As the video and the photos in this post show, a Russian pilot managed to safely land his Sukhoi Su-25 (NATO reporting name: Frogfoot) attack aircraft to the base after being hit by a Ukrainian MANPADS.
“While performing a combat mission in Ukraine, the Su-25 was hit by a missile fired from the ground by their military,” Russian state-owned Zvezda posted on Telegram.
According to DefenseWorld.net, the Su-25 was flying with another jet.
The Pilot of the damaged aircraft, turned off the affected engine.
“The pilot of the leading aircraft, Lieutenant Colonel Denis Litvinov, realized that the comrade’s plane could not withstand a second missile hit and covered it with his own plane,” the report said.
During the landing approach, the pilot of the damaged Su-25 reported a failure of the control systems and performed a landing on the commands of Litvinov.
The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation presented both pilots for state awards.
Noteworthy Ukrainian MANPADS are a very credible threat to Russian aircraft, as our contributor and Helion & Company publisher’s editor Tom Cooper recently explained, “the Ukrainians have got so many MANPADS from the West, they’re firing them by dozens, every day. There are several videos showing them firing 6-8 missiles at one target: we only get such scenes much too rarely to see, and even less so would the Ukrainians brag how often they miss.”
Despite the MANPADS and contrary “to the claims of the Ukrainian politicians, the VKS pilots do not refuse to fly: they go as far as to do things Western pilots would rarely do. Like such a dumb idea to descend below the cloud cover in order to acquire a target and bomb it – only to get shot down by 5-6 MANPADS fired in return,” Cooper explained.
Flown by both the Ukrainian Air Force and Russian Space-Air Force, the Su-25 was conceived for operations from ‘primitive’ facilities and it can use even grass runways The aircraft has up to 1100kg of titanium armor on board to protect its pilot.
Photo credit: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
H/T: Denis
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