Ok, then why didnt these Russians not just take them all down? They correctly ID’d all of these airliners, but magically goofed on this one?
What the heck was the benefit of shooting one (I guess) random plane down? One story I’ve read is that the people supposedly manning this missile launcher shot this plane down because they thought it was Ukraine military jet, but they just conveniently ignore dozens of other commercial airliners that would have looked no different than this one? Again, for what?
I don’t think anyone, on either side, is disputing that it was a mistake. (Well, except for the Russians trying to make excuses). If you look for rational explanations to mistakes, you fall into a very deep hole.