Iran shoots down US drone..

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John Hill
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Iran shoots down US drone..

#1 Post by John Hill » Fri Jun 21, 2019 12:30 am

The interesting thing about this is that the US claims the drone was shot down in international airspace while Iran claims FIR boundary is the 'air border', how say you?
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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#2 Post by Slasher » Fri Jun 21, 2019 1:16 am

I decided to open your post and saw you asked a legitimate question! :-o

By ICAO definition a FIR boundary is no man's land - neither in one FIR nor the other.

For example El Al flies exactly along the boundary between the Egyptian and Sandy Arabian FIRs over the Red Sea on its journey to/from SE Asia et al. Also I've been told to hold AT the Nicosian FIR boundary waypoint while heading Northbound, holding on the Southern side. However the RH racetrack pattern starts exactly at the waypoint so our snouts slightly encroach the FIR during commencement of the turn to the right.

In the context you're asking if one flies even one inch over the boundary one has technically entered the other side.

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#3 Post by BenThere » Fri Jun 21, 2019 1:23 am

FIR (Flight Information Region) airspace has nothing to do with sovereign territorial airspace. It simply designates areas of air traffic service provided by ICAO-agreed control and separation entities. The Iranian FIR extends roughly halfway into the Persian Gulf but Iranian airspace does not. Take a look at global FIR boundaries to get an idea at how ridiculous they are as claims to sovereign airspace.

I used to routinely fly both into the Tehran FIR and over sovereign Iranian airspace itself and was always struck by how Iranian air traffic controllers were the most courteous and spoke the best English of all the air traffic controllers in the Middle East.

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#4 Post by Slasher » Fri Jun 21, 2019 1:29 am

Yes I agree. They were pretty good.

As for FIR vs Sovereign airspace I always played it safe and requested an ATC clearance tie-up before going anywhere near an FIR boundary e.g. for wx avoidance. China and Laos are absolute arseholes even if one clips a corner by a couple of miles. Iran was cool as long as you notified its ATC air defence freq and told 'em who you are where you're goin' and reason for entry (126.85 I think it was).

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#5 Post by BenThere » Fri Jun 21, 2019 3:31 am

Usually when I was a B-747 freighter FO I was on a route that started in Amsterdam or Brussels and flew a cargo load into Kuwait City, Bahrain, or Dubai, about 8 hours. Then the crew had a choice. We could refuel and fly on to Hong Kong, another 9 hours, which we could do under FAA Part 91 if we had no revenue cargo other than 'Company' material. There are no FAA duty day limitations when flying Part 91. So we filled the whale with freight containers and pallets that piled up in the Middle East as they export nothing out of there, and delivered them to Hong Kong where they import little and export a lot, hence a great demand for freight containers and pallets. The containers and pallets were considered company material.

It was a crew option due to the extra long duty day. Our contract allowed us to refuse more than 15 hours of duty day. If the crew unanimously agreed to do it, the company bought us a blank check dinner once we got to Hong Kong. It was an easy choice for me and everyone else. We could stay and sleep in Kuwait, where it's Ramadan all the time, or get to Hong Kong, sleep in the morning, meet at Sticky Fingers, and eat a sumptuous $200 dinner at Ruth's Chris or the like on the company dime. Then we could look forward to at least a few days layover in a 5* hotel on Kowloon. I never saw that deal turned down. During my 3 years on the whale I did that gig pretty much every month. The rub was you got very tired during that 20+ hour duty day. And just when you started yawning you got to Kolkota, and over the next hour you had to get clearance into Bangladesh, India again, Myanmar, and China FIRs, mostly non-radar and communicating on HF that was very spotty, and there was usually a 70,000 foot thunderstorm over Dacca you had to obtain a clearance to deviate from. That ordeal was a true Pain ITA and occurred just about every time I did it. Once I got to Hong Kong, though, it was all worthwhile. Flying over Iran on the way was the easy part.

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#6 Post by John Hill » Fri Jun 21, 2019 4:02 am

Thanks.
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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#7 Post by Slasher » Fri Jun 21, 2019 5:10 am

Ok I've unignored you John for the time being. If you post aviation-related stuff similar to the above I'll respond if I can.

That leaves only Krystalline Shits and 'Bob' on my crap list.

- Rod

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#8 Post by John Hill » Fri Jun 21, 2019 5:48 am

IIRC one of the incentives for 'opening' the six high level air routes across Afghanistan in 1999 was it gave an alternative for Asia/Europe traffic to avoid Iran air space. We see what happens now the FAA have deemed Iran air space closed to civil aircraft.

At that time we installed a country wide VHF comms system but I recall a NOTAM last year indicating part of it was out of operation. It will be interesting to see how the system copes with increased traffic.
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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#9 Post by AtomKraft » Fri Jun 21, 2019 6:21 am

Well, I think Iran dispute where the border is. So both the US and Iran may have different opinions on where the territory of Iran begins and ends.
During the shoot down of the Iranair 655, the US pretended the ship was in one location, whereas there seems plenty of evidence that USS Vincennes was in Iranian waters, not international waters as they claimed to be at the time they opened fire on the airliner. So the US has 'form' on this sort of thing, ie being a little fuzzy on the details....

I think we can be confident the Iranians shot the thing down, and that's about it.

