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Iranian aircraft crash caught on new video
2009's crash of an Iranian military aircraft was a terrible loss of life and technology. Emerging this week is a new perspective of the crash, captured from the back of a C130 that happened to be refueling an F-4 Phantom in the area. In the video, you can clearly see the Iranian aircraft spiraling out of control and tumbling down to earth, a haunting image captured purely by accident.
The new footage gives some insight into what the final moments of any plane crash must be like, a dizzying array of motion, confusion and terror. It's enough to make one consider taking a long, quiet break from air travel.
[Editor's note: the scenes from this video are graphic]
[Via Gizmodo]
The new footage gives some insight into what the final moments of any plane crash must be like, a dizzying array of motion, confusion and terror. It's enough to make one consider taking a long, quiet break from air travel.
[Editor's note: the scenes from this video are graphic]
[Via Gizmodo]
Filed under: Iran, Middle East
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 16)
bbwoof Jun 4th 2011 4:18PM
Sir, It's impossible for an aircraft to glide when the whole tail section is missing. And that is evident if you watch the video again. That is why it crashed. Why the tail section was missing is the mistery, Collision maybe, or explosion?
Mr.P Jun 4th 2011 4:27PM
Millions more people travel in cars every day than fly in planes. Now compare like with like and tell me which really is the safest.
Having said that, let's not forget that the loss of anyone in incidents like the one shown in the video, is still a tragedy. R.I.P.
John Jun 4th 2011 5:04PM
FYI that's a TU-154 that is crashing. The Iranians don''t have F-4's.
alfredschrader Jun 4th 2011 5:04PM
Looks like mechanical failure. Certainly wasn't one of my new air-to-air twin stage "Quadrant" missiles that uses gimballed engines instead of drag causing fins. It gets there before the target can blink. The Quadrant paints a laser even on stealth aircraft. Once it gets a fix, cancel your TV guide subscription. How do I know this ? Easy, I'm the real Iron Man....Alfred-
D:! Jun 4th 2011 5:31PM
Did anyone else happen to hear what sounded like 4 gun shots at around 9 seconds right before the plane came into view?
Recon1 Jun 4th 2011 6:34PM
Jeff & Sternberg, great comments. A former F-4 pilot who became my aircraft commander on an RC-135 told me the F-4 without power glided like a brick. the joke was that if you put big enough engines on anything it would fly. ;-) But my AC said the F-4 was a great combat plane and fun to fly.
Bob
Steve H420 Jun 4th 2011 5:55PM
Yea, but it was Iranians.....Meh.
GarrardA Jun 4th 2011 6:04PM
Sterberg...the glide ratio of an unpowered F-4 is approx. 5-1, roughly that of a thrown brick. The most efficient sailplane today has a glide ratio (L/D) approaching 70:1, not eveb close to your claim.
mark Jun 4th 2011 6:08PM
Unfortunately, you're dead wrong. The F-4 is essentially dead weight when the aircraft fails. I was a firefighter in the Air Force in the mid 1970's at Ramstein Air Base and the USAF fighter was the F-4 at the time. Our classes concerning egress and rescue gave a pretty bleak picture if the F-4's engines failed or some other catastrophic problem took the F-4 out in mid flight. We were essentially a "mop up" crew after the fire was put out.
scott Jun 4th 2011 6:12PM
Hey Billy, This whole notion that it's safer to fly than drive is a crock and people need to knock off that analogy. It has nothing to do with the fact that there are far more car crashes. Please. In my 55 yrs I have survived at least 15, and some of those were pretty bad. I'm just gonna take a wild guess here but how many people survive just 1 plane crash. THATS what I think of when I get into a plane.
You point....is pointless.
PeD Jun 5th 2011 4:58AM
Isn't it kinda weird why would a Iranian jet, a military aircraft, be so closed to 2 military American aircraft. This crash could of been caused by our forces firing on that aircraft. Just a thought.
Ben Jun 4th 2011 7:15PM
Ah... but how many people are horribly killed, 250 of them at one time, in a car accident?
marcanagnos Jun 4th 2011 7:28PM
Fighter jets are no designed to fly without their engines. They glide like bricks.
MARC
gunsnhozes Jun 4th 2011 7:29PM
You will also notice that the entire tail section of the plane is missing the very second you see it. The attitude of the aircraft appears to be flat with its belly to the groud and then it tumbles side over side. The plane appears to have lost all forward movement. The Tupolev Tu-154 has three engines and they are all mounted on the tail section. It appears that possibly it broke off sending the plane down. If you watch the ground reference and note that the camera view is angled down and not looking straight back aft, then you realize the doomed plane came from far above the path which they just flew and merely drop through any wake turbulance present. That coupled with the authorities reporting the tail section was suddenly on fire 16 minutes after takeoff and that the pilot was looking for a place to set it down lead me to beleive the tail section either blew off or was so damage by the fire the pilot had no rudder or elevator control. Without those a large plane, (this one built in 1987), with the glide characteristics of a rock, doesn't stand a chance. They have 2 of the 3 "black boxes" and I am sure a report might be forthcoming.
William Jun 4th 2011 7:40PM
Not neccessarily Billy. If the aircraft lost power and the APU ( Auxillary Power Unit ) did not fire up, then the aircraft's hydraulics would not respond to the pilot's input at the controls.
Modern day aircraft do not use cable and pulley systems as backup for flight controls. Especially LARGE aircraft. There is just too much load and compression on the flight control surfaces for a pilot to manhandle. Infact, the only modern day aircraft that I know even used in combat with cables as backup is the A-10.
Jerry Jun 4th 2011 9:03PM
Jets don't glide. They're aerodynamics are specific to thrust and not the lack of. A jet has the gide potential of a little more than an automoble. Fighter jets, depending on the payload it's carrying at the time, will drop like a rock and without controls. There are no "manual" controls any more. Computers that fail to keep a plane in flight will not respond when the craft is plummeting to the ground as did this plane. Just an FYI The only access to surviving is to activate the ejection seat and hope it activates properly.
billa518 Jun 4th 2011 12:35PM
This story is so screwed up, I don't know where to start. They call it "an Iranian military aircraft" except that it was a commercial passenger plane owned by Caspian Airways. The footage is supposedly from 2009 but the US hasn't flown Phantoms since 1996...and we sure didn't fly them over Iran after 1979. Was the footage shot from an Iranian KC-130? Probably. However, the expletive a crewman yells when the Tu hits the ground is very much in English.
seadog123 Jun 4th 2011 12:58PM
I agree with everything you said. The only question I have for BILLA is how do you know it is a commercial craft owned by Caspian Airways?
iceman26 Jun 4th 2011 1:13PM
At what point did you believe the aircraft being re-fueled was U.S.? Please note there are no U.S. Markings on either wing. This is probably one of the many F-4's we mistakenly gave Iran "back in the day". There is no way to tell that the refueler is a C-130. Finally, the aircraft that fell to earth was blown from the skies, either by internal device or by accurate fire of a missle. Note the rear section of the craft "going up in smoke" just before it plummeted in a death spiral. None of us will ever know the full truth of what happened.
justkilljim Jun 5th 2011 8:21PM
The F-4 is an Iranian plane. They still fly them and are the bulk of there Air Force fighters.