Russian fighter jet 'shot down' in Syria (3rd Feb)
 

A report on BBC News:-

Fingers crossed for a happy ending for the pilot.

BV

Sooner or later it would have happened. They fly too low and too risky though know that jihaddists do have lots of MANPADS.
Here is a recent (yesterday) video how Su-25 evaded fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwG_...ature=youtu.be

Sounds like today one of the pilots was not that lucky while "gambling". Hope that he is alive and rescued, but first rumours are sadly negative...

Tyler Rogoway has this article posted about the incident:

Russian Su-25 Frogfoot Attack Jet Shot Down In Syria - The Drive

Those "rebels" are probably missing Tu-22M3 and cruise missiles to visit their "camp". Hope the waiting will not be long.

Pilot is dead (probably killed). NSFW

Russian Defence Ministry confirmed Su-25 shot down by MANPADS in Idlib province. Pilot was captured and killed by terrorists.

Hopefully this lot of vile savages won't have long to wait before some sustained bombing raids send them all off to meet their 72 virgins.

Too bad.

While the Russian regime stations IRBM around NATO members borders, develop Kanyon as a third strike weapon system, annex eastern Ukraine in an ongoing bloody war, I'm minded that all you see flying in those videos are ...targets.


Here ya go van, fill your boots..

https://www.nato.int/docu/review/201...a/EN/index.htm

Ah, is that the "rebels" we "currently" support? Hard to tell day to day.

It never ceases to amaze me why we try and topple the only secular leader in the continent so that the country descends into utter Islamic chaos with "non-believers" beheaded and tribes fighting it out for land and the rule of law disappearing for decades (and beyond).

Still, my sympathies to the Pilots family. I live in Russia and I can tell you what we think of these scum, and it isn't pretty.

What Flash said! :hmm:

russian-made, probably looted from syrian army depot

Curious that in both the Su-25 videos of the last couple of days, both fly a predictable flight path for many seconds (without pickling any weapons), and neither pump out flares at random. Complacency creeping into the Russian camp?

Last fight for pilot

https://t.me/directorate4/1433

Or from one of Ukrainian military depot, which was "accidentally" set on fire last year. Or from some of Eastern Europe country. Money talks.

Google Translate on the caption: “The last battle of the pilot Su-25SM. He blew himself up with a grenade to avoid being captured by militants.” If true, and the video clip seems consistent on first viewing, then at least he died a dignified and valiant death. Hope he took a few with him too.

As for tooling around at a few thousand feet without MAWS, manoeuvre or pre-emptive countermeasures... very, very unwise. Either they’re getting complacent, are rotating too many inexperienced pilots through with insufficient training, or there is some unexplained strategic imperative that is driving them to accept much higher risk levels than the West would...

Regardless of the 'side' the pilot may be on, when a grenade is your plan to preserve your dignity you must be in a pretty dark and nasty place. Not something I would ever want to contemplate let alone have to experience. I feel for the guy, having to go through that.

Is carrying a Grenade in the cockpit common practice???

I think any military aircrew will have run that scene through their minds.

Just don't tell the boss.

See following. It appears that some Russian aircrew based in Syria do carry grenades.

See from 6:47 at least two grenades carried.


https://theaviationist.com/2018/02/0...down-in-syria/

I have no doubt they have, and the alternatives. And I'm sure there is training for it too. In my mind, it doesn't make it any less of a shi**y day if it happens though.

watching - at least they are carried in their seperate components.

So all the talk of the pilot having ejected and parachuting out was just talk?

err, well, the last I saw is that he blew himself up with his own grenade, so I guess he must have got out to be able to do that.

Not very good English, but this is what Al Jazeera have to say:
Russia steps up Idlib strikes after Sukhoi jet downing | Russia News | Al Jazeera
The pilot of the Sukhoi was killed after being ejected from the aircraft by rebel fighters, including members of the Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham group, commonly known as Tahrir al-Sham. The group is spearheaded by the former al-Nusra Front, which used to be al-Qaeda's branch in Syria.
Analyst Richard Weitz of the Hudson Institute told Al Jazeera it was too early to say how exactly the plane was brought down. "Some reports say it was brought down by machine-gun fire. There's a couple of reports out there saying it was shot down by a missile but rebels are not known to have surface-to-air missiles with this kind of range," he said.

A related article on Al Arabiya with speculation in the last line as to what it might have been. Again we must overlook some mystifying English.


"According to Maria Dubovikova, president of the Moscow based International Middle Eastern Studies Club, the timing of the attack is quite disturbing, as the Sochi congress in Syria has just passed.
"The Su-25 was targeted during his control flight around the de-escalation zone. De-escalation zones are considered the cornerstones of the peace process in Syria. The incident may pose one Russian retreat of forces from Syria," she said.
Dubovikova said that another possible source of MANPAD system might be the Ukrainians. "It's difficult to prove, but they are always active on black market; especially after the rupture with Russia. There are some rumors here in Russia that it was an Igla MANPAD (9k38) SA18 or Chinese analogue FN-6 ".


https://english.alarabiya.net/en/fea...ith-arms-.html

When one sees the picture of the pilot being burnt to death in a steel cage, a hand grenade is a great device...

ISIS video shows Jordanian pilot being burned to death - CBS News

You have to hand it to the Russians....they are always committed.
Without wishing to disparage the West, we rarely believe in anything nowadays.

hunterboy,

Speak for yourself!

You do indeed disparage the West, in my opinion totally unjustifiably.

He was a pilot, one of us ,for Heavens sake!

The Notorious JRK put it best...

Poems - The Young British Soldier

But seriously... no DIRCM? And where was MAWS?

Russian pilot shot down in Syria took own life rather than be caught

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserv...56&resize=2400

The Russian pilot shot down in Syria has been hailed a hero in Moscow after he shouted, “This is for our guys!” before detonating a grenade while surrounded by militants on the ground. In video circulated online, Major Roman Filipov, 33, is heard crying the words in Russian as about ten armed men approach his position behind a rock. There is then a bang and smoke rises as some of the attackers fall back.

The Russian defence ministry confirmed that Major Filipov had died “fighting the terrorists” after he ejected from his Su-25 fighter jet. It said Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, had put him forward for a posthumous Hero of Russia medal, the highest state award. “Until the last minutes of his life, he kept up an unequal fight from his service weapon,” the ministry said. “After he, badly wounded, was surrounded by the terrorists and the distance closed to a few dozen metres, the Russian officer blew himself up.”

Pictures of Major Filipov’s Stechkin pistol with three magazines, one empty and one half-empty, were earlier shared on Twitter. It was not clear if any Syrian fighters were hurt in the incident in Idlib province on Saturday. Some Russian media said two were injured.....

I know it probably wouldn't have helped in this situation, but do the Russians have any meaningful CSAR assets in Syria? Given the balls-up they made of trying to rescue the crew of the Su24 downed by the Turks, one would suspect not.

Western coalition air forces would have moved heaven and earth to get to a downed pilot in that situation

So these were the 'bad' rebels that he was attacking?

As someone memorably once said on these forums, it's never a great plan to bail out over an area you've just been strafing - the people on the receiving end tend to take a rather dim view of your actions

dead_pan. I don't think he'd planned it. It was a case of running out of options.

Body of the pilot and parts of downed plane arrived to Chkalovsky today. Pilot will have military funeral service in Voronezh Feb, 8th at Hero Alley of Comintern Memorial Cemetery.