The Russian Air Force suffered a major loss Sunday when an airborne early warning and control aircraft disappeared from radar over the Sea of Azov, and an Il-22M11 airborne command post was forced to make an emergency landing at Anapa on the northern coast of the Black Sea.
There has been no official acknowledgment of the loss from the Russian Armed Forces, but the semi-official milblogger Telegram channel, FighterBomber, through that channel, hints that it was friendly fire.
FighterBomber seems to confirm that some sort of incident occurred over the Sea of Azov in the past 24 hours, resulting in the death and wounding of multiple aircrew pic.twitter.com/yI98Capgg8
— John Ridge 🇺🇸 🇺🇦 (@John_A_Ridge) January 15, 2024
The commander in chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces and the chief of military intelligence are saying otherwise.
The Aircraft
The Beriev A-50 is a Russian airborne early warning and control aircraft. It is the equivalent of the US E-3 Sentry AWACS. It has a 15-man mission crew and can manage air-to-air and air-to-ground control missions as well as maintain surveillance of operational airspace.
This is a view inside the A-50.
Right before the missile took down this $330 million A-50 radar plane, it makes you wonder why Russo-Tech is so pricey. Fun fact: the upgraded A-50U prototype got its own toilet in 2008. Imagine, before that, were they flying missions with diapers? pic.twitter.com/w34SdQALZN
— Miska Nuutinen 🇫🇮🇺🇦 🍻🍺🍻 (@j00skk___) January 15, 2024
The IL-22M11 is an airborne command post. It has an advanced radar and communications system and acts as a battle management center. It is a rugged aircraft built on the time-tested Il-18 four-engine turboprop.
There have been two other combat losses of this aircraft. One was damaged on a runway in Belarus, and another was shot down by Wagner Group fighters during their mutiny in June 2023.
The Location
This map shows the approximate locations of the two aircraft when they were hit. The red arrow from the lower one shows the airbase where it made an emergency landing.
Last night Russia lost with high certainty a Beriev A-50 airborne early warning and control plane over the Sea of Azov. Russian channels focused in aviation confirm the loss. The plane costing around 350 million USD was vital for air asset coordination in the entire region.
— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) January 15, 2024
In… pic.twitter.com/pxR73EMtyN
The Damage
The FighterBomber Telegram channel provided this image of the shredded rudder and vertical stabilizer on the Il-22. The electronics pod that is mounted on top of the vertical stabilizer is missing. This image gives the impression that only the tail was hit by a blast-fragmentation warhead. That may or may not be true. In any case, it will be out of action for a while; you won't be fixing that with 100-mph tape.
Russian Fighterbomber TG channel just dropped the photo of the Russian Il-22 which was shot down together with A-50 early warning and control aircraft, but made it to the airbase (https://t.co/d1GWnkyKc4). pic.twitter.com/NqZf5kVmGy
— Mark Krutov (@kromark) January 15, 2024
The Engagement
The Il-22 reported being hit and declared an emergency around 9 p.m. local time. The A-50 disappeared from radar at about the same time. This radar track was released by the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces. The two aircraft are pinkish and at center screen at 0:03. The Il-22 runs for home, and the A-50 disappears from radar at 0:07. The other aircraft are unrelated traffic.
OFFICIAL: The 🇺🇦 Air Forces have destroyed the enemy's long-range radar detection aircraft A-50 and the enemy's Il-22 airborne command post, - General Zaluzhny. pic.twitter.com/dDdaBaD2NS
— Maria Drutska 🇺🇦 (@maria_drutska) January 15, 2024
How Did It Happen
Bottom Line Up Front
There are three theories on the shootdown of the A-50 and the operational loss of the Il-22. Aerial combat is not my area of expertise. I have an opinion, but it is not all that strongly held. What makes this story so intriguing is that no one has released an "official" version.
The Russian Version
The current Russian version is that Russian surface-to-air missiles hit both planes. This is not the first time we've heard this when a plane is lost. The nature of the two aircraft makes this extremely unlikely. The A-50 manages Russian air and missile systems. The Il-22 is an airborne command post. Slinging missiles around is not the way the Russians operate.
The likelihood of a simultaneous engagement of two aircraft running race tracks over the Black Sea without the Il-22 or A-50 being in the loop approaches zero. We've seen some bizarre stuff in this war, but such an event would require a complete breakdown of command-and-control and military culture at several levels. I think the Russians would rather be thought stupid and incompetent than have anyone think they've been bested by the Ukrainians.Ukrainian Version 1: Patriot
The Patriot ambush is the easiest conceptually. A missile launcher is moved close to the front lines and fires two missiles. Three things make me skeptical about this theory. First, the engagements were at extreme Patriot range. The Il-22 engagement appears to have taken place beyond the unclassified range of the Patriot PAC-2. Second, I don't think the Il-22 would have survived a Patriot engagement with a shredded tail section. Third, moving a Patriot launcher close enough to the front to make this work would entail a great amount of risk.
This thread theorizes that the Russian aircraft were caught unaware by a "FrankenSAM." That is, a Patriot missile fired from an S-300 system. The aircraft were painted by the S-300 radar, but the pilots knew they were out of range of the S-300 and ignored the radar signal.
I do not know either way and am not confirming anything, but the prevalent consensus is that the A-50 and Il-22 were hit using the mythical FrakenSAM which is the combination of the radar and launch controller from and S-300 with a Patriot launcher and rockets (pic. 1).
