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Who shot down the Russian Il-20 over Syria?
Summary
A look back at the reports of 19 September 2018 on the loss of a Russian reconnaissance plane and the Idlib deal made the same day it vanished.
Who brought down a Russian reconnaissance aircraft off the Syrian coast, and who was to blame? By 19 September 2018 the question was at the centre of a widening dispute over Syria.
On 17 September 2018 a Russian Air Force Ilyushin Il-20 with 14 servicemen on board disappeared from radar over the Mediterranean Sea. It vanished during a missile attack on Syria's Latakia Governorate. A U.S. official said the Syrian Army had inadvertently shot the plane down while trying to intercept missiles. Russia said it had detected a missile launch from a French FREMM multipurpose frigate.
By 18 September 2018 it had emerged that the aircraft, missing since Monday, had been shot down. Russia accused Israel of not giving enough warning before launching its attacks, which it said led Syria to fire on the plane.
Later accounts put the number of crew killed at 15 and described Israeli strikes on targets in government-controlled western Syria. They said the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged striking a Syrian weapons facility and expressed sorrow for the loss of life caused by Syrian fire.
The Idlib agreement
The incident came on the same day that Russia and Turkey announced a demilitarized zone in Syria's Idlib Governorate and ruled out any military operations there. According to later accounts, the strikes followed a few hours after the agreement, which postponed an imminent offensive by Syrian forces and their allies.
