Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Aerospace Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh expressed regrets for he unintentional downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane earlier this week, stressing that the Iranian Armed Forces assume full responsibilities in this regard.
“We bear full responsibility and we put ourselves at the disposal of the leadership over this mistake,” Hajizadeh said in a press conference on Saturday.
“When I knew that the plane was downed by mistake I wished death,” the Iranian General said.
He elaborated on the issue, saying that due to the unprecedented tensions in the past week between Iran and the United States and following Iran’s retaliatory missile attacks to a US base in Iraq, all the defense divisions of the country were on full alert, referring to the retaliatory attack to US’ assassination of IRGC’s Quds Force Commander General Qassem Suleimani.
To boost the offensive and defensive parts, Hajizadeh said, several systems were added to the defensive ring around the capital city of Tehran.
The general noted that the first defensive system, positioned west of Tehran, identified the plane as a “cruise missile”.
He also said that the civil aviation officials are not to blame for the denial of a missile attack on the passenger plane over the past three days, because they were totally uninformed about the cause of the incident.
Brigadier General Hajizadeh said he had notified the Armed Forces officials of the accident immediately after the Boeing 737 was shot by friendly fire, but the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces set up an investigation team, kept its members in seclusion, and reached a final conclusion no sooner than Friday morning.
Source: Iranian media
