U.S. intelligence sources say they believe Iranian forces shot down the Ukraine International Airlines passenger plane that plummeted to the earth like a fireball earlier this week with 176 people aboard—but they believe it was done by mistake.
To casual observers, the idea of killing so many people in such brutal fashion by accident may seem as baffling as the Iranian authorities’ almost immediate conclusion that the plane crashed because of “mechanical failure.”
How does one confuse a commercial plane with an incoming missile? Is that even possible?