{"id":87609,"date":"2020-07-24T07:38:11","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T12:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=87609"},"modified":"2020-07-24T07:53:50","modified_gmt":"2020-07-24T12:53:50","slug":"auto-draft-110","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2020\/07\/24\/auto-draft-110\/","title":{"rendered":"US admits to &#8216;intercepting&#8217; Iranian passenger plane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-87627 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Mahan-Air-1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Mahan-Air-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Mahan-Air-1-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Mahan-Air-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Mahan-Air-1-24x16.jpg 24w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Mahan-Air-1-36x24.jpg 36w, https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Mahan-Air-1-48x32.jpg 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>DW \u2014 The US Central Command has claimed responsibility for engaging with an Iranian passenger plane in Syrian airspace. Iranian officials have threatened to take legal and political action over the incident.<\/p>\n<div class=\"group\">\n<div class=\"longText\">\n<p>US Central Command on Thursday confirmed that one of its warplanes had intercepted an Iranian passenger plane in Syrian airspace.<\/p>\n<p>The F-15 &#8220;conducted a standard visual inspection of a Mahan Air passenger airliner at a safe distance of about 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) from the airliner this evening,&#8221;\u00a0said Captain Bill Urban, a senior spokesman for US Central Command.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The professional intercept was conducted in accordance with\u00a0international standards,&#8221; Urban added.<\/p>\n<p>During the interaction, the pilot of the Iranian passenger plane conducted a safety maneuver and dropped the aircraft several hundred feet before stabilizing its altitude. As a result of the maneuver, several passengers received minor injuries, according to Iranian state media.<\/p>\n<div class=\"picBox full\">\n<div id=\"twtr-1286416104051609601\" class=\"group embeddedTweet\">\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered\"><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" class=\"\" title=\"Twitter Tweet\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/index.html?dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1286416104051609601&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dw.com%2Fen%2Fus-admits-to-intercepting-iranian-passenger-plane%2Fa-54302223&amp;siteScreenName=dwnews&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=9066bb2%3A1593540614199&amp;width=550px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-tweet-id=\"1286416104051609601\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>US officials said the F-15 had maintained about 1,000 meters distance between the aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The visual inspection occurred to ensure the safety of coalition personnel at At Tanf garrison,&#8221; Urban said, referring to a strategic US ground presence in Syria. &#8220;Once the F-15 pilot identified the aircraft as a Mahan Air passenger plane, the F-15 safely opened distance from the aircraft.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Iran pursues probe<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Lebanese officials said the Iranian aircraft landed in Beirut.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All the passengers are well, but some suffered from minor wounds,&#8221; Beirut airport chief Fadi al-Hassan told Lebanese broadcaster New Television. &#8220;Mot suffered from shock and fear.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Iranian authorities said they would investigate the incident to determine. The Iranian Foreign Ministry said it had lodged complaints with the UN secretary-general&#8217;s office and the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which represents US diplomatic services in Iran.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The details of the incident are still being investigated and afterward\u00a0we will initiate political and legal steps,&#8221; said Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mussawi.<\/p>\n<p>Later Friday, Tehran condemned the maneuver.\u00a0Laya Joneydi, vice president for legal affairs,\u00a0was quoted as saying by Iranian media that:\u00a0&#8220;The explanations provided so far are unjustified and\u00a0unconvincing.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The harassment of a passenger plane on the territory of a\u00a0third country is a clear violation of aviation security and\u00a0freedom of civilian aircraft.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DW \u2014 The US Central Command has claimed responsibility for engaging with an Iranian passenger plane in Syrian airspace. Iranian officials have threatened to take legal and political action over the incident. US Central Command on Thursday confirmed that one of its warplanes had intercepted an Iranian passenger plane in Syrian airspace. The F-15 &#8220;conducted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}