Pilots Say Missile Was Fired at Airliner in Northern Iraq

[unhappycamper]

Pilots Say Missile Was Fired at Airliner in Northern Iraq
By C. J. CHIVERS
Published: August 14, 2007


A European civil aviation authority said yesterday that it was reviewing security conditions at airports in northern Iraq after two pilots reported that their passenger airliner had been attacked by ground fire last week while taking off from Sulaimaniya.

The plane, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 operated by Nordic Airways and carrying more than 120 people, was not struck and continued to Stockholm.

But its pilots have told investigators that they saw the flash and light of a missile rise from the ground, arc near the plane and then drop away as they climbed between 3,000 and 6,000 feet, said Anders Lundblad, a spokesman for Luftfartsstyrelsen, the civil aviation authority in Sweden, where Nordic Airways is registered.

On Thursday night, the time of the reported attack, there was reported to be good weather and clear visibility.

Just one commercial airplane, a DHL cargo carrier, is known to have been struck by a missile in Iraq, in November 2003, when the plane landed in Baghdad with its left wing in flames. But at least 34 helicopters have been shot down, according to a tally by the Brookings Institution, including a CH-46 Marine helicopter brought down by a surface-to-air missile in February 2007, killing seven people.

~snip~

Brig. Sarkawt Hassan Jalal, the director of security in the Sulaimaniya region, said local investigators had found no evidence of a missile shot. “There was not an attack, not even from the bullet of a pistol,” he said by telephone. “No rocket, not a thing. All of this is just propaganda.”


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[unhappycamper]

1. And I just found this:

Sweden suspends Iraq flights
By LOUISE NORDSTROM, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 51 minutes ago


STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Sweden has suspended commercial flights to and from Iraq after an apparent rocket attack against a passenger jet as it took off from the northern city of Sulaimaniyah, the Nordic country's aviation authority said Tuesday.

In the incident last Wednesday, pilots of the Nordic Airways plane carrying 130 passengers noticed a trail of light arching over the aircraft just after takeoff, Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Anders Lundblad said.

The McDonnell Douglas MD83 plane was not hit, and arrived safely in Stockholm.

Lundblad said the incident was being investigated, but that preliminary information suggested "some kind of rocket" was fired at the plane.

The authority suspended all commercial airline traffic between Sweden and Iraq last week pending a review of the security situation in northern Iraq.

~snip~

It also is rare for such violence to occur in Sulaimaniyah, a city in Iraq's relatively peaceful autonomous Kurdish region, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad.


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[wordpix]

2. according to BushCo, though, the surge is working & we need to give it more time

And the moon is made of green cheese.

[Eugene]

3. Interesting. Last week the Iraqis blamed bright lights on the ground.

Now it was just "propaganda." Sure it was. :eyes:

From Friday: Iraq airport dismisses reports of Swedish airline attack - AFP