Russia and Turkey each have their own version of what happened with that downed jet earlier this week, but science may have the last word. According to two Belgian astrophysicists, neither nation is being entirely truthful.
Over at Motherboard, Alejandro Tauber describes a new analysis of the crash that occurred Tuesday morning, when two Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane shortly after it veered into their airspace. Using simple Newtonian mechanics, Tom van Doorsslaere and Giovanni Lapenta of the University of Leuven, Belgium reveal several inconsistencies in both nations’ accounts of the incident.
For one, Turkish officials say that the Russian jet was in their airspace for seventeen full seconds. But given the jet’s velocity as determined by video footage and maps of the crash site, it could only have been flying over Turkey for seven seconds. Either the crash site is incorrect, or somebody’s watch is. Russia’s claim that the jet made a “90 degree turn” after being hit doesn’t hold up, either. According to Doorsslaere and Lapenta, the jet would have needed to be both heavier and faster to accomplish such a manoeuvre. That fact is sure to raise awkward questions about whether the Kremlin was actually trying to avoid Turkish airspace.
Check out the full account at Motherboard. While the researchers draw no conclusions about the intentions of either nation state, the maths, they say, doesn’t lie.