new russian super plane?

An impact to the front fuselage, but not a missile...?

bird strike?

 

I don't think seagulls can quite make 28,000 feet
I wasn't aware(except for unsubstantiated rumors) that the AWACs had definitely tracked an Iraq plane near the flight formation. (how could the AWAC know it was a Mig-25?).
If that is truly the case I think that it makes the possibility of a midair collision more likely than either the air to air or SAM missile.
It will likely remain a mystery.

 

How high can eagles get?

bird strike was a rather flippant remark - did the AWACS track the 'bogey' after the incident? what happened to it?

 

after a mid-air collision wouldn't there be evidence like another aircraft with dammage or another crash site?

 

The AWACS didn't declare it as a MiG-25. It only declared it as an unidentified aircraft. Speicher's flight lead was suspecting it as a hostile, and was asking for a clearance to fire from the AWACS, which he didn't as the AWACS didn't clear the aircraft as a hostile. Speicher's flight had a spike coming from the unidentified aircraft and the aircraft turned hot towards the flight. After it passed the flight close range, it was visually (unconfirmed tho, only rumours) identified by other coalition aircraft flying in the same package as a MiG-25.

AWACS identifies targets by plotting the contacts and observing their behaviour, it's standard practise even in civilian contested areas. You can tell a lot if an aircraft is friendly, civilian or hostile by observing what it does and what it doesn't do. Aircraft EM emissions are used to identify targets and some radars can use NCTR (non cooperative target recognition) to identify targets. Nothing beats the good old eyeball tho.

 

Depends on how much damage the other participant had. It isn't uncommon for the other participant of a midair to fly away relatively unscratched when the other participant augered.

 

Not to mention that if the other plane was an Iraqi plane they weren't going to report it to the world even assuming that they knew what happened to their aircraft. It may have just not reteurned from it's mission. If it crashed inside Iraq...remember this was the first day of the air war..it might have gone undiscovered by coalition troops who only went part way into Iraq during that conflict. Should the crash site have been found sometime between 1991 and today...maybe....if Saddams people later found it there is no guarantee that they would later be interested in reporting it to anyone.
I honestly don't know how feasible or likely this scenario is...it's just that other scenarios aren't any better, given what we know about the incident.

 

Actualy,that what engines got no penetrations dont mean shit,most modern missiles dont hit engine,and not only modern (when Serbis shooted down mirage 2000 in bosnia from portable AA misile "igla" mirage was struck in the wing,when part of wing was ripped off,there is video of that kill,mirage crashed in spin free fall) any otther missile can hit plane in body,when they try to avoid missile.

 

I reckon that when two aircraft collide in midair their would be some evidence left (put's his CSI hat on)...(paint)scratches from the other aircraft could be found on the wreck.

 

Probably, if one examined the wreckage minutely(and it wasn't burned off in the fire). There wasn't an opportunity for that at the time(1995...Saddam regime in power) plus the wreckage had been their for 4 years.
ps the midair possibility is just one hypothesis...none of the possibilities fit exactly with the amount of evidence we have available and the authorities have filed their obligatory reports and moved on especially since by now it is clear that LCDR Speicher is not going to turn up alive.

 

One other possibility is that MiG-25 did fire the missile and scored but was busy getting the hell out of there and did not see the hit. This could explain Iraqis not knowing of the kill. Wreckedge of F/A-18 should be thourougly examined. Problem is that difference between SA-missile hit and AA missile hit can be identical. There is also problem of wreackege itself. As Grieg pointed out the plane was in Iraqi territory for few years and in was badly damaged to start with. One other clue is that planes don't ususaly go into flat spin if only engines fail. This indicates that plane also probaly lost part of flying surfaces and/or ability of control.