The aeroplane, since its invention in 1903, has become increasingly popular as a means of transportation. A luxury once reserved only for the rich and famous, air travel has since become a popular means of long-distance travel. It’s fast, convenient, and the safest of all modes of transport by far, but the turbulent world of today presents some unique challenges for safe passage in the air.
On Christmas morning last year, Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 was on a routine flight from Baku to Grozny in Chechnya when the flight crew lost their in-flight navigation aids to GPS jamming. The pilots tried landing at Grozny’s Kadyrov Airport twice before deciding to return to Baku because dense fog and loss of navigation aids made landing unsafe. At 0910 hours, mere minutes after the second landing attempt, the pilots reported a bird strike and requested weather reports for a nearby airport where they wanted to attempt an emergency landing. Five minutes later, Russian forces closed off the airspace around Chechnya, warding off an attack from Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Flight 8243 was denied clearance to land in Russia and subsequently crashed while attempting to land in Aktau, Kazakhstan. The damage to the tail section of the aircraft, particularly the perforations in the vertical stabilizer, was concurrent with the impact of a surface-to-air missile (SAM), videos from inside the cabin also confirm an explosion rocking the aircraft. Of the 67 souls onboard, 38 perished in the crash, with the 29 survivors facing severe injuries.
This is not the first time such an incident has occurred. The unfortunate reality is that, despite efforts by regulatory bodies, airlines, and authorities on the ground, there have been incidents where commercial aircraft flying in contested airspace—either by necessity or cost saving—have been taken out by air defense systems on the ground.
In another high-profile incident involving Russia and Ukraine, Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 was operating its scheduled route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The aircraft, a widebody Boeing 777-200ER, was carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members. While flying over the Donetsk region of Ukraine—the region at the center of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war—the airliner was struck by a SAM fired by Ukrainian separatists. The aircraft, flying at 33,000 feet, broke up midair; none of the 298 souls on board survived, the highest death toll of any accidental shootdown to date. A later investigation by Dutch, Malaysian, Australian, and Ukrainian authorities found that the launcher used in the incident belonged to the Russian armed forces, and initial Russian coverage indicates that the flight was mistaken for a Ukrainian military transport aircraft.
Ukrainian International Airlines flight 752 was caught in a similar situation when it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport on the morning of 8th January 2020. The aircraft was struck by two SAMs fired by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, who were on high alert at the time. The incident came on the heels of Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on American forces in neighboring Iraq, a move Iran was anticipating retaliation for; as per Iranian sources, the aircraft was mistaken for an American cruise missile. All 176 passengers and crew were killed.
The late 20th century saw a lot of such incidents, particularly when aircraft went slightly off course in a hostile country. Korean Air lost two aircraft in Soviet airspace when they strayed into restricted airspace on flights from Anchorage to Seoul, resulting in a combined loss of 271. An Antonov An-26 aircraft operated by Ariana Afghan Airlines on a flight from Kabul to Jalalabad in 1988 strayed across the border into Pakistan; it was shot down by Pakistani air defenses, which were on the lookout for Soviet or Afghan infiltrators. An Iran Air flight operating from Bandar Abbas to Dubai at the height of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988 was mistaken for an Iranian combat aircraft by a US warship; a missile fired by the warship shot the aircraft down, resulting in 290 casualties.
A source familiar with air defense systems said that such incidents are often the result of miscommunication and that modern commercial aircraft are equipped with systems designed to differentiate them from combat aircraft. They also said that due to the widespread use of inexpensive UAVs by combatants, defending armies may resort to more primitive and low-tech air defence weaponry as a way to cut costs; this is likely to increase the likelihood of such incidents in the future. The safest option remains airspace closures during times of conflict, as is presently being enacted in Ukraine or as done by India and Pakistan during their 2019 flare-up.