MiG-21 Bison shoots down F-16 in Kashmir

[Rishi]

members only?

Let me upload somewhere

[Rishi]

[UlanBatori]

Plane was headed essentially eastwards. So the missile hit the F-16 about 7km west of that. IOW, the MiG did complete a 180 degree turn and was heading home. Makes sense.

BTW, if anyone wants to build their own MiG21 to replace WCdr AV's MiG: provided compliments of Culinary Institute

[Rishi]

AIM120 has an 18.1kg high-explosive blast fragmentation warhead. (Different from the continuous rod warhead in R73)

However, would Fragmentation warhead cause shearing off of the tail portion from the fuse?

[arvin]

Thanks Rishi. Markings and screws appear consistent with Bison tail.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Galle ... 2.jpg.html

So Tail has been blown off. Other video had a stabilizer (port side) in some other location. So plane glided with only one stabilizer?

[Rishi]

Thanks Rishi. Markings and screws appear consistent with Bison tail.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Galle ... 2.jpg.html

So Tail has been blown off. Other video had a stabilizer (port side) in some other location. So plane glided with only one stabilizer?

IMHO the plane was in a flat spin after the hit, with tail parts falling over point of hit and fuselage falling 1.2km away (definitely NOT gliding)

[Lalmohan]

thanks rishi

the image i saw had the tail still with the fuselage but flopped over onto the side, so sheared off on ground impact not in the air, and the whole fin not a portion as here

the pic above suggests damage to control mechanisms and possibly rear sections of engine by missile, and looks like rough abdul-handling

[UlanBatori]

Holes are MOST PROBABLY from where the Pakis shot the wreckage with their AK-47s to make sure it was dead. See one bravely putting his foot on the IAF symbols, and then lifting it again as if it caused pain. So that proves absolutely nothing about any fragmentation blast etc.

Besides, if an AAM-Ram hit the MiG so close to the LOC, why would India conceal the fact? And.. with tail "sheared off" how did the plane not nose-dive (see above re: c.g. location on airplanes, from Static Stability).

[UlanBatori]

Also, is there a slight problem w.r.t. location of the tricolor vs. the "CU2*****" lettering.
No, scratch that. It looks like the left side of the vertical tail.
Is the pic from Feb. 27 2019 or from some other MiG crash long ago? What was the lettering on the MiG in question?

[arvin]

Could be a flat spin. The way the Mig hit the ground it appears as if port side wing hit the ground first then the fuselage. The wing is totally mangled, twisted over the fuselage. The starboard wing OTOH is distinctly identifiable and other parts inside fuselage.

[Rishi]

thanks rishi

the image i saw had the tail still with the fuselage but flopped over onto the side, so sheared off on ground impact not in the air, and the whole fin not a portion as here

the pic above suggests damage to control mechanisms and possibly rear sections of engine by missile, and looks like rough abdul-handling

[Lalmohan]

so if say rudder controls were damaged and the plane went into a flat spin, it would not have travelled very far from the point where it was hit, and also then the directional alignment of the aircraft would be almost random

[Rishi]

Repeating.. what type of explosion would

1. Shear off the tail portion
2. Pepper tail with shrapnel
3. And rest of fuse seems without shrapnel

[Lalmohan]

actually rishi - the image i recall (and maybe wrong) was from the angle of brown shalwar abdul

might be useful if someone gathers all the images together so that we can try to build a composite 'picture' of the crash... lots of half pics at the moment with scope for errors

[arvin]

Repeating.. what type of explosion would

1. Shear off the tail portion
2. Pepper tail with shrapnel
3. And rest of fuse seems without shrapnel

Stabilizers also without sharpnel. Guessing ....Skin is aluminium and stabilizers titanium?. But both have been sheared off. So from what angle and direction did the amraam hit the tail? I guess it approached from top behind from the left side and exploded close to the tail and fuselage joint.

