By Moon Of Alabama

Reuters asks: "Who Ya Gonna Believe Me Or Your Lying Eyes?"

The trustworthy (not) news agency tweeted this yesterday:

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The crashed South African plane is pretty obviously a total loss but Reuters says that there is "no sign of major damage".

Reuters is a British agency and Brits do have a special kind of humor: "Tis but a scratch" and "Just a flesh wound" says the black knight (vid).

The Reuters tweet was not a mistake. The story on Reuters' website (screenshot) carries the same picture and headline.

The capture under the picture says:

Congolese aviation workers stand next to the wreckage of C-130 Hercules South African military plane that crash-landed at the Goma airport in Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo January 9, 2020 REUTERS/Djaffer Al Katanty

The text of the article says:

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - A South African military plane crash-landed on Thursday at the Goma airport in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a U.N. spokesman said.

Videos on social media showed smoke rising from the airplane but two sources at the airport, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there did not appear to be major damage to the plane.

Reporting by Fiston Mahamba and Hereward Holland; Writing by Aaron Ross; editing by John Stonestreet

At least five Reuters people contributed to the story. The claim by the two sources it cites is obviously false. It still made it into the story and even into the headline. Twenty four hours later, even after it was mocked on Twitter, the story is still up.

Consider the above when you read reports in which anonymous officials allege that Iran shot down the Ukrainian flight PS 752 over Tehran.

That may have happened. But that is only one possible explanation for the accident. The crash may have been caused by technical or other issues. Rumors and assertion from anonymous official are not evidence. Neither are videos of unknown provenance. The U.S. is waging an economic war on Iran and it has the will and the ways and means to fabricate such allegations. We will only know for sure what happened when the real evidence has been investigated by the designated authorities.

Some of the comments to yesterday's piece on the accident disagreed with my warning that the purported evidence of a shoot down is yet insufficient and that other causes are very well possible. They should consider the warning from the top of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO):

ICAO is in contact with the States involved and will assist them if called upon. Its leadership is stressing the importance of avoiding speculation into the cause of the tragedy pending the outcomes of the investigation in accordance with Annex 13 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention).

The warning was repeated yesterday:

ICAO continues to call for diminished speculation on the possible causes of the accident until the Annex 13 investigation is permitted to be concluded and its official results are confirmed.

Meanwhile the bodies have been removed from the crash site and the debris has been been collected and sorted by type.

This morning the head of the Iranian Civil Aviation Administration gave a press conference (vid) based on what the officials currently know. My impression is that he is a serious and reasonable person. The Aljazeerah English live translation was not good. None of the questions were translated but some of official's points were understandable: