Battered and bruised SU-25

[DuncanDoenitz]

Couple of things occur to me on this;

1. Still carrying rocket pods on the pylons; not jettisoned.
2. Flaps deployed; would it have made sense to land flapless? ISTR an RAF F-4 in the 70s lost part of its outer wing but remained controllable until the crew elected to select flaps down; lost utility hyd pressure due to damaged LE flap-lines, lost rudder PFCU and became uncontrollable.

Whatever; regardless of the nationality, kudos to the pilot.

Incidentally, from my RAF battle damage repair training in the 80s, ABDR was based around the damage caused by a soviet 23mm HE shell; if you could fix that you could fix anything, as munitions greater than 23mm were not thought survivable; so kudos to Sukhoi also.

edit: of course, they might have just fitted the pods after landing in anticipation of a quick turn-round . . . .