Friday FOIA Fun: Antonov AN-26
Today, another bit of Friday FOIA Fun - this time, a leftover from Sunshine Week, delayed while I tried to find the best way to present the contents.
As regular readers will recall, I’ve been doing a mostly-regular weekly post on the federal Freedom of Information Act. In past weeks, I’ve shown some of the range of the Act - in particular, how you can use it to get “records” from the government that aren’t just written works. A few weeks ago, I posted an interactive training CD-ROM. Today, some very interesting photographs…
In January 2007, a Turkish-registered Antonov AN-26 crashed outside Balad Air Force Base in northern Iraq. United States Air Force personnel assisted at the crash site. No report on the incident has ever been released, and a variety of causes - including politics - have conspired to surround the incident with mystery and controversy.
These are pictures of the crash site - perhaps the first such photos to be made public in the fifteen months since the crash.
The original intent in getting these images was twofold - demonstrate the flexibility of what constitutes “records” under the Freedom of Information Act, and let people try and decide for themselves whether the Antonov has been shot down or not - crash analysis by crowdsourcing, if you will. The latter, alas, will probably not be possible, as the wreckage was, shall we say, not in good shape:
Scattered across a farm field, over an estimated square mile, the plane and its contents were torn to pieces and consumed by flames. The largest piece of wreckage was the very tail of the plane, where the airline logo was still faintly visible:
Pieces were scattered far and wide - which suggests to me that the plane might have broken up in the air… but I’m no crash investigator.
The tail markings, just visible in a photo above, help identify the plane as belonging to Arientur-M, but if you needed further confirmation, the pilot’s manual was found:
The engines were found more-or-less intact, hundreds of feet apart. Here’s one of them, somewhat the worse for wear:
In addition to taking photos of the wreckage, USAF personnel also plotted out the debris using GPS units; here one marks the location of part of a propeller blade:
This was a considerable task, given the large amount of wreckage, and how widely spread-out it was:
It wasn’t just airplane parts whose locations were plotted; some other items were located by GPS, as well:
We’ll take a closer look at the Antonov’s cargo on Monday, and try to answer some questions about what it was or was not doing when it crashed. Unfortunately, I suspect the end result is going to be the creation of more questions than answers… but such is life, I’m afraid.
After a variety of delays, almost a gigabyte of photos of the crash scene were released by the folks at Balad, burnt on a DVD-ROM. Certain unspecified photos were withheld because of their “sensitivity”; I presume they have to do with the thirty-four souls on board who perished in the crash. It’s worth pointing out that there are no signs of any sort of body-recovery efforts in any of the photos released to me; I believe that effort may have been completed by the time the personnel in question arrived on the scene. If the EXIF data in the photos is correct, they were taken between roughly 3:30pm and 4:30pm on January 9th (with a pair of Nikon D2x’s and a Canon A620, if you’re curious.), which is nominally just a few hours after the crash. A few pieces of wreckage were still burning when these photos were taken.
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Hello. I have a question towards the author of this article.Do you have the whole gigabyte of photos of the crash scene which was released as you said ? And if you have, please put all the photos here! This is very interesting theme to analyse and many thanks to you for this information and the photos,good work
What is whe official cause of the Antonov-26 plane crash?
David: I do have the whole gigabyte of photos, but don’t have the capability - or time - to put them all online, at least at the moment.
Christian: As far as I know, there has never been an “official” cause determined, only a “preliminary” finding of pilot error due to fog. If you read the Wikipedia page about the crash, you’ll see that no real investigation has ever been carried out, which is fairly suspicious…
Thanks for answer.I appreciate you work.But please send please to my email a few photos that impressed you the most! my email [deleted to prevent spam]! have a nice day
But I have some other information about the crash! I was in Balad AB a few weeks after the crash and I talked with many people there, who saw the accident by their own eyes! There were many witness. They told me and the other turkish officials, that the aircraft was hit by a missile,and this missile was from the Balad Air Base Hospital,where is installed the air-defense system. The airplane flew over the Hospital below the admissible altitude and was shoot down,because this system works automatically. As american soldiers said,the distance from the Hospital till the plane’s crash site is exactly 500 yards! The crash happened at 10.03 AM local time.This crash scared all the people in the Hospital and who was near it was horrible
The course of investigation looks suspicious too. There were admissed to the crash site neither representants of aviation authorities of the aircraft/airline registartion country, nor airline or aircraft manufacturer representants. And the people who was in Balad just few days after the crash said, that all the wreckages have been already put away and the crash site have been cleaned up. There was something to hide, wasn’t there?
The photos are realy unique. Many thanks to publisher. Is there any possibility to get mentioned above DVD? I’m in touch with some of crewmember’s families. They will be realy gratefull for it. Please, if you’ll find possibility contact me on [edited to avoid spam].
David - I tried to email you a few photos, but your email address doesn’t seem to work. Do you have another one I can try?
As this seems to be generating a lot of interest around the world, and a number of people have inquired about getting copies of the DVD, here’s what I’ve been telling everyone - you basically have two options:
You can request a copy of the DVD from the USAF, under the Freedom of Information Act. This is, of course, how I got it in the first place. This option is free, but will take a while - expect two to four months, maybe longer.
If you can’t wait that long - or don’t want to go that route for whatever reason - I will, reluctantly, make copies of the DVD and mail them to anyone willing to make a donation to cover costs. If you’re in Russia, for example, postage alone is going to be between 8 and 11 USD. A DVD, jewel case, and padded mailer cost me about 3 USD…
There’s a PayPal button on the front of the site, through which you can send money to my webhost; add a note that it’s for the “Balad DVD”, and be sure to include your mailing address. If you’d like to discuss other ways of donating, you can contact me through this link.
Yes,of course I do have another email [edited to thwart spammers] ! many thanks for your responsiveness!
I consider that it is necessary to put some of the crash photos on the wikipedia page about the Antonov-26 balad air crash! be so kind
Nicklass, anyone who wants to, is more than welcome to put any of these images on the Wikipedia page. They’re all public-domain, as the work of the U.S. government.
I have put some photos on wikipedia page, you can look.I want to put a photo of crash site general view, do you have ? and if possible the photo of the wreckage,it will be much better for people understanding
Hello , the Antonov-26 aircraft was shot down during the second approach by the missile,there were 2 survivors after the crash one turkish worker and the other reportedly one of the crew of aircraft,but later was reported that he died after a few hours after he was transported to the Hospital.It was very strange the behaviour of the American officials after the crash,they cleaned the crash site very quickly,maybe they tried to cover up their own fault?? the Balad AB was then closed for 3 days after the crash! This air crash is necessary to be completely and closely investigated. many thaks to the author of this article you are a brave man,because until now you are the only man who had written about this crash and showed the pictures! I consider that the American officials must be punished for this crash,it’s their fault fo sure!
I have been working in Balad Air base when this crash happened, and I can say for sure that the plane was shot down!! It’s true many people there saw that!Americans need to pay for this,they killed 34 persons,and must be punished and take all responsobility on themselfs,this people worked for them,very dissapointing for America
Thank you for this article,very interesting,put in some more photos of the crash site!!