File:Shayratjpg-large.jpg

Supposed DOD map of SyAAF Su-22 flights on 4 April 2017. Plus town map with very limited indication of bomb location and underground hospital.
 * Sources
 * CBS / ABC. No copy at Pentagon or Defense media sites
 * US releases flight path of plane used in Syria chemical attack - ABC News, April 7, 2017
 * ''PHOTO: A Pentagon spokesperson says that this graphic shows the flight track of an aircraft that took off from Shayrat airbase to the location of an alleged chemical weapons airstrike in Khan Shaykhun, Syria on April 4, 2017.
 * Different crops available online tell that this is part of a PDF document.
 * W.J. Hennigan‏ @wjhenn on Twitter - April 7, 2017, 3:03 UTC
 * ''BTW, DoD issued graphic it says is proof of Assad forces’ responsibility for Tue chem attack, showing flight “track” to Khan Sheikoun & back
 * Targeted strikes hit Syrian air base used in chemical weapons attack Department of Defense Graphic - Talk Media News
 * US releases flight path of plane used in Syria chemical attack - ABC News, April 7, 2017
 * ''The Pentagon has released a graphic detailing the flight path of a Syrian aircraft used to attack civilians with chemical weapons earlier this week. Officials decided to declassify the photo to prove that Syria's Shayrat air base was linked to the chemical attack, Capt. Jeff Davis, a Defense Department spokesperson said Thursday night.
 * ''The flight path appears to have taken a northerly track from the Shayrat airbase near Homs towards Khan Shaykhun in the Idlib province. According to the graphic released by the Pentagon, the plane appears to have circled the area around Khan Shaykhun and the area between the two cities multiple times.
 * ''U.S. officials said earlier that radar systems had tracked two aircraft taking off from the base, and that one dropped munitions containing Sarin gas that targeted an underground hospital run by the al Qaeda-affiliated rebel group formerly known as the al-Nusra Front.

Discussion
There is a couple of red pixels at the quarry on the road east which I assume is the hospital. I can't tell at all where the bomb location or locations are. -- Charles Wood (talk) 14:44, 7 April 2017 (UTC)


 * There's a yellowish spot on the other side of the grain silo, I guess that is supposed to be the location, approx. here. So, 0337 to 0346 "Z", is that local time? One aircraft? Did it evaporate over Homs city? Looks very unprofessional but by now we are used to the fact that nobody official wants to stand for the crap the gov produces, be it military or intelligence. Oh yeah, and that's "Whora Hora". --CE (talk) 15:15, 7 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Z - Zulu Time is also UTC or GMT depending on your religion. Damascus (and Moscow!) are UTC+3. So the 0337Z is 0637C - Charlie, C, UTC+3, Damascus time. i.e. about 20 minutes after sunrise
 * This also begs the question why an ambulance was called out from Idlib at 06:30C because of a raid that hadn't happened yet. -- Charles Wood (talk) 15:23, 7 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Ah thanks, strange that I never heard about that. --CE (talk) 15:34, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

According to this, the jets never passed directly over the city or even the cave hospital. The black dot is literally the size ok Khan Sheikhoun. I stretched it so from Hama at least up to here matches - Hama's shape, all roads between - if the tracks isn't offset or distorted, it seems to start at Shayrat (still need to check that) and passes 2-3 km south of the famous sarin-release crater where HRW says Syria DROPPED a sarin gravity bomb. The jets arc halfway around at a greater distance, and pass south the same way - order of all this isn't clear. This must be radar dots. No one would file that many sighting reports. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:40, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

But then one jet crashes into the northwest of Homs city on the return flight? The track seems to disappear there, anyway. I see no airfields anywhere in that part of town. So, this part is weird, and maybe it is distorted, or even poorly made-up. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:40, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Three sources for Su-22 claim

 * Haq News Agency video, says 6:55
 * 1) Rebel "Aviation Monitoring Center"
 * 2) Graphic in unidentified PDF document distributed by White House but claim to originate from Pentagon.

