Video Of Drone Landing On Russian A-50 Mainstay's Radar Dome In Belarus Emerges - The Aviationist
A clip shows a drone as it lands on the radar dome of a Russian A-50 parked in Belarusian airport.
On Feb. 26, 2023, the news spread that a Russian Beriev A-50U Mainstay airborne early warning & control aircraft had been damaged in a drone attack carried out by the Belarusian partisan group, BYPOL, at the Machulishchy Airbase, Belarus. The base, aircraft was first spotted operating from the base located some 12 kilometers from Minsk on Jan. 19, 2023, when, according to the UK Ministry of Defence’s daily intelligence bulletin on the war in Ukraine, it flew alongside two MiG-31K aircraft.
The UK MOD Intelligence report said on Feb. 28 that attribution and damage had not been officially corroborated. “However, the loss of an A-50 MAINSTAY would be significant as it is critical to Russian air operations for providing an air battlespace picture. This will likely leave 6 operational A-50s in service, further constraining Russian air operations.”
While the news got a lot of media attention around the world, the
high-rez satellite images released by Maxar in the following days
showed the A-50U pretty much intact on the apron of the Belarusian air
base. Obviously, this didn’t prove the AEW asset was not damaged in some
kind of attack, but for sure, the color satellite imagery seemed to
rule out a full loss or heavy damage to the A-50U.
Eventually, on Mar. 2, BYPOL released a first clip that just showed a drone approaching the A-50U parked at the airbase. Later on the same day, a longer video was also posted on Youtube. The latter one is particularly important, as it shows the drone landing on the A-50U and taking off. It does not show an attack or explosions.
No comments:
Post a Comment