Passenger plane makes emergency landing to avoid air strike against Israel - Russia

A PASSENGER plane carrying 172 passengers from Tehran to Damascus made an emergency landing at the Russian-controlled Hmeimim Air Base in Syria on Thursday to avoid coming under fire from Syrian air defences, Russia said yesterday.

The Syrian forces were responding to Israeli strikes on targets in Syria, Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov was quoted as saying by Interfax and other Russian agencies.

The incident took place a month after a Ukraine International Airlines passenger plane crashed just after takeoff from Tehran, killing all 176 people on board. Iran later said its forces had shot it down unintentionally because of human error.

The Syrian defence ministry said on Thursday it had intercepted Israeli missiles over Damascus that were fired at military targets in southern Syria. Israel has declined to comment.

The Airbus A320 had been coming into land at Damascus International Airport when it was forced to divert to the nearest alternative airfield, the Hmeimim Air Base near Latakia in north-west Syria, which is operated by the Russian military.

Konashenkov did not name the airline. Data from Flight Radar showed a flight from the Iraqi city of Najaf had been diverted from Damascus towards Hmeimim. That was a Syrian Cham Wings plane. The airline could not immediately be reached for comment.

The US imposed sanctions on Cham Wings in 2016 for allegedly transporting fighters to Syria to support President Bashir al-assad and for helping Syrian military intelligence transport weapons and equipment.

The flights, which almost always land late at night, do not appear in any airport or airline timetables, and fly in from either Damascus or Latakia, where Russia has a military base.

A Cham Wings plane had flown Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani from Damascus to Baghdad before the military commander was killed by the US in an air strike last month, Reuters reported.

Israel has bombed Iranian-backed militia targets in Syria, saying its goal was to end Tehran’s military presence in the country, which has been locked in a civil war since 2011. | Reuters