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#10 Post by Undried Plum » Fri Jun 21, 2019 7:31 am

The co-ords that Iran publishes for the shootdown are: 25°59'43"N 57°02'25"E

I make that 8.3nm from the Iranian coast. UNCLOS territorial limit is 12nm.

That is very clearly inside Iranian territorial waters, not just inside the FIR.

NYT says that Trump ordered a retaliatory strike against Iranian air defences last night, but was talked out of it by the grownups while the attacking aircraft were en route to the weapons release points.

I think we can safely say that this shootdown was not a false flag job!

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#11 Post by John Hill » Fri Jun 21, 2019 7:58 am

I found this image https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9iuKXhXYAYBnNW.jpg:large it is not clear to me if the ACFT coordinates in this image are those to the drone in question or the aircraft that took the picture.
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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#12 Post by Undried Plum » Fri Jun 21, 2019 8:09 am

The US claims the shootdown occurred at: 25°57'42"N 56°50'22"E

I make that 19.26nm from Iran and 20.57nm from Oman.

I do wonder whether the Iranian co-ords are perhaps the locus of floating wreckage.


John, the aircraft co-ords are those of the camera platform. The other co-ords are those of the target.
It does seem odd that they just happened to have an aircraft with its camera targeting the Global Hawk and measuring its co-ords in real time at the instant of missile impact!

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#13 Post by Pontius Navigator » Fri Jun 21, 2019 8:24 am

Slight deviation but the Greeks would get very uppity if we 'infringed' their FIR.

Also, not looked at the geography for this incident but the 12 mile limit can be quite flexible. In one view it is 12 miles off the coast, in another it follows 'baseline principles' ie headland to headland. You can guess which one the US would use.

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#14 Post by Rwy in Sight » Fri Jun 21, 2019 9:42 am

PN given your age their reaction might had something to do with their procedural rather than radar control. They only have a civilian radar system since early 1998.

Shooting down the drone put Mr. Trump in a difficult position.

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#15 Post by Undried Plum » Fri Jun 21, 2019 12:42 pm

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Fri Jun 21, 2019 8:24 am
Slight deviation but the Greeks would get very uppity if we 'infringed' their FIR.

Also, not looked at the geography for this incident but the 12 mile limit can be quite flexible. In one view it is 12 miles off the coast, in another it follows 'baseline principles' ie headland to headland. You can guess which one the US would use.
The US awards itself a 24nm territorial limit, but almost all nations respect the more normal 12nm limit. In every case the distance is usually measured from Lowest Astronomical Tide, though in some cases Low Water Springs which is nearly the same thing in places other than mudbanks.

If we take the US stated co-ords, as they appear to be credibly documented, the shootdown occurred more than 7 miles outside the territorial limit but well within the Tehran FIR.

There is another internationally recognised boundary line and that is the Median Line. This connects equidistant points from the respective coastlines. The US co-ords show that the UAV was a little over a mile closer to the Iranian shore than to the Omani Musandam coast. That begs the question: WHY?

I don't know the capabilities and limitations of the instrument package aboard that thing, but I'm sure it is capable of looking and listening far into Iran from the Omani/UAE side of the median line and from within the Muscat FIR.

The fact that they had another aircraft, specifically watching the Global Hawk at the moment of the missile hit, suggests a certain level of, shall we say, prescience. It has the feel of a bullfighter arrogantly strutting and trailing his cape in front of a bull to get it fighty.

Why did they feel a need to enter Danger Area OID55? Was it just to prove that they can do so?

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#16 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Fri Jun 21, 2019 1:43 pm

Yes, it's just exercising the right of free navigation. The Rooskies used to fly through UK danger areas.

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#17 Post by Undried Plum » Fri Jun 21, 2019 8:03 pm

The right of innocent passage has some strings attached.

It is explicitly meant to be for passage from A to B which necessitates transit through someone's territory. Within that limitation there are rules:

Meaning of innocent passage

1. Passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State. Such passage shall take place in conformity with this Convention and with other rules of international law.

2. Passage of a foreign ship shall be considered to be prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State if in the territorial sea it engages in any of the following activities:

(a) any threat or use of force against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of the coastal State, or in any other manner in violation of the principles of international law embodied in the Charter of the United Nations;

(b) any exercise or practice with weapons of any kind;

(c) any act aimed at collecting information to the prejudice of the defence or security of the coastal State;

(d) any act of propaganda aimed at affecting the defence or security of the coastal State;

(e) the launching, landing or taking on board of any aircraft;

(f) the launching, landing or taking on board of any military device;

(g) the loading or unloading of any commodity, currency or person contrary to the customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations of the coastal State;

(h) any act of wilful and serious pollution contrary to this Convention;

(i) any fishing activities;

(j) the carrying out of research or survey activities;

(k) any act aimed at interfering with any systems of communication or any other facilities or installations of the coastal State;

(l) any other activity not having a direct bearing on passage.

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Re: Iran shoots down US drone..

#18 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Fri Jun 21, 2019 8:30 pm

Sorry UP, was that in response to mine?
Free navigation is not the same as innocent passage. I said elsewhere that it would be hard to prove a drone was ever on innocent passage. I am assuming the drone penetrated the danger area outside territorial airspace, which it would be doing based on the US data provided.

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