Aviation experts think the Iran plane crash may have been shot down

A Ukrainian International Airlines (UIA) flight crashed shortly after it took off from Imam Khomeini International Airport near Tehran yesterday. All 176 people on the plane died.

The first reports about the crash put the blame on mechanical error. But several aviation experts now think the plane was shot down, according to The Independent:

While some aviation experts said it was too early to speculate, the OPS group, an aviation risk monitoring group, said: We would recommend the starting assumption to be that this was a shootdown event, similar to MH17 until there is clear evidence to the contrary," highlighting photos of the crash site which they said "show obvious projectile holes in the fuselage and a wing section."

OPS Group has photos that show holes in the plane's wings, which it says are signs the plane was shot down.

Image: by Kambui - Ukraine International Airlines - UIA Boeing 737-528 UR-GAT, CC BY 2.0, Link