Nikas for Everyone!
The People's Choice Award 🃏 of 2023
I rather deliberately made our look yesterday one based on mostly technical aspects. We have a few more to add today so we will get to that. Then we can look at some new narratives with all that squared away. First though, we'll get to some supporting stories out Wednesday that didn't fit into our first big dig.
This describes a (perhaps dubious) account of a third hand rendering of a waiting stewardess that was included on our reported passenger list, Kristina Raspopova, who in advance of this flight was waiting earlier in the week in Moscow for a TBA flight to St Petersburg. The story goes she told her brother on Wednesday that the call had come - they would fly by Thursday. And also that the plane was being repaired. (Anybody need a decrepit old bridge?)
Another interesting scene involves Rostov recalling all security personnel (Interior Affairs, police, National Guard) after the plane fell from the sky. No boundaries were indicated; I've seen no update to qualify that any further as yet.
Then we have a set of 4 possible “versions” of responsible parties or actions that could have been feasible:
Sabotage by the West (marked most likely)
Technical malfunction/pilot error. (typically a standby)
Error dispatcher and encounter with air defense system. (pretty much debunked)
UFO. (I think this means undetected drone🤷)
Lest you think internal Wagner PMC treason was never on the list - that had already been adjudicated - and rejected due to the responsible personnel for that security operation being on the plane. It did come with a possibility that explosive devices were placed on both planes and the other deactivated [or selectively not activated and then not looked for either]. (More bridges for sale, ☎ 9-5!)
That catches us up until yesterday. At least what I had reached by late afternoon on Wednesday. At this time we'll look at a few more causation narratives/theories. Then dig in to the updated technical reports and how they impact those. In our first account we are back to bombs (from a different source), this time placed in the landing gear compartment which is located directly under the wing. Rybar also offers this same narrative with the addition that it is under investigation by authorities as that could lead to the wing separation (coming below) and damage to the stabilizer. (Seems a no brainer they'll pick this one.)
Altitude achieved rules out mobile single operator SAM defense and the lack of visible trail markings from a larger ground based launching system seems to rule that out too. The “repairs” - spoken of by our stewardess! - are a “security” mistake. (More bridges!!) Putin is acquitted of direct responsibility; but enemies among the military are not. BTW, it appears to now be official that Surovikin was perhaps arrested or detained; but is now reported to definitely be fired.
Then we have another mechanical failure narrative. Due to sanctions, Embraer parts and service support were potentially unavailable. [Our stewardess appears again but alongside Joey B!]
Another likely pick will be the criminal investigation’s first suspect. This would be YP's personal pilot and former founder of the corporation that owns the plane, Artem Stepanov. (A leased plane, WDYK?) Apparently besides presumed opportunity, the major strike against him appears to be that he was on vacation with no phone access. Presumed guilty. And then today a brand new narrative drops in. A video has surfaced purporting to be of potential buyers touring the plane with assistance from the copilot who was on board the downed flight. (🌉 still available!)
My favorite for a creativity award is a self given gift to Ukraine by AFU for their Independence Day celebration. A long shot, but hey, funny right? Then the last narrative of all (and IMO the most likely) is that of Prigozhin himself staging the whole thing. Coupled with the two pops heard narrative and the shot down narratives eliminated, this becomes easy to explain. How many of you guys believe that such an event 9km in the air would be heard strongly at ground level? That's wandering into our technical updates so we'll continue with those.
First, one from Wednesday that didn't make our cut. The detached wing section. It was noted that only one section had any damage consistent with shrapnel and overall the damage to these parts is very light. (28,000 ft!) Plus, placement is nearly pristine.
The next technical data is an update to our altitude profile. This graph covers an elapsed time frame of 32 seconds. At that point the altimeter ceased transponding. (Speaking of which - why no mention yet of any form of a black box or any Mayday calls? The first 12 seconds of this graph could have been used for that.)