— OSINT (Uri) 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@UKikaski) January 15, 2024
FYI: It… pic.twitter.com/wuGxs2kt8z
This is a simulation of how a Patriot attack could have happened. Again, in my opinion, the major hole in it is that both aircraft are significantly closer to Ukrainian territory in the simulation than in the radar plot.
Following up to this, a shootdown at these target coordinates with PAC-2 is also possible. pic.twitter.com/UNMoTcfvMf
— C Schmitz (@chrisschmitz) January 15, 2024
My skepticism aside, the Ukrainians have a track record of aggressively handling their Patriot launch units.
BACKGROUND:
Putin's War, Week 64. Patriots Score Big and the Scene Is Set for Offensive Action
Ukrainian Version 2: Air-to-Air Engagement.
This theory is that a pair of Ukrainian strike fighters equipped with American-made AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air missiles crossed the front lines in a hole in the Russian air defense system and hid in the ground clutter using a flight profile that looked like a Storm Shadow or SCALP-EG. Read my post on Robin Olds and Operation Bolo to see how imitating the flight profile of a different airframe can work as camouflage: January 2, 1967. Robin Olds And Operation BOLO." They volleyed their AMRAAMs at the two aircraft and beat feet for safety.
This is a simulation of how that could have happened; the creator has imposed F-16s into the scenario. I've seen no evidence that F-16s are operational in the Ukrainian Air Force. But that doesn't mean they aren't. I think the most likely aircraft would have been the MiG-29 or Su-27, with which Ukrainian pilots are familiar.
Usint the coordinates identified by @davidhelms570 and @HamWa07, here is a re-done animation IF it was not Patriots but F-16, that approached the A-50 low+fast to attempt to hide in ground clutter.
— C Schmitz (@chrisschmitz) January 15, 2024
(theorycrafting! using @CommandDevTeam )#ukraine #russia #F16 pic.twitter.com/2ot5yWnnN1
This is one description of how it might have happened.
I think it likely the PSU gave off the signals of a Su-24 Storm Shadow strike and actually sent out Su-27's hunting, tricked out with 100(+) km range AIM-120C's.
— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) January 15, 2024
Think of the WW2 "Operation Vengeance" P-38 raid that killed Adm. Yamamoto.
2/https://t.co/zNSzZFNFMm pic.twitter.com/XHyqwFMulY
We know the Ukrainians have been targeting Russian surface-to-air missile launch systems, fire control radar, and air defense headquarters in Crimea. In my last update, I posted about a Russian air defense headquarters being demolished by a Storm Shadow or SCALP-EG attack. We also know that Western technicians have successfully integrated the AGM-88 HARM and the JDAM into Russian aircraft.
In my opinion, the Il-22M11 was much more likely to survive a hit from an AMRAAM than a Patriot, and the shredded tail is more similar to an air-to-air missile strike than the Patriot, which, IIRC, has a diving attack profile against aircraft.
The Impact
The A-50 loss is critical. Only eight of the aircraft were made; the last was delivered in September 2023. They are strategic assets and in high demand. A lot of intel people say it is believed that only two of the aircraft are mission capable. The A-50 is particularly vital to the Russian forces in Ukraine because it can see cruise missile attacks as they are launched, and it allows the Russian Air Force to limit the capability of the Ukrainian Air Force to strike targets behind Russian lines.
This is "big" loss for Russia. Here a vignette that shows why AWACS/AEW&C are so important, for both offensive or defensive operations (from https://t.co/zUwBylnhGN) https://t.co/jpXvNh9R9Z pic.twitter.com/VUxn4XVmQ1
— Mauro Gilli (@Mauro_Gilli) January 15, 2024
The men who died were highly skilled professionals. There are probably a maximum of 150 officers in the Russian Air Force who can crew an A-50. About ten percent died Sunday.
If this is true, and an A-50 was shot down either by Ukrainians or Russian mistake, then there was a Russian AWACS (Signal intelligence - whatever they were doing) crew that went down consisting of maybe a colonel (or senior Lt. Col), a few Lt.Col., 3 - 4 Maj., and a 5-6 Capt.…
— Jan Kallberg, Ph.D. (@Cyberdefensecom) January 15, 2024
Unconfirmed Bonus
According to multiple social media accounts, the commander of Russia's long-range aviation, General Oleg Pchela, was aboard the A-50. If so, it makes the loss of the A-50 more serious.
According to some reports, Lt. General Oleg Pchela, commander of the long-range aviation of the Russian Air Force, was on board the A-50 aircraft destroyed by Ukraine. Pchela was also commander of the Engels military base. https://t.co/LsGy6qjmMR pic.twitter.com/jxVu3wUzIo
— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) January 16, 2024
Let the Conspiracy Theories Start
As this was playing out, a US Global Hawk drone was boring holes in the sky over the Black Sea, not all that far, relatively speaking, from the scene of the action.
It was also up that far East around the time of the shoot down yesterday. https://t.co/fSSjmgTf7W pic.twitter.com/LWp7HfNY1C
— John M. Larrier (@DefenseBulletin) January 15, 2024
To me, the "US was behind it" is the flip side of the "friendly fire" excuse. It is a kind of bigotry that says the country that has driven the Black Sea Fleet out of its traditional homeport and sank its flagship is too inept to come up with a surprising line of attack.
BACKGROUND: Putin's War, Week 98.
Summary
While there are a lot of stories swirling about concerning the loss of the A-50 and the serious damage to the Il-22M11, the fact remains they happened. The likelihood of two command-and-control aircraft being targeted and hit by Russian surface-to-air missiles seems improbable, but it can't be definitively ruled out.
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