Monday, January 09, 2006
A weird plane crash in Iran
A small military jet crashed in northwestern Iran on Monday, killing the commander of the ground forces of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and at least 12 other people, state media said.
It was the second time in two months that a military plane crashed in Iran while attempting to make an emergency landing.
In Monday's crash, the plane was trying to make an emergency landing at Oroumieh, about 560 miles northwest of Tehran near the Turkish border, when its landing gear jammed, preventing the wheels from being fully deployed, state media reported.
The reports did not explain why the plane was trying to make an emergency landing.
So, something goes wrong with the plane mid-air, and when the pilot tries to land the landing gear jams? The plane happens to be carrying the commander of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces and a bunch of his butt boys? That's so goofy it's almost as though Hollywood invented it.
Normally, the application of Occam's Razor would require that we assume this crash is, er, legit. But the description of this crash, the passenger manifest and the current pressure on Iran makes me wonder whether an enemy -- internal or external -- isn't responsible.
11 Comments:
By 
Christine, at
Mon Jan 09, 07:21:00 AM:
Gee, for some reason I am not that worried about whether it was an enemy that was possibly involved.
Pretty bad when "that" part of my moral doesn't kick in.
By Huan, at
Mon Jan 09, 08:32:00 AM:
perhaps we should all be worried if the nutcase president of Iran is consolidating his power by eliminating more moderate elements from the military.
By TigerHawk, at
Mon Jan 09, 09:29:00 AM:
It is hard to believe (without any actual knowledge about the subject) that the commander of the Revolutionary Guard is a "more moderate element." Seems like a bad position for somebody who is soft on Allah.
By Huan, at
Mon Jan 09, 09:44:00 AM:
Something else i did not consider:
DEBKAfile’s Tehran sources note the high importance of the dead commander who was appointed only three months ago. Another of the victims was head of the RG intelligence branch.
Kazemi, for six years chief of the RG air force, was one of the fathers of Iran’s aggressive military doctrine. Our Iran experts’ first premise is that the crash was engineered by opposition factions to president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad within the regime in an effort to stem the increasing encroachments of state institutions by his backers, the radical Revolutionary Guards.
By geoffrobinson, at
Mon Jan 09, 01:18:00 PM:
Didn't you the memo from Dover? The ability to detect design is not something that can be done. So you can't say anything about the plane crashes.
By Georg Felis, at
Mon Jan 09, 01:46:00 PM:
I seem to remember Saddam using helicopter crashes to eliminate political enemies, perhaps Iran is learning from its next-door neighbor? They already have the nuclear program, the terrorist support network, the loose nuts with outrageous statements…
By ShrinkWrapped, at
Mon Jan 09, 04:36:00 PM:
As I posted on my blog, I think this is a good time to comfirm the Muslim world's view of Americans and Jews as supermen and giants; lets just start the rumor that the Mossad and the CIA were behind it. They will believe it and we will score psy-ops points.
[This is only partly tongue-in-cheek since it mat actually be true.]
By Cardinalpark, at
Mon Jan 09, 05:17:00 PM:
There's always the possibility -- even the likelihood -- that the plane was maintenance starved and they're incompetent. One does not often hear of crashes of planes due to their landing gear. Remember the Jetblue plane flying around LA?
The notion that the pilot did not know his gear wasn't fully deployed is kind of...impossible.
I'd like our guys to get credit, but let's not overrate either. I think it is a testament to how bloody incompetent the opposition is.
By Huan, at
Mon Jan 09, 07:39:00 PM:
"more moderate" does not mean they are "moderate." But given sufficient time, in all revolutions some will become disillusioned, and more moderate, even having attain position of power.
speculations thus are:
1. simple accident
2. western intervention
3. iranian government intervention
4. iranian opposition intervention
By Papa Ray, at
Tue Jan 10, 12:30:00 AM:
I'm sure that Iranian Media is no better at reporting accidents than ours is. There is no telling what happened. It could even be dis-information.
It could have been anything, from just poor maintenance to an in flight highjacking gone wrong or just about anything in between.
The passenger list might not even be correct or incorrect on purpose.
What ever, I would think that they would get some new planes and contract the maintenance out to a good firm.
They do have the money don't they?
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
By 
, at
Tue Jan 10, 01:04:00 PM:
It would not surprise me if there are elements within the Iranian military that are distinctly uneasy with the current course of the mullahs.
The Highway of Death running from Kuwait to Iraq has almost certainly made a heck of an impression on folks over there. If the mullahs do manage to provoke the US, my guess is that few in the Iranian military are looking forward to being on the wrong end of another 14 years of American military technological and operational advances.
