{"id":1903,"date":"2005-03-08T01:22:19","date_gmt":"2005-03-08T08:22:19","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2005-03-08T01:22:19","modified_gmt":"2005-03-08T08:22:19","slug":"raf-hercules-downed-by-missile-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2005\/03\/08\/raf-hercules-downed-by-missile-in-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"RAF Hercules downed by missile in Iraq?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, well, well.  I can&#8217;t wait to see what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.snappingturtle.net\/flit\/index.html\">Bruce has to say<\/a> about <a href=\"http:\/\/news.independent.co.uk\/world\/middle_east\/story.jsp?story=617839\">this report:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A missile fired by insurgents from the ground probably destroyed an RAF Hercules C-130 cargo plane in Iraq with the loss of 10 British special operations servicemen, an interim report by Ministry of Defence accident investigators has revealed.<\/p>\n<p>The findings, outlined to MPs by Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, raised fears within the MoD that the insurgents could possess a new missile capable of hitting aircraft flying above 15,000 feet.<\/p>\n<p>The board of inquiry ruled out the possibility that the Hercules, which was supplying a special-operations base north of Baghdad, was blown up by an on-board bomb or an explosion caused by an accident with bombs or ammunition on board.<\/p>\n<p>The inquiry team will now have to determine whether the plane was brought down by a heat-seeking missile designed to reach aircraft at high altitude or was a lucky strike by insurgents using a Sam (surface-to-air) missile which normally has a range of less than 10,000 feet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s a mystery!<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE:  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.snappingturtle.net\/flit\/archives\/2005_03_08.html#005249\">Bruce comments on the Independent article.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Read his whole post, but here&#8217;s the essential line: &#8220;<em>The Janes expert quoted beats me to the obvious conclusion&#8230; that the plane was flying at low altitude for some reason.<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, well, well. I can&#8217;t wait to see what Bruce has to say about this report: A missile fired by insurgents from the ground probably destroyed an RAF Hercules C-130 cargo plane in Iraq with the loss of 10 British special operations servicemen, an interim report by Ministry of Defence accident investigators has revealed. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1903"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}