[Rishi]

LalMo, see

https://twitter.com/AhmAdTipu7/status/1 ... 42880?s=20

[Lalmohan]

thanks Rishi
v helpful, the rear/tail has indeed sheared off and fallen at a different place to the fuselage. the missile may have created major structural weaknesses in the rear of the aircraft, which in the case of a flat spin coming down possibly led to the weakened tail shearing off (and missing karnailjanaab's house by a small distance!) the rest of the fuselage landed whilst spinning down some distance away (vegetation is quite different). note impact crater/dents are very small

[Lalmohan]

arvin - titanium is used very sparingly, especially in a general workhorse like the 21 - so stabilisers will be Al as well

[sudeepj]

The first few seconds of this video are the earliest pictures of the Abhinandan's Mig. In fact, its so fresh that smoke is still rising from the plane and salwar clad chaps are pouring water on it to douse any remaining fires. Take a look in case something can be known, and please download before its gone..

[isubodh]

The first few seconds of this video are the earliest pictures of the Abhinandan's Mig. In fact, its so fresh that smoke is still rising from the plane and salwar clad chaps are pouring water on it to douse any remaining fires. Take a look in case something can be known, and please download before its gone..

Does original video's not store the GPS location ? Most phone pics have GPS tags ?

[Lalmohan]

so tail is separate to the body and has landed at a different location (not on slope, different colour grass, location of house...)
the tail fin is also not intact - has broken into pieces

port wing has taken brunt of crash and nose has had a softer landing

so if the video is believable, then the missile has come from top-port side and abhi tried to turn starboard, but got hit and continued to turn, realised seriousness and punched out. tail came off shortly afterwards and the main aircraft flat spinned down and crashed port wing leaning into the mountain

arvinji made the first call on this

the videos are all taken in the late afternoon, a good 3-4 hrs after the action took place

[arvin]

lalmo no ji for me.
what protected AV from the blast near the tail could be the design of mig 21 cockpit. The pilot sits well inside and the canopy barely rises above the spine. But this also hampers rear view visibility. All efforts in design were focussed on supersonic performance.

[Lalmohan]

yes indeed, but the bison has a bigger bubble canopy to improve visibility also
i think it was just bad luck that he got hit

[Aditya_V]

It was not just Bad luck, PAF had the numbers advantage and Wing Commander took the risk to down the F-16. He could have played it safe but didnt.

[Aditya_V]

Meanwhile WIng Commander has been transferred and cleared to fly fighters and again. Hope the PAF does somethign that allows him to quickly become an Ace soon. Hope is a SU 30 Squadron.

http://www.thenorthlines.com/wing-commander-abhinandan-to-move-out-of-kashmir-amid-security-concerns/

The IAF has not revealed the name of the security base where Abhinandan has been transferred due to security reasons but the posting is along the Pakistan border in the Western sector and the officer has been cleared to fly the fighter jet again and will be continuing his duties yet again.

[UlanBatori]

The trouble with the strenuous pro-Pak interpretations/ contortions above is that it is exactly what was intended by the ISI's posting of the tail pic (taken in the afternoon with the long shadows). What is shown is a couple of thin aluminum panels taken from the back end of the plane's wreckage: light enough to be easily shot full of holes with an AK-47 and be carried by a couple of POKis to the front of the ISI's local Manor House, to be photographed in detail along with creating the legend of the "plane broke up and went into flat spin onlee".

And enthusiastically endorsed by dhoti-shivering crowd as "flat spin" and "AAM-Ram hit" (on the tail, from a blast nearby, from a missile launched backward from an aircraft that was being pursued.. And there was a shower of fragments at high enough energy enough to rip holes in the aircraft skin with high spatial density, but all missed the cockpit area - oh yeah, that was because the ejection seat is armored and suffered no damage in ejecting). I wonder if anyone has seen the wreckage of a fighter plane that went into a flat spin at 3000 feet AGL after losing its tail
(IIRC from madassa math, the L/D is not much >0). Also, gentle postors, why would an airplane do a flat spin at all, if the tail has fallen off, shifting the center of gravity far forward with no way to balance that? Drag is much less if nose is pointing straight down as well.

