Ukrainian Aircraft down in Iran

[fdr]

The 9M331 missile post dates Iran-Iraq 1980-88 round 1 war. the predecessor 9M330 wasn't in inventory in that area as far as I am aware. Iran had 29 TOR M1 systems delivered in January 2007, from a contract signed in 2005. On 7 February 2007 Iran reported successful test firing of the weapon system. It is unlikely that a planned test firing of a short range system such as the SA15 Gauntlet is done in a manner that results in the photo that has been shown on social media and this forum. (the location.... not the condition).

The war head of the 9M331 is aft of the forward control vanes, and is a 15kg blast frag device. The head of the missile is not a seeker head as such, it is a passive radar guided system, reportedly not a beam rider, so there is a datalink going on giving course corrections. The TALR launch vehicle has two radar systems, an acquisition radar, and a fire control-tracking radar. The acquisition is able to track multiple targets at one time, the FCR can reportedly manage 2 missiles at one time. In operation, if fired deliberately against a single target, a delayed one-two launch would be employed for maximum PK, with a time interval that would act to negate a target notching to defeat a single missile. A single launched missile would possibly be an accidental launch, a double shot would more likely be deliberate.

My previous concerns are allayed to an extent, not identifying a possible device would be potentially escalatory in effect to the crazies on both sides of this match. An accidental shoot down is not in the highly improbable end of the Venn diagram of factors in the loss, given Iran was undertaking an attack on a neighbour, and had reasonable concerns of a further counter attack. The human tragedy is not diminished by any means, a lot of families and futures just got torn up, either by an accidental shoot down in a dark time in international politics, or by unknown technical causation. If so, it is hardly an unforeseeable consequence of the action taken against Gen. Sulemani; once "rifle" is called, stuff is going to happen, and more often than not it is not as desired, but causing heightened tension with people that have sophisticated weapon systems is a risk. Recall CG-49, the Ticonderoga class USS Vincennes, Capt Will Rogers III, and Iran Air 655; that was a similar level of stress and a really bad outcome, with a high tech system, and humans acting under stress.

I sincerely hope that it was none of the above, and that we find some novel failure mode of a HPT/LPT that resulted in the disaster, that at least can be then rectified, but as yet there is no rupture evidence to support an engine fault.