Russian Violation of Turkish Airspace Looks Planned

Strange day and circumstance to start blogging again, but if not now, when?

Anyhow, I just had a conversation with an aviator friend of mine, and based on the image below, he and I think the Russian violation of Turkish airspace looks like it was planned rather than an accident. Here's the image, courtesy of Zero Hedge:

First, given the geometry of the borders and the location of the target, to the west of the circle marked "Exit" and only 2-3 miles from the Turkish border, there are few options to execute a strike by tactical aircraft without violating borders. Approaching the target from the south practically guarantees a border violation--and a bad one--so the best alternatives to minimize a violation is to approach the target from the east or west.

Second, from the NATO symbols we can assume this is a screen capture from a Turkish C2 system, and it's also safe to assume the start and endpoint for all the track histories are at roughly the same time. So, what we see in the picture is a Turkish F-16 orbiting to the North and later turning south to engage, and two Russian Su-24s orbiting from the south and forming up for a sequential raid on the target area--on a path that cuts right across Turkey.

Third, aviators don't generally decide how they're going to strike a target. Once the target is selected, mission planners carefully lay out the route in and out of the target area based on things like borders and the locations of air defense sites. These plans are briefed and confirmed before the aircraft even take off, and there's nothing in the image above to indicate the Russian aircraft were adjusting on the fly. If anything, they were refusing to adjust based on the warnings from the Turks, which is a political message of its own.

If the assumptions are correct, and there doesn't seem to room for much error, we had two Russian aircraft that intentionally turned for Turkish airspace, failed to heed ten warnings to turn away, and the Turks engaged and destroyed the second Su-24 to emphasize the point that Turks take their borders seriously. Russia has had their ambassador in Anarka summoned twice over this, and Turkey just a few days ago warned Russia to lay off the Turkmen.

Erdogan didn't stab Putin in the back, he stabbed Putin square in the chest.