Do you know what the glide ratio of an F-4 Phantom is ??

The glide ratio of an F4 is over 160 to 1.

Reading and flying, along with reading and driving
is bad news. But those Iranian manuals are written
backwards, and have to be turn upside down also.
So goes the plane.

I have a guess as to what happened. The TU-154 got caught in the wake turbulence of the C-130 refueling that Phantom. If you're not sure what "wake turbulence" is... think of it as a horizontal tornado coming off the wing tips of ALL aircraft in flight. The C-130, I would think, creates wake turbulence in the range of an EF3 or 4 tornado which would be more than enough to knock any plane out of the sky that happened to venture into it.

Just a guess, but from the position of the airliner... i'd bet money on it.

There are subtle clues as to why the plane could not glide to a safe landing... the missing empennage, for example.

However, the problem with a plane crash compared to a car crash, is the time involved. With a car crash, it's quick. With a plane crash, it's slow (at least I would think). I find it hard to imagine the sheer terror of being in a plane tumbling downward, knowing death is at hand.

A jet aircraft glides about as well as a bowling ball.

As someone once remarked, an F-4 Phantom that has lost power has the flying characteristics of a falling safe.

Jet planes don't "glide to the ground" they drop

There was no Vertical Stabilizer (tail) on the plane. It had neither a rudder nor elevators. Almost the whole of the rear of the aircraft was missing.

It looks like the tail section of the plane is missing as it is spiraling down to the ground...i be willing to bet the plane was having problems as it got into the air flow of the f 4 and the tanker plane..a phenomenon called wake turbulance, knowing it to be a russian airliner, it would not suprise me that it broke apart ...we will never know what caused it.

I still fly, but I don't like equating air travel and auto travel with respect to accidents. If your car engine fails, you can almost always survive. You can also survive most collisions. If your plane fails in a big way, bye bye.

It's pretty obvious that he was shot down. The C130 would have had him on radar way before he got that close. someone called that shot at the last second. If you watch again you will see he is coming straight at the C130.

It appears to be smoke but most likely is jet fuel mist when the rear section of the plane broke off.

who cares why it crashed, dont you know iran is an enemy of the united states.

On the other hand, in a car crash you don't often have two or three minutes of terrorized helplessness as you fall to Earth.

Billy..
That statement is beyoned silly. Thats like saying more humans die in India than in Rhode Island. If there as many planes as cars..then you could compare the tow different methods of transportation. You need to think twice before posting.
You're dismissed....

I don't think that is the point of the video.

More people are killed in car crashes because there are more cars. Not because airplanes are safer. Put that many planes in the air and see what happens.