Russian MiG-31 Foxhound Shot Down Its Wingman During Disastrous Live Fire Exercise - Russian MiG-31 Foxhound 2.jpg ...

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The incident raises concerns about Russian training procedures, as well as the
capabilities of the MiG-31's radar and other key systems.

A new report, citing a leaked Russian government document, says that a crash of
MiG-31 Foxhound in Siberia almost two years ago was actually the result of a
friendly fire incident during a botched training exercise. In addition, the
summary of the mishap suggests that there could be dangerous problems with the
aircraft’s Zaslon-AM radar and Baget-55 fire control system that might increase
the risk of more accidental shootdowns occurring in the future.

Baza, a relatively new Russian independent online investigative news outlet,
revealed the new information on Apr. 23, 2019. The incident in question had
occurred on Apr. 26, 2017, over the Telemba proving ground in Buryatia, a
semi-autonomous republic within Russia that borders Mongolia. At the time, the
Kremlin said that the plane had been on a training exercise, but offered no
additional details about the mishap. Both of the Foxhound’s crew survived the
incident.

"The plane crashed at a proving ground in an unpopulated area. Both pilots
ejected themselves,” the Russian Defense Ministry had said in a statement. “They
were promptly evacuated. Their life is not in danger.”

Until now, there had been no additional information about the mishap at all,
which Baza’s story noted was unusual in of itself. The Russian government does
not generally shy away from blaming crashes on pilot error or grounding entire
aircraft fleets if an accident exposes a potential systemic issue with the plane
in question.

The report from Rosaviaprom, which oversees the country’s state-owned aviation
and space enterprises, that Baza obtained does blame pilot error for the mishap.
But it just so happens that they determined that the crew of the crashed plane
and the craw in a second MiG-31 taking part in the training exercise were both
at fault.

The investigators concluded that the crew in the plane that got shot down had
improperly followed procedures, allowing them to stray into the potential line
of fire during the live-fire exercise. It also faulted aviators flying the other
Foxhound for turning on their Zaslon-AM’s fire control function at the wrong
time, cueing an R-33 missile right at their wingman. They further blamed the
pilot for firing the weapon when this individual should have known they were not
engaging a target drone.

https://youtu.be/xODCBVxHHVs

The R-33 is a very long-range air-to-air missile that can be loosely considered
an analog for the American AIM-54 Phoenix long-range air-to-air missile. It uses
Inertial Navigation System guidance to get to the general target area after
getting cued in the right direction by the launching aircraft. A semi-active
radar homing system helps with initial target acquisition and then provides
updated position information during the missile's mid-course flight profile. An
active radar seeker in the missile kicks in during the terminal phase to guide
it the rest of the way to the target.

Rosaviaprom's explanation of events isn't necessarily unrealistic. In August
2018, the pilot of a Spanish Eurofighter Typhoon accidentally fired an AIM-120
Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) during a training flight over
Estonia. Thankfully no one was injured in that incident, which a subsequent
investigation also blamed on pilot error. Video footage also emerged in 2017
showing a Russian Ka-52 alligator attack helicopter inadvertently firing rockets
at observers during a training exercise.

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Of course, if these problems are not uncommon, it raises the question about why
there has only been one actual incident of friendly fire, even just since the
introduction of the Zaslon-AM on improved MiG-31BM aircraft four years ago. This
could mean the issue may be linked more to exactly how the crew was operating
the radar in this case, whether this was an “experimental” procedure or not.

There is always the possibility that there have been other close calls that the
Kremlin has kept hidden over the years, too. In this particular case in Siberia,
the IFF system on the other MiG-31 may have been working, but also improperly
configured for some reason and was sending out a code that would not register as
friendly. The investigators might not have been able to confirm this depending
on what they could recover from the crash and what other radar and IFF data was
available to them after the incident.

It’s also not clear why the two planes, had they been training together, would
not have been aware of each other’s relative positions. It seems curious that
the pilot in the aircraft that launched the missile would not have realized the
“target” was exactly where their wingman should have been and that their
companion was not on the radar at all. That a friendly aircraft was ever in the
potential danger area during a live shoot certainly does call into question how
the exercise was structured and whether the crews followed proper procedures, as
the official investigation notes.

If nothing else, the report, and Baza's analysis of its contents, underscores
just how much remains unknown about the incident. Key details about the entire
chain of events are absent, including the relative ranges and altitudes of the
two MiG-31s, what they expected the actual mock threat to look like, the rules
of engagement for the live shoot, and any of the other specific exercise
parameters.

With this report out in the open now, more details may emerge in the future that
will help further clarify what happened in the sky over Buryatia in 2017. But if
the incident was a case of friendly fire, the Kremlin will continue to have
incentives to withhold information that could not only be embarrassing, but that
might call into question the capabilities of a central component of Russia's air
defense network.





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