The rescued Russian copilot says there was no warning before he was shot down. “There were no warnings. Not via the radio, not visually. There was no contact whatsoever. That’s why we were keeping our combat course as usual. You have to understand what the cruising speed of a bomber is compared to an F-16. If they wanted to warn us, they could have shown themselves by heading on a parallel course. But there was nothing. And the rocket hit our tail completely unexpectedly. We didn’t even see it in time to take evasive maneuvres.”
The pilot was apparently murdered by Syrian rebels as his parachute was coming down.
Onward and upward,
airforce