The shooting down of civilian aircraft is extremely rare, but not unprecedented.

In 1983, 269 died when Soviet fighter jets downed a South Korean Boeing 747.

According to history.com, the Korean Airlines (KAL) flight was on the last leg of a flight from New York City to Seoul, with a stopover in Anchorage, Alaska. As it approached its final destination, the plane began to veer far off its normal course. The plane flew into Russian airspace and crossed over the Kamchatka Peninsula, where some top-secret Soviet military installations were known to be located. The Soviets sent two fighters to intercept the plane. According to tapes of the conversations between the fighter pilots and Soviet ground control, the fighters quickly located the KAL flight and tried to make contact with the passenger jet. Failing to receive a response, one of the fighters fired a heat-seeking missile, hitting the jet.

In 1988, 290 were killed when an Iran Air plane was shot out of the sky by the US.

The attack took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight's usual flight path. According to the US government, the crew incorrectly identified the Iranian Airbus A300 as an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter.

In 2001, the Ukrainian military shot down a Russian passenger jet as it flew over the Black Sea traveling from Tel Aviv in Israel to Novosibirsk in Russia. All 78 people on board died.

It took a while for Kiev to admit what had happened, after investigators from Moscow pressured Ukraine to accept that its military was at fault.