History: Civilian aircraft downed by missiles

• October 4, 2001: Russia's Siberian Airlines Tu-154, flying from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk, exploded in mid-flight over the Black Sea. All 78 people on board, most of them Israelis, were killed. One week later Kyiv admitted to the accidental firing of a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile during a military exercise in Crimea.

• July 3, 1988: An Iran Air Airbus A300, flying from Bandar Abbas in Iran to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, was shot down shortly after take-off by two missiles fired from the US frigate USS Vincennes patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, which had apparently mistaken the plane for a fighter aircraft. The 290 people on board Flight 655 were killed. The United States paid Iran $101.8 million in compensation.

• September 1, 1983: A South Korean Boeing 747, Korean Air Flight 007, was shot down by Soviet fighter jets west of Sakhalin Island after it had strayed off course. Some 269 passengers and crew members were killed. Five days later Soviet officials acknowledged that they had shot down the plane.

• June 27, 1980: A McDonnell Douglas DC-9 of the Italian airline Itavia, flying from Bologna to Palermo with 81 people on board, exploded in mid-flight near the island of Ustica, off Sicily. The hypothesis that a missile was fired in error by French or US fighter jets was denied by Washington, while the French defence ministry refused to comment.

• February 21, 1973: A Libyan Arab Airline Boeing 727 en route from Tripoli to Cairo was shot down by Israeli fighter jets over the Sinai desert. All but four of the 112 people on board were killed. The Israeli air force intervened after the Boeing flew over military facilities in the Sinai, which was then occupied by Israel. The Israeli authorities said fighters opened fire when the plane refused to land.

rg/sgb (AFP, dpa)