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Russia\u2019s Ministry of Defense has since blamed Israel<\/b> for the near-miss <\/b>– at the time the incident occurred, the Syrian air defence systems had engaged four Israeli F-16s, and Russia claims that these fighter jets were using civilian aircraft as \u201ccover\u201d while conducting air strikes.<\/p>\n
Russia has accused the Israeli military of putting commercial flights like this at risk<\/b> in the past, by timing their airstrikes on Syria too close to flights arriving at Beirut and Damascus airports. In the past few months there have been a number of air strikes by Israel against military targets in Syria, including OSDI\/Damascus airport, with the Syrian government firing its own missiles over Syrian airspace and along the Lebanese border to repel the attacks.<\/p>\n
This latest incident comes just a month after a Ukraine International Airlines passenger plane was shot down shortly after take-off from Tehran<\/b>, killing all 176 people on board. Iran later said its forces had shot it down unintentionally, having mistaken the aircraft radar return for an inbound missile to Tehran.<\/p>\n
In the days following, many countries issued warnings<\/span><\/a> to avoid the airspace of Iran and Iraq<\/b>, and most airlines other than Middle Eastern carriers have now stopped overflying these countries entirely.<\/p>\n The same is true of Syria – there are multiple airspace warnings<\/span><\/a> in place, including a total flight ban<\/b> by the US and German authorities. Some countries add the additional warning to exercise caution when operating anywhere within 200 nautical miles of the country<\/b> – advice that came into sharp focus in September 2018, when Syrian forces shot down<\/b> a Russian IL-20M transport category aircraft over international waters 20nm off the coast, mistaking it for an Israeli fighter.<\/p>\n Further reading:<\/b><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/SYRIA-MED-1024x620.png\")
<\/a>That event significantly changed the risk picture for civil aircraft operating in the vicinity of Syria. We wrote about it here<\/span><\/a>, and the advice still stands – there is a clear risk<\/b> to civil aircraft operating over Syria, as well as in the overwater airspace east of Cyprus.<\/strong> The risk picture is two-fold: misidentifcation<\/b> of your aircraft as a military one, and an errant missile<\/b> launched at another aircraft that locks onto you instead.<\/p>\n