Flight path of a plane that took off from Damascus shorty after news broke that Assad left the city towards unknown destination, which might have been Latakia on Syrian coast which is still under SAA control as of now. Terrain in place where flightradar stopped tracking that plane isn’t especially suited for emergency landing
Shortly after crash Syrian Army Command informs officers about fall of the regime https://xcancel.com/Alhadath_Brk/status/1865587913817305454#m
update: it’s not spoofed transponder data or controlled landing, locals reported plane crash in the area. rumors so far, but dawn will break soon in Syria and we’ll know https://xcancel.com/Schizointel/status/1865593800678130081#m
clarification: there’s some chance that Assad went out of Damascus before on other, private jet, so it’s not sure and it’s all conjecture on unproven information
update 2: there’s a claim by Russian media that Assad is in Moscow, so he would have to flee on some earlier plane, but no photos as of now. Still, looked mildly credible at the time
Oh come on, its not like the rebels would have any anti aircraft systems… Other then the odd Pantsir, maybe a BUK or two. And even if they did, why would they need anything like that marching on the last stronghold of the regime? /s
Buk (TEL) lacks a radar. Pantsir or MANPADS lacks range (7km altitude give or take). Either they networked radar to Buk, or made these super old S75 work, or planted bomb onboard like with Prigozhin, or something else. It’s also possible that F35 sneaked around and took it down with A2A missile, not that we’ll ever see it
The ADS-B data puts it as descending between 23 and 22 thousand feet. That’s below 7km.
22-23k ft would be 6.7-7km, i did only mental math at that time