WHEN AIRCRAFT FULL OF ISRAELIS WAS SHOT DOWN BY UKRAINIANS IN 2001 - Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 was shot down by an accidental Ukrainian missile strike during military training exercises

Occurring less than a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the crash was initially suspected, by Russian officials, to be an act of terrorism of Chechen rebels. 

 

Later, the Moscow based, IAC ruled that the crash was caused by an accidental Ukrainian S-200 missile strike during military training exercises - staged off Cape Onuk (or Chuluk) in Crimea.

 

Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 was shot down by the Ukrainian military over the Black Sea on 4 October 2001, en route from Tel Aviv, Israel to Novosibirsk, Russia. The plane, a Soviet-made Tupolev Tu-154, carried an estimated 66 passengers and 12 crew members. Most of the passengers were Israelis visiting relatives in Russia. No one on board survived.

 

Preliminary Russian report confirmed initial private assessments of American Military officials that the S-200 missile overshot its target drone - which had been destroyed successfully by an S-300 fired at the same time - and instead of self-destructing, locked in on the passenger plane 150 miles further away and exploded as a ball of Shrapnel shells 50 feet over the plane.

 

Russian officials initially dismissed the American claim as "unworthy of attention," and Russian President Vladimir Putin told the press the next day that "the weapons used in those exercises had such characteristics that make it impossible for them to reach the air corridor through which the plane was moving." 

 

Ukrainian military officials initially denied that their missile had brought down the plane; they reported that the S-200 had been launched seawards and had successfully self-destructed. Indeed, Defense Ministry spokesman Konstantin Khivrenko noted that "neither the direction nor the range (of the missiles) correspond to the practical or theoretical point at which the plane exploded."

 

However, Ukrainian officials later admitted that it was indeed their military that shot down the airliner.  Ukraine, reportedly, banned the testing of Buk, S-300 and similar missile systems for a period of 7 years following this incident.

 

Read more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812

List of civilian airliners shootdown incidents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_incidents

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