Syrian warplane brought down by rebels

Syrian state-run media say a pilot ejected from a warplane after technical failure while rebels claim they shot it down.

Activists released a video which they claim shows a government Soviet-made MiG warplane catching fire apparently after it was hit by ground fire over the eastern province of Deir el-Zour. The warplane appears to be spiral into a ball of flames. It was impossible to independently verify the video.

SANA news agency says that warplane was on a training mission on Monday, adding that a search is under way to find the pilot.

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The label on the YouTube video said a group called the Youth of the Land of the Euphrates was responsible, though a commentary on YouTube also described it as “the downing of a MiG 23 by the Grandsons of Mohammed Brigade.” It is not clear how or why the plane exploded.

No missile could clearly be seen in the video, and it is possible that some kind of technical error on the plane itself was responsible for the crash. But rebels have been clamoring for antiaircraft weapons for weeks, and there have been unconfirmed reports over the past two weeks suggesting that Turkey had passed shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to the rebels.

Hard to tell if it was technical failure or incoming fire.

That video hardly showed anything.. Actually the most pathetic video I have ever seen.
So at least we know that a flying craft went down from the news story because the video sure does not tell any story. I can`t even verify it was a jet and not some type prop plane.

The one thing it does show is that it was not very high and traveling all that fast for the 3 sec. it`s in view. So I`d imagine you could easily shoot some lead at it and score.

Good shot if it were a hit, hate to think of people dying but i hate the thought of people living forever to.

Wonder what they were firing at it, sounded single barrel. I`d think you`d need something with a high rate of fire to score a hit against an aircraft, or a high trate of luck.

NATO shot it down, but a Syrian pulled the trigger

Here is a screen shot from Google Earth to show where this town is that the plane was supposedly shot down at.

The jet apparently went down in Mohassan, a small town southeast of Deir al-Zour

here is a map of Syria with a box for where the other map fits in