The witness probably heard or saw the first missile?
Bellingcat Geo location does match up.
View attachment 39201
Google Map Link.
https://goo.gl/maps/zgxMVMUfAcuxyHDD6
Iranian Base from where the missiles were probably launched from
https://goo.gl/maps/cRAap4AZfKez9nnr9
That's what I was wondering, but this seems to be consistent with a first strike. Could have been that they had already fired one and missed though?
We have two clips, the clip of the fire in the sky that turns into a massive flash on the horizon, and this second clip which shows a rocket motor flying up, then a flash and a fire.
To me the timeline seems to be that the launch video came first, and the big flash/crash video was second, that seems obvious from the fire.
So the question is how many missiles were fired and how many were hits? The launch video doesn't exactly match with the flash/crash as I said, because the fire appears to go out at the end of it. They may have fired one missile and damaged the plane causing it to turn back, then finished it off with a second. I assumed the big flash was the plabe hittinf the ground, but it could be a second missile sitting off the fuel tanks?
I havent had time to compare the apparent size of the debris field to other inflight breakups.
I've done some maths already in between work. From what I can tell, range from alleged launch site to impact is ~8.2km (including altitide of the plane), well inside the 12km range of a SA-15 missile. Plane was at ~2400m altitude, max alt of the missile is 6000m. Consistent with capabilities of the system.
Going to go over the footage frame by frame and analyse the speed/angle.
Also wondering why the hell they fired. They were launching pretty much directly towards a civilian airport. How can it be mistaken identity in that case? No way a USAF plane would be taking off from an Iranian domestic airport right?