American satellite had detected the heat signature of the two missiles as they approached the airliner, ABC News said referring to an unnamed senior U.S. representative.

A U.S. official told ABC News that an American satellite had detected the heat signature of the two missiles as they approached the airliner.

According to him, U.S. intelligence is confident that Iran painted the Ukrainian airliner with radar and fired two surface-to-air missiles that brought down the aircraft.

According to CNN, a U.S. official familiar with the intelligence said the plane was shot down by two Russian made SA-15 surface-to-air missiles (the Russian-made complex Tor-M1 is called according to the classification of the U.S. and NATO).

He also said that he U.S. saw Iranian radar signals lock onto the jetliner, before it was shot down.

All data was collected by U.S. intelligence analysts in the morning after the incident, but it took another day to double-check everything, the representative said, CNN reports.

At the same time, the U.S. side relies on the assumption that the Iranians shot down the plane by mistake.