At most, the tail must have hit trees and pieces ripped off in the final moments, some meters before the rest hit the ground. The pic with the still-smoking engine shows several fallen trees. That is a LOT of energy dissipated. What hit those? Surely not the nose! it had to be the wings/tails which would have been ripped off.

Curious that Pak did not file UN cases against India for those...

The plane may have been at fairly high angle of attack before the tail hit, slamming the nose downwards as it skidded forward. There is some evidence of this impact, because there are several small pieces scattered a few meters to the sides. OTOH, nothing big seems to have gone flying to the sides as would have happened in a free fall from a height.

It is useful to remember that this was close to the LOC: all the real farmers etc had been driven out and a nice house like that would be occupied strictly by the PA/ISI/ terrorists. Think about the very simple fact: if this piece fell right in front of the manor house in the morning, then the pics taken there would have had very little shadow - they would have been like the ones of the Pakis admiring the smoking engine wreckage. Or did they just run out hearing the sound, see these pieces, take no pictures, then stroll over to the main wreckage, then in the late afternoon as an afterthought, decided to photograph the panels lying in front of the manor house, which had the numbers and identifying info?

Afterthought is right: they were told what the wreckage layout meant and were instructed to carry the tail pieces back to the manor house, to stage the photos to dupe the dhoti-shiverers.

Sorry ISI, we can see through that one as well.

[UlanBatori]

Added later: otherwise we are asked to believe that that big clump of pieces with the tail assembly, hit the ground after a 3000-foot free fall after breaking off the rest of the fuselage after the AAM-Abdul hit, and the vertical tail is still standing straight up like an erect Paki mijjile, supported on one small spar, after the impact on the ground. And the cylindrical fuselage structure to which it is attached, also hit the ground and did not flatten. Oh, it was designed for 300Gs? Or floated like a bee, like Cassius-Clay/Mohammed Ali?

[arvin]

The 'vertical tail' aka paki mijjile is the starboard stabilizer. The assembly is lying with the tail on the ground.

[UlanBatori]

U r correct, my mistake. But that still remained attached: very unlikely for a free fall. Arvinji: also pls look at the various green and white ropes/wires on that smashed tail assembly. The green are probably wires that came out when the vertical tail was broken, but what is the white/translucent mess of ribbons? Is it part of the IAF aircraft (can't imagine what), or left over from how the Pakis transported the pieces? I think they lassoed some nylon ropes over a piece of the tail and dragged it back behind a pickup truck to the front of the mansion/ camp.

(also, is the place in the background of that image the same as the one shown in the earlier one?)

In retrospect, the shadows are not very long, so it could have been closer to noon. But they are in data-taking mode, not initial excitement mode. Several evidently military types standing around in the distance at the mansion.

OTOH, the two uniformed PA at the smoking wreckage, are taking selfies. That looks like initial inspection time.

[UlanBatori]

Not pleasant but let's look at some other plane crash sites:
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News ... 552848246/

https://www.abc12.com/content/news/Kali ... 71391.html

https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/a ... 74885.html

(This one was reported to be an Su-27, where the energy was absorbed by the front of the plane in a sort of crash-landing.

Here is a MiG-21 crash near Pathankot air base (pilot died)

Point is that the destruction total where the energy absorption occurs. So here the nose was not destroyed, the rudder was ripped off, left horizontal may have been ripped off, aft section looks twisted and crumpled as in hitting trees in horizontal deceleration, engine looks charred and dented but recognizable, cockpit is empty because the pilot bailed out, canopy an seat went with him but cockpit is not crumpled.

So there was no vertical-fall type absolute shattering. No "flat-spin" etc. This was a relatively "gentle" crash-landing with no landing gear deployed.
If you wish I can give you my pep-talk on what happened to people who jumped from the top of the WTC Towers on 9/11/2001. Faaaaaar lower than 3000 feet, and no horizontal momentum to decelerate. Not a pretty thought.

[A_Gupta]

^^^ For what its worth, I think the plane sort of glided down; the wings were sheared off as the plane hit surface features like trees, and the nose was up as the plane hit the ground. The rear area disintegrated and there was a little fire, nowhere near enough to ignite all that nice dry grass. The plane was returning and its direction on the ground is pretty close to its heading in the air.

