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Update On The Ukrainian Plane Incident Near Tehran
Reuters asks: "Who Ya Gonna Believe Me Or Your Lying Eyes?"
The trustworthy (not) news agency tweeted this yesterday:
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The crashed South African plane is pretty obviously a total loss but Reuters says that there is "no sign of major damage".
Reuters is a British agency and Brits do have a special kind of humor: "Tis but a scratch" and "Just a flesh wound" says the black knight (vid).
The Reuters tweet was not a mistake. The story on Reuters' website (screenshot) carries the same picture and headline.
The capture under the picture says:
Congolese aviation workers stand next to the wreckage of C-130 Hercules South African military plane that crash-landed at the Goma airport in Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo January 9, 2020 REUTERS/Djaffer Al Katanty
The text of the article says:
GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – A South African military plane crash-landed on Thursday at the Goma airport in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a U.N. spokesman said.
Videos on social media showed smoke rising from the airplane but two sources at the airport, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there did not appear to be major damage to the plane.
Reporting by Fiston Mahamba and Hereward Holland; Writing by Aaron Ross; editing by John Stonestreet
At least five Reuters people contributed to the story. The claim by the two sources it cites is obviously false. It still made it into the story and even into the headline. Twenty four hours later, even after it was mocked on Twitter, the story is still up.
Consider the above when you read reports in which anonymous officials allege that Iran shot down the Ukrainian flight PS 752 over Tehran.
That may have happened. But that is only one possible explanation for the accident. The crash may have been caused by technical or other issues. Rumors and assertion from anonymous official are not evidence. Neither are videos of unknown provenance. The U.S. is waging an economic war on Iran and it has the will and the ways and means to fabricate such allegations. We will only know for sure what happened when the real evidence has been investigated by the designated authorities.
Some of the comments to yesterday's piece on the accident disagreed with my warning that the purported evidence of a shoot down is yet insufficient and that other causes are very well possible. They should consider the warning from the top of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO):
ICAO is in contact with the States involved and will assist them if called upon. Its leadership is stressing the importance of avoiding speculation into the cause of the tragedy pending the outcomes of the investigation in accordance with Annex 13 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention).
The warning was repeated yesterday:
ICAO continues to call for diminished speculation on the possible causes of the accident until the Annex 13 investigation is permitted to be concluded and its official results are confirmed.
Meanwhile the bodies have been removed from the crash site and the debris has been been collected and sorted by type.
This morning the head of the Iranian Civil Aviation Administration gave a press conference (vid) based on what the officials currently know. My impression is that he is a serious and reasonable person. The Aljazeerah English live translation was not good. None of the questions were translated but some of official's points were understandable:
- As far as it is known the plane was not hit by a missile.
- Judgment must be held back until all the technical information is available.
- After the take off the pilot contacted the airport control tower for permission to climb to 26,000 feet. The permission was given.
- Two minutes later a fire broke out on the plane.
- There was no communication after that but the pilots may have been too busy. The cockpit voice recorder will give more answers.
- Twelve groups have been formed to investigate the accident and the accident site.
- U.S. officials have asserted to have documents or other evidence that shows a missile incident. If they have such they are required to step forward and present it to the investigation.
- Video shows that the burning aircraft flew for 60-70 seconds. If the aircraft had been hit by a missile it would have dropped immediately and there would be a very large debris field as it happened with flight MH17 in Ukraine.
- All countries affected by the accident can name a liaison person or take part in the investigation.
Then followed an explanation for the delayed departure of the plane:
- The plane arrived the night before the flight.
- Both pilots went to the hotel for rest but only for three hours.
- The passengers were mostly holiday guests who carried a lot of luggage.
- The boarding process took a long time.
- The weather condition at that time were also not suitable.
- The pilot requested extra fuel.
- The number of passengers, the luggage and the extra fuel added up to more than the plane can carry.
- The pilot ordered the ground crew to off-load some luggage.
- All this was a normal process that can happen on any flight.
It is then said that the investigation may extend a long time, even longer than the usual one year. Depending on their condition the extraction of data from the blackboxes may also take a month or two. The press conference ends with a request for calm and for support of the investigation.
Footage of the unopened blackboxes was aired on Iran TV. They seem to have minor outer damage but I am confident that the permanent memory within them is intact.
Investigators and observers from several countries and from Boeing have joined their Iranian colleagues and will help to find the causes of the accident.
Ukrainian investigators have arrived and have been at the crash site. There are complains (ukr) from anonymous Ukrainian officials that the Iranians "bulldozed" the debris:
"Debris is being raked by bulldozers; is Iran interested in a quality investigation?" – source in the interdepartmental commission of Ukraine.
The Iranians used a wheeled front loader to help collect the heavy parts of the debris. That is hardly bulldozing.
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The Ukrainian also complains that the collection process is too fast and may damage some parts. Well, the plane crashed and there was a large fuel explosion. There will hardly be any undamaged parts.
The crash site of the Ethiopian MAX that came down last years was also cleaned within three days. Sorting the parts into big heaps (structure, engines, electronics) before driving them off for storage and analysis is unlikely to cause additional damage. Meanwhile in the Ukraine one can still find parts of flight MH17 at the very place where that plane came down.
I have been wargaming in the case of an all-out war between Iran + PMU vs US, so if I were the Iranian Chieff of Staff I would impose the following strategy (script), for the best possible use of resources and forces at hand:
1) The absolutely first priority of Allies (Iran & PMU) should be the US air bases, specifically to deny US the use of their air bases in the Middle East for their jets as much as possible, making them depending of long range bombers (which they have in much less numbers) and cruise missiles (long range bomber and cruise missiles fired from far away cannot give close air support to the surrounded bases and troops).
