Saturday, 17 October 2015

Turkey shoots down a drone

Western media's headlines are the Turks shooting down a drone which just has to be Russian of course.

 Turkey shoots down unidentified drone near Syrian border

Sources suggest drone is of Russian origin but Ankara keen to avoid blaming Moscow as tensions simmer over airspace violations


BREAKING First photos of the drone shot down by Turkish wareplanes near Syrian border: 



This is the reaction of Moscow

Moscow says all drones in Syria operate as planned as Turkey downs unidentified UAV

All Russian military planes have safely returned to base in Syria after combat missions, the Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding all drones are operating as planned. Earlier, the Turkish military said it shot down an aircraft on the Syrian border.

And Off-Guardian

The Clickbait Award for Hysteria in Journalism goes to…



16 October, 2015


Today the media is running the claim by the Turkish government that their military “shot down” a drone from an unidentified source 3km inside Turkish airspace. An anonymous US spokesperson was, of course, immediately on hand to tell us he thought the drone was “probably” Russian. Whether that is true will presumably become apparent in due course.

The Guardian*, like many other mainstream outlets, decided not to run a photo of the drone in question. Which of course allowed the impression to remain that it was some sort of military attack drone like this:

Drone-attacks-‘significantly-de-escalated’-in-Pakistan-UN
But in fact it was this:

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 A 2-3 ft long surveillance or civilian drone of some kind.
But that didn’t stop the Independent producing this as a headline:

Screen Shot 2015-10-16 at 14.28.55
Just another reminder, this is the “aircraft” they are talking about:

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Some observers have also pointed out the tiny drone in question looks in awful good shape for something that size that has allegedly been shot down by a military jet. But that’s another issue.

 *Since the article was published the Guardian has now added a photo of the drone to its coverage, likely in response to repeated requests in the comments

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1 comment:

  1. Unknown27 November 2015 at 21:15

    The issue of drone regulation focuses nearly entirely on the safety of airways in the United States; model aviators flying within five miles of an airport must ask the airport or control tower for permission to fly. To that end, the FAA created the B4UFLY app that takes the trouble out of reading sectional charts and checking up on the latest NOTAMs and TFRs.

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