The victims will be compensated. But much later. After a trial that ended in 1996.

December 21, 1998, the Boeing 747 flight 103 of the American company Panam explodes over Lockerbie. Result: 270 dead (259 passengers and crew members + 11 inhabitants). This attack initially attributed (by mistake) to Iran, which turns out to be the work of Gaddafi's Libya. Tripoli does not fully recognize being the author of the act until five years later, in 2003. An agreement is reached on compensation for the victims.

July 17, 2014, the crash of flight MH17 of the Malaysian Airlines in eastern Ukraine. Even if a responsibility has been established, that of the pro-Russian rebels of Ukraine, neither they nor Moscow have yet really recognized their responsibility, almost six years after the event (see also: MH17 crash. The guilty, the responsible. As a European problem too!).

(NGV)

Updated with chronological reordering and details on Flight 870

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

s2Member®