Originally Posted by
meleagertoo
I'm not at all sure one can assume that the direction of ground impact has any correlation whatsoever to the direction of flight before an assumed muissile strike. If a wing comes off and the wreckage rolls and spins on the way doen it could hit the ground on any heading imaginable regardless of where it started from.
Let's be careful about such assumptions.
Agree. The poster above who analysed the direction the aircraft landed in, determined a right turn was initiated immediately after the transponder data ceased and this found the aircraft on its final heading.
Controlability after the event that stopped the transponder transmissions may have led to a descending spiral from which the pilots couldn't recover.
However, without any crew communication to ATC, what the the pilots intentions were may never be known unless Iran releases a translated CVR transcript....and I'm not not holding my breath on that one!