Posted on 11/02/2015 5:53:03 PM PST by amorphous
Earlier today, we highlighted commentary from Russia’s Kogalymavia (the airline operating the ill-fated Airbus A321 which crashed in the Sinai Peninsula) where officials said human and technical factors weren’t responsible for the mid-air disaster which killed 224 people.
IS Sinai took credit for “destroying†the plane but it wasn’t immediately clear what the contention was in terms of just how the group went about sabotaging the flight. Subsequently, a series of analysts and commentators opined that there was simply no way the militants could have possessed the technology or the expertise to shoot down a plane flying at 31,000 feet, but as Kogalymavia put it, “a plane cannot simply disintegrate.â€
In short, it seems as though something exploded, and while we can’t know for sure whether someone detonated on board or whether, as former NTSB investigator Alan Diehl told CNN, "final destruction" of the plane was the result of "aerodynamic forces or some other type of G-forces,†the circumstances are exceptionally suspicious especially given where the plane was flying and the current rather “tense†relationship between Moscow and Sunni extremists.
Now, the US has apparently ruled out the possibility that a projectile hit the plane but satellite imagery depicts a “heat flash†at the time of the crash which indicates “some kind of explosion on the aircraft itself, either a fuel tank or a bomb.†Here’s NBC:
While many have speculated that a missile may have struck a Russian commercial airliner that went down over Egypt's Sinai peninsula, U.S. officials are now saying satellite imagery doesn't back up that theory.
A senior defense official told NBC News late Monday that an American infrared satellite detected a heat flash at the same time and in the same vicinity over the Sinai where the Russian passenger plane crashed.
According to the official, U.S. intelligence analysts believe it could have been some kind of explosion on the aircraft itself, either a fuel tank or a bomb, but that there's no indication that a surface-to-air missile brought the plane down.
That same infrared satellite would have been able to track the heat trail of a missile from the ground.
"The speculation that this plane was brought down by a missile is off the table," the official said.
A second senior U.S. defense official also confirmed the surveillance satellite detected a "flash or explosion" in the air over the Sinai at the same time.
According to the official, "the plane disintegrated at a very high altitude," when, as the infrared satellite indicates, "there was an explosion of some kind."
That official also stressed "there is no evidence a missile of any kind brought down the plane"
We'd be remiss if we didn't note that the video released by ISIS which purports to depict the plane exploding in mid-air doesn't appear to show any kind of missile, but rather seems to suggest that someone on the ground knew the exact time when the aircraft was set to explode.
To be clear, there's always the possibility that this is a coincidence and that the explosion which brought down the plane wasn't terror related, but given the circumstances, you certainly can't blame anyone for suspecting the worst and as we noted earlier, the Sinai Peninsula is well within the range of Russia's warplanes flying from Latakia:
Sounded accurate up to the part about a MANPAD reaching 31,000 feet.
Didn't happen.
MANPADS can’t reach 31,000 feet.
According to this page, the maximum altitude is about 12,500 feet:
Max range: 8,000 m
Max effective range: (FIM-92A) greater than 4,000 m
(FIM-92B/C) 4,800 m
Min effective range: 200 m
Max altitude: (FIM-92A) 3,500 m
(FIM-92B/C) 3,800 m
Min altitude: effectively ground level
It gives a maximum range of 8,000 m, or 26,247 feet, but a maximum effective range of only 4,800 m, or 15,748 feet. IOW, don't count on hitting anything flying higher that 12,000 feet or further away than 3 miles.
If it was a missile it wouldn’t have been a manpad, that’s if the plane was at 31,000’. Very well could have been a SAM looted from the Libyan army.
No heat plume of a missile was detected by satellite. Only an infrared burst as the plane disintegrated.
Perhaps detonated by a radio signal?
On one hand it is pretty cool and pretty amazing. On the other hand, I probably should wear a robe out on the back deck!
I have flown in and out of that airport several times in 2006-2007. I suspect a ground worker may have planted an explosive device on the plane. Perhaps food services or another.
Satellite surveillance? Why was there no satellite information about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370?
I think you are spot on! The effort to spin this with the satellite imagery nonsense is to put everyone off track from the true circumstances. This was a missile shoot down as sure as my name is Jon.
So she sold them larger missiles. This should truly be a game changer.
Not to worry!
If they've never seen it before, they won't know what it is!
No, she didn’t provide those missiles, at least not from US stocks. Missiles of this type require at the very least a specialized radar control system on the ground. They don’t have independent acquisition of their own, they have to be told what to go after and often guided most if not all the way there before their weak onboard radar systems can take over. The minimum package size to get even one missile in the air (not including the missile) is about the size of a U-Haul moving van and not the smallest either. It will not fit in the back of a pickup truck.
It’s more likely to be yet another Russian S-300 or Buk system - and not even necessarily as a false flag operation. Russia has been selling SAM vehicles and missiles of the required class to everyone with money and even some that didn’t have money for the past forty years. Would not be the first time Russian weapons sales prolificacy had come back to bite them in the arse.
She also wasn’t giving them Stingers. She was giving them foreign made manpads. Who’s to say they weren’t transferring larger systems...since they killed the ambassador with the info?
MH370 flew into a part of the world that has little to no satellite surveillance. It’s mostly open ocean far from land. 370 also didn’t have a very detailed satellite uplink, something that’s been undergoing changes since 370 went missing
You can’t use the missiles at all without very large and very obvious launcher and control vehicles. Some are literally larger than a main battle tank and they’re very hard to miss. None have been spotted in the area.
What Infra red satellite with what field of view just happened to be looking right there right then and recording?
Shoot, move, communicate.
They are mobile, so they move them. That’s US doctrine. So, it’s everybody’s doctrine.
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