Who downed the Russian Il-20 off Syria's coast?

Who was responsible when a Russian reconnaissance plane vanished from radar over the Mediterranean? By 18 September 2018, the answer was taking shape, and it was already contested.

The Ilyushin Il-20 disappeared on 17 September 2018 during a missile attack on Syria's Latakia Governorate. As reported at the time, 14 servicemen were on board. A U.S. official said the Syrian Army had inadvertently shot the aircraft down while trying to intercept missiles. Russia, for its part, said it had detected a missile launch from a French FREMM multipurpose frigate.

On 18 September 2018 it emerged that the plane had indeed been shot down. Russia accused Israel of not giving enough warning before launching its attacks, which, in Moscow's account, led Syria to fire on the aircraft.

A second development the same day

The loss came on the same day that Russia and Turkey announced a demilitarised zone in Syria's Idlib Governorate and ruled out any military operations there. Later accounts add that the Israeli strikes took place a few hours after that agreement, which postponed an imminent offensive by Syria's forces and its allies.

What the competing accounts showed

The accounts differed on who bore responsibility, but they agreed on the mechanism: Syrian air defences, responding to a missile attack, hit a Russian aircraft. Later accounts put the death toll at 15 crew, one more than the 14 first reported, and said Russia accused Israel of hiding behind the Russian aircraft. They also said the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged striking a Syrian weapons facility and expressed sorrow for the loss of life, which it attributed to Syrian fire.

The episode showed how closely the military activity of several states overlapped in Syrian airspace and waters. On 18 September 2018, the blame was still being assigned, while the Idlib agreement stood as a separate and simultaneous diplomatic step.