KEY FINDING 3: COMMAND AND CONTROL FAILURES

While the act of shooting the missiles was a deliberate and intended action, the information available to the Forensic Team indicates the IRGC SAM unit operator likely misidentified Flight PS752 as a hostile target. A properly functioning command and control system, procedures, and effective training are meant to prevent this outcome; however, Iran has not provided any substantive information on these important factors. Iran’s incomplete explanation of the events and the absence of supporting evidence undermines the credibility of its assertion that the SAM operator’s actions were the sole cause of the downing.

With respect to Iran’s claim that the IRGC SAM operator fired upon Flight PS752 without the necessary approval from its command and control, there is no information that the Forensic Team is aware of that would contradict this assertion. While it is likely that authority to fire on aerial targets was delegated to lower levels of Iran’s military than usual given high alert levels, it is very unlikely the SAM operator would have been authorized to launch missiles without approval from his command.

However, given the number and sequence of events known to the Forensic Team, Iran has not provided sufficient information or explanations to account for the broader questions this raises. Important questions about the proficiency of the IRGC SAM operator who downed Flight PS752, including the adequacy of his training, the target validation process, and the supervision of SAM operators under such circumstances, remain unanswered.

Key Finding 3: Command and Control Failures

Finally, while Iran recognized that risk levels exceeded expectations and planned mitigations failed to prevent the downing of Flight PS752, Iran’s Final Report and other public statements from senior Iranian military leaders focus exclusively on the SAM operator’s decisions. Iran’s account refuses to analyze the full range of deficiencies in the military sector that played a major role in the downing. Iran’s military command and control over the SAM unit failed. If it were functioning properly, the shoot-down would not have occurred.

The Forensic Team determined that the SAM unit’s immediate command and control should have identified a SAM-unit misalignment as significant as the 105 degrees reported by Iranian authorities. Standard military procedure would dictate that the SAM unit would not operate in isolation but as part of an integrated air defence structure to enhance situational awareness and decision making. Iran’s Final Report states that SAM units were required to engage their command and control to distinguish hostile targets from commercial aircraft and obtain approval to fire.

Based on Iran’s stated protocols, it is reasonable to conclude there were very likely multiple interactions between the operator and his command and control as part of identification procedures for flights that departed IKA before Flight PS752. Given the likely misalignment, previous departing flights would also have likely appeared to be coming from an inaccurate direction (i.e. the southwest). Nine other flights departed IKA before Flight PS752 on January 8, 2020, including eight departures after Iran launched missiles into Iraq. If the operator followed the same procedure that Iran claimed he followed for Flight PS752, the operator would have engaged his command to assist with their identification as hostile targets or commercial aircraft.

The Forensic Team further analyzed Iran’s unsubstantiated and questionable claim that the SAM unit was moved at 04:54 Tehran Time (TT) and set to “standby” until five minutes before Flight PS752 took off. The Forensic Team determined it was likely the SAM unit would have been operational immediately after the supposed move, as would be expected under such high threat levels. In fact, the totality of available information leads the Forensic Team to conclude that Iran tracked multiple targets but could not differentiate between passenger aircraft and legitimate threats. Iran ultimately fired two missiles, downing an unidentified target which was later confirmed to be Flight PS752. Four flights departed IKA between 04:54 TT and Flight PS752’s departure. As such, even if one accepts Iran’s claims about relocation, there were very likely multiple interactions between the SAM unit and its immediate command and control, which should have resulted in the identification of this erroneous tracking and correction of the misalignment – but it did not.

The four flights that took off between 04:54 TT and Flight PS752’s departure at 06:12 TT were Qatar Airways Flight QR491, Turkish Airlines Flight TK873, Atlas Global Flight KK1185, and Qatar Airways Flight QR8408. Given their similar flight paths when departing IKA and the Iranian claim that the SAM unit was misaligned when it relocated at 04:54 TT, each of these flights was potentially at significant risk of being misidentified. This should gravely concern every country whose airlines and citizens travelled through IKA that morning. Because of Iran’s actions – and failure to act – any of those other flights could have met the same fate as Flight PS752.

Based on this analysis, the Forensic Team concluded it is very likely that the SAM unit’s immediate command and control missed numerous opportunities to identify and correct the SAM operator’s misalignment, to recognize associated risks during the six hours the SAM unit was likely operational and, most importantly, to take action to remove the operator until the problem could be rectified.

In its description of events, Iran suggests a communications outage between the SAM operator and his command and control occurred and contributed to errors in decision making. According to the Forensic Team’s assessment, if disruptions to these communications occurred at any point, there is no evidence that “jamming” or electronic warfare were the cause.

Iranian military officials have suggested that such a communication’s outage could potentially be attributable to the saturation or overload of command and control systems. Either communications were not coming through due to system overload (e.g. insufficient bandwidth) or the workload was too high for the SAM unit’s immediate command and control to process information as it arrived. This is consistent with the Forensic Team’s assessment. However, this raises concerns with regards to capacity inadequacies of Iran’s military communication systems. Iran has failed to explain if redundancies or contingencies were in place. Events also suggest that if they were put in place, they were insufficient to mitigate the risk of misidentification.