Nuclear mistake could spell end of humanity

JUDGING from video evidence, it is absolutely clear that Ukraine Air flight PS 752 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile in a classic case of misidentification under a very tense situation in a volatile atmosphere within a conflict zone.

Iran has acknowledged human error, admitting that a Russian-built missile, an SA-15, destroyed the Boeing 737-800, which sometimes resemble transport aircraft on radar systems with a military signature.

Compounding the cascading series of errors, flight 752 was running one hour late. In 2007 and 2008, Iranian air defence units mistakenly fired on two airliners amid fears that Israel was planning to attack its nuclear weapons development facilities, according to a classified report.

Iranian air defence units believed enemy aircraft might mimic the flight profile of an airliner.

In the current tense environment, Iran’s entire air defence system was on hair trigger alert, reducing any margin of error only to a few minutes.

On July 3, 1988, the most sophisticated warship in the world, The USS Vincennes, shot down a fully loaded Iranian airbus, killing 300 innocent passengers.

The warship mistook the airbus for an Iranian F14 tomcat at a time of intense hostilities in the Gulf area. Over the past 70 years, more than 50 passenger jets have been blown out of the skies, killing more than 10 000 innocent souls.

Most were cases of mistaken identity, while some had sinister links to security.

In an era where tension is rife in conflict areas and involving hightech weaponry, the risk of military errors is an ever-present deadly menace. With the deployment of nuclear missiles on hair trigger alert, one mistake would spell the end of humanity. FAROUK ARAIE | Johannesburg