PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - 4th Aug 2018 Junkers JU52 crashed in Switzerland
Old 9th Aug 2018, 10:52
  #184 (permalink)  
MadMax9
 
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Following FollowTheSupper #168 and PaxBritannica #175:

The spotted aircraft in #168, picture in #175, is in the middle line of view to Piz Aul (left), 28km from panorama camera and Piz Mendel (right), 37km. Both mountains are 16km apart, but at the distance of Piz Aul the view lines have spread of 12km, in the picture 450 pixel

The aircraft in the middle has between 4-6 pixel for a 30m wingspan (assuming it is flying towards the camera/Piz Segnas). As the dark pixels are much wider than high, as can be expected for a airplane flying stable shot from the front, I would assume it is not an camera/optics/resolution artefact giving that size/shape of the dark spot.

Numbers above calculate to a distance between 5.3 to 8.1km to the panorama camera, which is about double distance to the cable on top of the ridge in between. The shortest distance to the crash site is then between 8.5 and 11km, measured from map. Calculating with a speed of like 180km/h this would be just between 1.5 to 2.6 minutes.

If the camera operator can further specify the exact time when the "16:50" picture was really taken, and if the exact time of picture in #157 is known or at least time of crash (16:57 ?), this would allow a sharper calculation of average speed in the approach, but accuracy not better than 20% (from distance and assuming straight-line flight) and still subject to time difference accuracy.

Of course the pixels don't need to be the JU52, but specifically the direction and distance are very reasonable.
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