I am starting to doubt the 6:55 airstrike ever happened. The DoD graphic first looks like they could be radar data but the points could actually be alleged observations from the rebel Aviation Monitoring Center. If so, they could be falsified. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 12:02, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree in douting the airstrike, but not in doubting an air pass. It could all be made-up, but there's apparently radar, ... reports ... okay, that's weak, but I think I hear a jet departing in the plumes video, which seems to be filmed right around this cited 6:46 am last pass. Looking for the best line-up I'm proceeding on the idea there was maybe a surveillance flight at this time, and the rest of it was planned in advance to line up with the daily/expected flight - hostages offed, some blasts at the right time, some FX fog released, all in real time and space... That's better than average, but I'm not impressed or intimidated. Especially now that I see how they apparently, quite likely, set their whole story up based on a backwards wind reading. That's a luck break, and hilarious!  --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:40, 9 May 2017 (UTC) (and edits Caustic Logic (talk) 12:06, 20 May 2017 (UTC))

Deeper Analysis
ABC seems the original source. First publication is a tweet from 6 minutes after image creation. ABC's copy has exif data explaining Authors: Jeff - Created: 4/6/2017 11:46 PM. Pentagon chief of media operations Captain Jeff davis provided comments on 'Thursday night" (the 6th) along with the image, so he seems to be the Jeff referred to, likely working near midnight on a home computer. Why?
 * http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2018/03/more-on-khan-sheikhoun-radar-track.html

Comparative analysis: the flight track is offset by about 7 km to the W-NW at takeoff. If this applies across the board, and all returns shift the same way, the nearest pass south of Khan Sheikhoun (as it had seemed) actually passes (probably) right over the sarin crater or very close. This would raise serious questions about prior readings, but also raises questions if that "corrected" version is any more true. The JIM's later description sounds like another version entirely (it's mapped to show this), for three total... how this all lines up is unclear but speculated on at that post. --Caustic Logic (talk) 12:30, 5 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Unsure what's going on here but if diameter of the region inside the 'flight path' is greater or equal the distance between airport and crater, you can always fit those two points onto flight path, by translations and rotations. That is not much more (or less) meaningful than just translations. And if that thing is photo-shopped to begin with, one can fit anything to anything...  (a media guy at midnight most likely do some sort of photo-shopping not accurate placing of some data on a map; he would likely need some tool to even try to put it accurately )--13:27, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Logically the path shown could be distorted, skewed, rotated, made-up, half-made-up ... but with nothing else to go on, this is the supposed set of returns at least. And also what the "other map" shows (unclear validity) suggests it's similar to this but different, and the interviewed pilot agreed to the general gist of the flight path passing over most of the shown areas and near, but not over KS. So this is likely "based on a true story" in radar terminology, even if it's not quite accurate on the most important points. It just hit me it would be good to copy down what all the pilot and other sources say and see how that compares to the overall "Jeff" graphic paths vs. corrected Jeff vs. COI described... is there enough info about the path(s) to say if one version looks less fake than the others? Hm... a lot of work for a maybe answer. Maybe...


 * As for tools and error - some imprecision is likely, but this is a peculiar error - to start (accurately?) with the jet passing over the town, and somehow offset it so I doesn't show that, in a graphic where that's basically the whole point ... That's a point to wonder about. I suggest in the article that it might have been bait, as someone who would have taken the bait. But admittedly, there's been no jerking motion and landing in a boat like you worry about after swallowing a hook. So, I don't know. --Caustic Logic (talk) 11:59, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Crater was geolocated by 5 April (Bellingcat), so from your timing of the map it seems that the map was produced after geolocation was available. (It will be more interesting if it's otherwise, but I guess it is not...) --Resup (talk) 12:36, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Good point. One option is to trick us into accepting a radar path showing the jet right over that spot, which they could know then for sure, and possibly not know earlier ... hmmm. --Caustic Logic (talk) 15:09, 6 March 2018 (UTC)