So mainly of those 31 seconds the last 19 account for practically all of the first 8,000 feet (=421 ft/s) of fall in what appears to be a somewhat controlled pace. Harder to tell visually because the timeline is not equilinear. The last 20,000 feet aren't indicated by this graph, but remember our first video? The woman recording the descent that I noted before was rising the one minute mark at impact. Upon a closer look at 55 seconds on the video there is visible smoke above the fence line. That would account for 23,150 ft out of 28,000 ft of total fall distance at that 421 ft/s rate. The video included zero time I observed where the plane was at a level trajectory as expected. So she has to have started filming within no more than 10-11 seconds (less the edit out of first finding the plane) of “hearing the pops” (assumed start of the fall from 28K ft; it takes 66.5 seconds in total on a straight line calculation at 421 ft/s). We have no true idea exactly how long into that fall her filming started; a lot closer to probable if she was proactively looking for it, though! And acceleration actually could eat a few seconds of that time. This part of the video is focused on the falling plane from the very start, which means she may have had her camera trained on a tight spot and then edited it down to remove the start with the pops and/or locating the plane. There were clearly no sounds of pops she claims to have heard, but she wanted us to know about them from the 25 second mark of that footage. And again, not a single dent in the ground from a mass falling object hitting it at that speed. And no sound of an impact. (Cutting the narrative a little close; the things people will do for narratives!) She managed to get eyes and camera on target without fishing at all for it or by cutting those <11 seconds. You see the probable quandary here? And what about a descent scenario that is at an even more rapid rate if the first 19 seconds weren't (completely) at a free fall velocity? But providing video of that descent certainly makes for better theater.
XF (Joachim Flores) Resistance double parked a couple of snippets, one of which I believe to be attempting a narrative version of that graph above. It is inaccurate however, at least to this section. It describes a full 30 second duration for the last third of the graph instead of closer to the entire graph. Also, on the post was a pickup by Al Jazeera regarding the YP cell phone/no body identified narrative.
Then, as if our companion plane needs mentioning, yesterday afternoon it flew out to Azerbaijan without submitting a passenger list. We still have no real idea of who exactly was on that plane, what was scheduled in St Petersburg, or even whether the subsequent trip was also prescheduled. No one seems too shocked from such a close call or saddened by the loss of friends or colleagues to postpone that trip even for one day.
Julian McFarlane (of News Forensics, a talent I admire and a truth seeker extraordinaire) commented on a Larry Johnson article (possibly to be covered later) that the Embraer 600 has integral fuel tanks in the wings which are more prone to explosions than they should be. A consideration for any scenario, to be honest. Point taken. Larry himself considers the smoke appearing from the falling plane to be fuel instead.
These last parts are presented strictly as narratives, which means not necessarily true or false, just telling a story. There have been a few African reports claiming YP was in Africa on Wednesday. How if he was being blown out of the sky in Russia? Well, without (much) added comment here they are.
On Telegram:
On X:
At first I thought that this was BS, and I still don’t buy it completely. The lower part is the widely spread video from the 19th. The top photos are inferred to be from the 23rd in Mali. Can't explain the smudged face over reported Prigozhin.
And then, we have a winner from the peanut gallery, on why if not how this happened.
No surprise at all. Really. But what will they do without their favorite proxy?
Glimmers of consciousness do occur occasionally, however:
So, that's going to be a wrap for this one. From every angle - investigatory, media narrative, and even technical, we are presented with barely aligns “facts”, photos, and outright fiction. War correspondents have a messy job, to be sure!
Have a great weekend, all! Over and out.
Go to Part 3.
Back to Part 1.
YP was spotted having a beer with JFK Jr, Elvis, Michael Jackson and McAfee. Just kidding. But funny how it seems the left pushes some people as "very much alive and well" despite being believed dead -- while right-leaning characters are presented as being dead while some believe they're still alive. YP is just one more character which seems to fit that pattern.