The escape of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad it is worthy of being told in a film. From what we learn from various sources, the arrival of the family of Assad at Damascus airport would occur well in advance of the rebels’ seizure of the infrastructure, enough to allow a cargo flight to prepare and take off to an unknown destination at 4:55 a.m. local time. It was about the Ilyushin Il-76T (YK-ATA brands) operated by the company Syrian Air as SA9218, initially directed towards the east, i.e. towards the border between Syria and Iraq, then lowered in altitude and then veered towards the Mediterranean coast of Syria, but also towards the Russian base of Tartusthat is, a logistical and strategic post that Moscow has kept operational for a decade, when it already came to the aid of the Syrian regime.
According to the climb performance recorded by the tracking sites, it appears that the aircraft had not been filled to the maximum permitted capacity, which is close to 40 tons, but was indeed relatively light. But this did not mean it was a safe flight: after the climb and the route at high altitude, the airplane flew over the city of Homsalready in the hands of the rebels. Here, if the insurgents had had the right information and access to anti-aircraft missiles, a kill action could have been carried out. Instead, all was quiet, so much so that the facts suggest that the Russian Defense acted in a preventive manner with a “cleanup” of possible threats to the airspace, or by Fly were carefully monitoring the movements and equipment of the rebels. The Il-76T it then continued north-east before abruptly reversing course when it reached the coastal mountain range of Syria, where it appeared to return towards Homs before disappearing completely from flight tracking sites, at 5.32am local time, less than an hour after take-off, in a location not far from the Syrian air base in Al-Qusayr.
It is difficult, in these cases, to trust the GPS data (which is disturbed in that area), however in the 20 minutes preceding the disappearance of the trace, the indication of a pronounced descent rate of 2,430 feet per minute (750 meters per minute), but not excessive or unrealistic for that type of airplane, and the decrease in speed from 442 knots (819 km/h) to less than 90 knots (166 km/h), up to almost 35 knots (65), if it had initially led some media to think of an emergency landing and even a shooting down, it could instead indicate landing on an unindicated runway, perhaps not even prepared (probably dirt) , to allow appointment with a different aircraft or transport. Or, more likely, That the GPS signal was deliberately suppressed to make the flight disappeartogether with the on-board transponders, as it veered towards its true destination, flying along the valleys leading to the Mediterranean. Also because Al-Qusayr35 km from Homsis close to the border with Lebanon and protected by mountains, so a low-flying plane is less detectable by radar. It’s hard to say if from that moment on Assad and his family were then able to get on a helicopter to fly over western Syria, covering approximately 135 km until landing at the air base in Hmeymim (Latakia), or if they arrived there on board the same Ilyushin YK-ATAbut in that case the satellites will have an easy time detecting a large aircraft like this Il-76T stopped in the parking lot.
The Russians are present on the Latakia base and make continuous connections towards Fly and other destinations, it is therefore not surprising that, a few hours later, the tracking sites detected a flight with a military code which took off from this very runway to arrive directly at Flyobviously avoiding Ukrainian airspace and, indeed, following a safe route, developed as much as possible over Turkish and then Russian territory. The news was also confirmed by a senior Israeli official, after US intelligence had hypothesized that Assad might flee to the United Arab Emirates. From the news of the escape from Damascus until the Russian declaration of arrival at Flythe times are compatible with those of the air operation described, with the Syrian crew apparently following the Russians’ instructions by flying under their guidance. Instead, in the fall of Damascus the figure of was central Hakan Fidanformer number one of the Turkish secret services (which he led from 2010 to 2023), and now Foreign Minister. Coincidentally, he made the first announcement of the end of the Syrian regime and the declaration that Ankara had already been in contact with the rebels for days to “guarantee security” in the country. Just him, together with the Minister of Defense Yaşar Gülerhad prepared an airspace control operation since the evening of Friday 6 December, when Turkish fighters had intensified patrol missions on the borders with Syria, while drones carried out continuous missions in the sky over the regions of eastern Anatolia and the south-east, as well as the Black Sea. That is, along the potential route of a flight that gives Damascus wanted to head directly towards Russia.
