Western intelligence agencies are now convinced that the Ukrainian International Airlines flight was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, although given that 82 of the 176 onboard were Iranian, the working assumption is that this was an accident, not deliberate.

As is typical now, photographs and video have emerged of the plane in a ball of fire, and images of the wreckage on the ground.

But one video appears to show the moment the aircraft was struck by a missile, thought to be a Russian made TOR anti-aircraft missile.

Video appears to show missile striking plane

In the video, the missile travels from west to east (left to right on the video). Ukrainian Airlines flight PS752 is barely visible and flying in the opposite direction (right to left) climbing out of Imam Khomeini International Airport.

The video, which first circulated on Telegram then Twitter, has been verified by The New York Times and geo-located by the investigatory website Bellingcat.


Bellingcat believes it was filmed in the Tehran suburb of Parand, west of the airport.

Image: The footage was recorded in Parand, southwest of Tehran. Pic: @narimangharib

Buildings and street furniture are visible in the foreground - Bellingcat has cross-referenced satellite imagery and matched them to apartment blocks in that district.

The time delay between the missile hitting the aircraft and the explosion heard on the video is around 10.7 seconds. That has been calculated to suggest the planes was 3.6km away, if taken in a straight line.

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Using a simple Pythagoras's theorem, Bellingcat then worked out that the land distance was 3.3km. This tallies with the known distance between the crash site and believed location of the video.

By adding the plane's flight route and trajectory, easily available from tracking sites like Flightradar, you can then match the locations together and come to a reasonable conclusion that the video is genuine.

One outstanding question remains: why was the person randomly filming the dark night sky?

There is no definitive explanation for this, except that given heightened tensions and Iranian airstrikes just hours before, the city would have been on alert.

There are also reports two missiles were fired - so, did he hear a noise and then begin filming?