2) Other critical strategy for the Allies(I&PMU) is to maintain far away the Carrier Strikes Groups, using some shots of long range ballistics and cruise missiles (Soumar&others) to maintain them far enough from the Iranian shores. If the CSG’s are more than 2.000Km away from Iran in the Indian Ocean, the distances between the CSG’s and the west part of Iran, where the main Allied Missile Forces are allocated, will be around 3.600Km or more, so out of range of the Tomahawks missiles (1.700 Km), so only the US subs could fire them approaching the Iranian coast, but may be the Allies could have some surprises for them (in the form of mines or destroyers). The US could try to put the CSG’s in the Mediterranean Sea to strike the West of Iran, but they could be targeted also by the Allies, and the ruskies in Syria will not be glad to have some hundreds Tomahawks flying above their heads. Not easy
3) To deny the use of the air bases with the better use of resources the Allies have to make a division of labour:
a. The air bases in Iraq will be attacked almost exclusively by the PMU using a hell or MLRS and mortars. The first step is to cut all road supplies to the bases (gasoline is the most fundamental material to be cut).
b. In Iraq the first priorities of the barrages of rockets and mortars should be the fuel storages, second the airstrips (to prevent jets from landing and taking-off), third the ammo storages, and fourth the command and communication areas.
c. The barrages must be “Hezbollah style”, massive and almost non-stop, to prevent them repairing of the airstrips to be used again by the jets. The PMU have to assume they will have many casualties, but it is a war. The commander in the US bases have to choice if the maintenance teams will be exposed to the barrages to repair the airstrips, or remain in the shelters but then the jets cannot use the base. If the PMU are resolute, any jet will land or take-off.
d. To combat the helicopters the Allied need to have in Iraq many thousands on MANPAD, and to prevent the rescue teams of the US to rescue some “Blackhawk Down”, they will use the Hezbollah tactics: modern tandem warhead ATGM’s, modern tandem warhead RPG, modern anti-material rifles and modern MANPAD, they should have now in the thousands in Iraq. After some good ambushes the US bases will not recue anybody and remain locked in their bases trying to survive under the barrages and asking to be airlifted from the hell in helicopters, of course under the fire (by rockets, mortar and MANPAD when in air).
e. Just in case the rockets of the PMU are not enough, Iran could lob in to the more close US base the heavy unguided rockets they have: Fajr-3, Fajr-5, Zelzal 1-2-3 (600mm diameter)
4) For the air base in Kuwait (Ali Al Salem), the distance to Iraq is 62Km and to Iran 117Km, so is close enough to be targeted again by heavy MLRS (not by mortar or small rockets) to repeat the same strategy than the case of Iraq, in this case the Allied cannot cut the road supplies and they have to shot from longer distances, so the degrading process will take much longer to put the base out of service, in this case the heavy Zelzal 2 and 3 MLRS will be the weapons of choice to destroy the airstrips and fuel storages, probably some help for more accurate missiles will be required (they have thousands of un-guided missiles but much less guided, so the priority will be to use the un-guided, the war could last longtime)
5) For the US air bases in the Southern shores of the Persian Gulf the task to KO them will be exclusively for Iran, and they have to use the Zelzal-3 MLRS to smash the airstrips and above all the guided missiles, again to strike in the first priority the fuel storages, second command and control centers, third ammo storages, fourth hangar and spare parts storage. The distances of the US bases are in the range of the heavy MLRS of Iran (Zelzal-3 and Fajr-5C): Al Udeid is at 265Km from Iran, Saikh Isa at 240Km and Al Dhafra at 245Km, somebody did not thought some 50 years ago that these bases could be used to confront Iran, which is just in front of them all along the coast. All of them will burn.
6) For the air bases in Jordan a Turkey, the long range missiles should be used, but the distance, again, matter a lot, the airplanes cannot be too much time in the Iraqi and much less in the Iranian airspace (to refuel) and they need, before attack the Iranian soil, to take down the Iranian air defenses, but probably they not have enough fire power to do that, and also the political resistances from Turkey and in less degree Jordan could be quit hard to avoid. Erdogan could decide to not allow more attacks to the Allies from Incirlik, and them the war is over for the US (at least the conventional war…)
7) Secondary targets will be the ships in the Persian Gulf, above all that armed with Tomahawks (frigate and destroyers) that can shot to Iran, but it is expected they will run out of them quickly and without re-supply they cannot continue fighting, but if you cannot land a single big transport plane, because all the airstrips are damaged, and you cannot have a ship passing the Strait of Hormuz, how in the hell could you re-supply your troops and maintain them fighting to a more numerous and close to his land enemy?
In this strategy is very important the Allies focus in the air bases, and not deviate to attack other perceived as “good” targets (“normal” military bases, naval bases, oil refineries, oil platforms, Israel, etc…) even if US destroy the oil refineries of Iran. The Allied should avoid the error of Hitler in the Battle of England when after Churchill ordered the RAF to bomb Hamburg, the Lufwaffe started to bomb the English cities when they were wining attacking only the British air bases. The Lufwaffe lost the Battle of England because they forget the strategic priority targets and focus in other political and tactic targets.
Could this strategy works? and what can US do to avoid it works?(in this game the use of ICBM and nukes are forbidden)
Posted by: DFC | Jan 10 2020 18:16 utc | 7
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