[UlanBatori]

The energy absorption to decelerate to zero speed had to occur somewhere: the bottom fuselage friction was not enough. So it had to be the wings hitting trees the tail hitting ground and trees, maybe. It did not happen by the front getting crushed (frontal collision) or fragmentation of the whole thing (small pieces flying in all directions). Also, something brought the vertical speed to a low level before impact: that had to be aerodynamic lift, under relatively stable attitude.

[VikramA]

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/2 ... e-exercise

There were people recently asking why abhi's wingman did not fire his R-77. an interesting article claiming that 2 years ago a mig 31 got shot down by his wingman when he accidentally strayed into the latter's BVRAAM's firing arc

[Rishi]

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27620/russian-mig-31-foxhound-shot-down-its-wingman-during-disastrous-live-fire-exercise

There were people recently asking why abhi's wingman did not fire his R-77. an interesting article claiming that 2 years ago a mig 31 got shot down by his wingman when he accidentally strayed into the latter's BVRAAM's firing arc

There is a CT on ACIG which says that Paks showed parts of 3 different R77s in their missile display pix.

[Aditya_V]

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27620/russian-mig-31-foxhound-shot-down-its-wingman-during-disastrous-live-fire-exercise

There were people recently asking why abhi's wingman did not fire his R-77. an interesting article claiming that 2 years ago a mig 31 got shot down by his wingman when he accidentally strayed into the latter's BVRAAM's firing arc

My Speculation
It could also explain why the PAF to 1 minute after F-16 was shoot to shoot Wing Commander aircraft, they would waited for the other 2 F-16's to be at least 5-10 KM away from the Mig 21 Bison, which would be trying its best to turn back to LOC before taking shots at it. I guess if we had some more BVR missiles that day at those cover F-16's to spoof them then Wing Commander would have got away.

Those 5 AMRAAM's at D Max 1 range clearly missed but they spoofed the Su 30's to allowed to engage the Mig 21 Bison after he shot down the F-16. from High altitude the angle of separation with the other 2 escaping F-16's could have been greater.

I think in going for the F-16 kill, Wing Commander not only made sure the LGB's missed but got an F-16 a big loss for the PAF, but took a huge personal risk for himself and his aircraft. By getting the Mig 21 Bison wreckage and Pilot in custody it was a propaganda victory for PAF since they could hide thier dead pilots and wreckage of their aircraft. They sufferred greater damage than our loss of a Mig 21 Bison since our Pilot returned intact, temporarily winning a twitter war. I would take that any day.

[Khalsa]

Lets end this thread with your rather nice synopsis.

[Rishi]

Lock for now / until new info comes in

Onwards!

[Rakesh]

Mods, please re-open thread if necessary.

We could have inflicted heavy damage on Pakistan during aerial raid if we had 'tech asymmetry': IAF
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 043545.cms

How long does it take to paint a F-16 in PAF colours? Nearly two months apparently!!!!

US Still Investigating Pakistan's Use of F-16 Jets Against India After Balakot Strike
https://www.news18.com/news/india/us-st ... 14639.html

[Rishi]

Unlocked for now. A bit more info in ACM Tipnis article

https://issuu.com/spguide/docs/sp_s_aviation_4-2019

17km range

[Shameek]

Missing black box from crashed MI 17

Residents of Gariend Kalan, where the IAF Mi-17 V-5 crashed, say men in uniform took away parts of the chopper from the crash site and its vicinity.
------------------------
Mohammad Jaffar, 52, was at his shop when he saw, what he described as “a star-like object” hitting the tail of the chopper.

“A fraction of second later there was an explosion. I saw the helicopter descending uncontrollably towards my home that is at the edge of the village,” he said. “I ran towards it and a friend who was talking to me at the moment accompanied me. On our way, I told him that I thought the war had begun.”

He said that he was relieved to find that the chopper had crashed some distance from his home. “God was kind to us but I feel bad for the people who lost their lives in the crash,” Jaffar said. Other villagers too narrated a similar sequence of events.

Link