The Aviation Thread [Contains Lots of Awesome Pictures]

Iran was in the lucky-ish situation of for the first time since the 80s being seen as the victim of US aggression by most major political powers. Shooting down a civilian plane deliberately makes no sense for them. So if it was Iranian fire, it was by accident or mistake (nervous/trigger happy operator, equipment malfunction, etc). A deliberate shot would make sense for splinter factions or other regional powers only (not for the US, though, it's not their style).
 
As it's the middle east and not remotely a sane corner of the planet politically, I think attribution of the missile will be harder than determining whether the plane was shot down or not. Basically all warring factions have had access to soviet and/or american equipment at one point or another so make and model of missile used are only of limited help...

I think that really depends on the type of missile used. If it was a MANPADS like a Stinger or an SA-7, proving that will be difficult. If it's a tracked or truck based system, the likelihood of it being a non state actor goes down considerably.
 
bone, in your effort to derail the thread into politics, you became the clown.


A country just shot down a passenger airplane, it is more than a little political.
 
'accidentally'
 
Even though, it was caused in part by the ramp up of tensions overnight.
Yes, it's clearly Trump's fault that Iran shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane :roll: #TDS


Anyways, Iran is denying shooting down the plane - no surprise there. I've also seen reports that they've bulldozed the entire scene before allowing outsiders to assess it.
 
As it's the middle east and not remotely a sane corner of the planet politically, I think attribution of the missile will be harder than determining whether the plane was shot down or not. Basically all warring factions have had access to soviet and/or american equipment at one point or another so make and model of missile used are only of limited help...
I think it would be pretty clear who did the shooting, remember this is right outside of a major city and Iran itself is not exactly mired in a civil war at the moment.
 
A country just shot down a passenger airplane, it is more than a little political.
Not necessarily, if it were a deliberate act by the state then yes, if this is a case of a nervous/scared operator or malfunctioning equipment then it’s not.
 
What is @LeVeL s obsession with the Tag der Sachsen anyways?
 
Speaking of weird aviation incident:

http://avherald.com/h?article=478cc9e4&opt=0

Report: Flybe DH8D at Belfast on Feb 12th 2014, captain's prosthetic arm detached during landing flare
The commander disconnected the autopilot and performed a manual landing. During the flare, with the engines at somewhat more than flight idle, his arm detached from the yoke clamp depriving the captain from controlling the aircraft. He made a rapid assessment of the situation considering to alert the first officer and have him take control of the aircraft, however, the first officer would have needed a little time to assimiliate all information necessary to take over in challenging conditions, the commander therefore concluded the safest way to proceed was to move his right hand from the power levers onto the yoke. With little power still applied the aircraft touched down, bounced and touched down hard a second time.
 
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