Posted on 12/11/2024 7:42:01 PM PST by Red Badger
Kremlin sources have revealed the tricks Russia reportedly used to smuggle President Bashar al-Assad out of Syria as his regime suddenly collapsed.
It comes as one of Vladimir Putin's allies confirmed for the first time today that Russia did indeed help the ousted dictator flee to Moscow.
Three sources told Bloomberg News that Moscow organised for Assad to escape via its air base on the Syrian coast, using a 'transponder trick'.
He was reportedly ordered to tell no-one, switch his transponder off and get on his private plane in the capital Damascus.
The aircraft then travelled to Russia’s Khmeimim air base on the Syrian coast, before Assad headed to Moscow, possibly on a military plane, the sources have claimed.
It is understood Putin personally approved Assad's rescue but has no intention of meeting him now he is in exile.
Agents working for the Russian government convinced Assad to leave the country immediately after it became clear he would lose a fight with the rebels, the Kremlin sources said.
It comes after flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed a plane believed to be carrying Assad as he left the Syrian capital Damascus in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The plane headed towards the Mediterranean Sea, before making a U-turn and disappearing from the map.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The plane (il-76) that “disappeared” didn’t just “disappear” — 3D tracking showed a descent right into the ground. I suspect it may have been a diversion.
I’m sure somebody would if they could....................
I can’t find the vid now - there’s an account related by a english speaking friend of a Syrian Colonel in which the Col. describes electronic jamming, communications cuts, and possible collusion by some Syrian commanders with the rebels. The attacks from the South (Druze, I believe) also seemed to greatly shock him.
Lebanese Christians at least have a huge beef vs Assad. The Syrians provided critical assistance to Hezbollah, thereby making them come out on top of the Lebanese civil war. Btw the Lebanese Christians were off and on allied with the Lebanese Sunni against Hezbollah.
LOL
As an air traffic controller, for 20 years, I found if a pilot turned off his transponder, we got no altitude readout at all, and it was extremely hard to identify an aircraft.
And we learn the pilot was Victor Bout.
Turning off the transponder is not rocket science. Hijackers do it. Air traffic is tracked almost exclusively by transponder. In the U.S. and Canada small private aircraft are not required to be so equipped if they stay out of controlled air space. The introduction of ADS-B allows anyone with a receiver to track all ADS-B equipped aircraft within their field of view. ADS-B is an extension of normal ATCRBS (”at-crabs”: Air Traffic Control Radar Beacon System) which transmits once a second without interrogation.
Military aircraft normally transmit beacon replies (ATCRBS) and ADS-B when they are operating in civilian airspace. Obviously not when in combat or training for combat.
Military radar use “skin track” to track non-cooperating aircraft, and civilian air traffic control still employ skin track, but skin tracks are mostly ignored by ATC, especially outside North America.
the Russians made this up from whole cloth to make themselves look brilliant.
—
Of course. Putin is a well-known genius - just look at how he has begun to resurrect the Soviet Union, masterfully handled: the cost of the rubble fell from 81 to the dollar to 104, meat wave assaults for 758,000 casualties for incremental gains over 4 years in a war he began, destruction of 90% of the old Soviet military equipment - leaving troops almost no armor.
Brilliance beyond compare! Pure genius! Masterful!
“ He had no intention of running that hell-hole, but his brother, who was being groomed for the job, somehow died young and he ended up running the show by default.”
You have empathy for a brutal dictator who oversaw thousands of rapes, murderers and tortures?
Really strange …
We had a lot of folks here going with the speculative rumor that Assad had died in a crash...when we do that, we’re no better than those who sway public opinion via false “truths” to push an agenda - and keep the public ignorant of the facts.
I fly a lot, you can easily avoid ATC radar by turning off your transponder and heading for the deck getting under the radar horizon which for a 50 foot tall tower is only 8 miles out. The FAA will pull your very for such shenanigans but physics is on your side.
Remember a Cessna in the 1980s turned off it’s transponder in Eastern Europe then flew through the most heavily defended airspace on earth past dozens of military radars , SAM missile defense systems and landed wheels down in Red Fing square in the heart of Moscow. So yeah turning off a transponder and getting to the deck you vanish. You would need airborne AWACS with military grade skin return only Doppler look down radar and even then in the clutter a small aircraft can hide, follow a roadway and stay at or just above freeway speeds the moving target indicators will ignore “road” traffic.
Knee jerk reactions are too often wrong....................
“You have empathy for a brutal dictator who oversaw thousands of rapes, murderers and tortures?
Really strange …”
You must have me confused with someone else as, I did NOT want Al-Jolani to come to power last weekend, given his HORRIFIC history towards the innocent Christians in Syria.
Glad he escaped before the worse crowd took over.
IDENT is a special transponder function that only gets used at ATC's request. ATC will ask for it when they're having trouble picking your 'blip' out of all the traffic on their radar screen, or if you're VFR (which means you're squawking 1200, if you even bothered to turn the transponder on), not on a flight plan, and they need you to squawk a specific code for them so they can keep track of you more easily. This might happen if you're requesting to enter controlled airspace at your destination airfield, or you're picking up a flight plan (can be instrument or visual) after you're already airborne.
When ATC radar sweeps the airplane, its transponder normally replies with that 4-digit number in a 12-bit code (called a secondary return). When you press the IDENT button, it changes to a 13-bit code, and receipt of the extra bit makes your 'blip' on ATC's radar screen pulse momentarily (computer geeks would call this "throbbing").
So all IDENT does is make your blip stand out from all the others that at that moment are on ATC's radar screen.
Can you use a false transponder code? Sure, most transponders have four thumbwheels on the control face that the crew manually sets the squawk code in. They can set it to anything they want from 0000 to 9999. Which might be conflated with a false identity but to IDENT is something altogether different.
I wasn’t clear about the relationship.
If ATC is giving you a specific transponder code to use and want to see your blip on the screen flash, they will tell you something like, “Squawk 5678 and IDENT.” So you change the transponder code to 5678 (which will take some seconds, during which you’re traveling 150 feet a second) and then press the IDENT button. So the IDENT is both a time saver for ATC and a safety feature.
How much of the $135B Assad took, did Putin “charge” to grant him and his family asylum?
There was a video yesterday where they found pallets and pallets of hundred dollar bills and euros stacked in about 4 foot cubes, wrapped in saran wrap with a big QR code, that traced right to the Federal Reserve...........
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