NerdGuy #37: Prigozhin's plane

I had such a fascinating (and non-political) experience regarding the downing of his plane that I thought I'd share it just for the fun of it.

I was at a very different kind of conference this week. For a future Miranda Chase book (coming this winter), I wanted to get my team over toward Sweden, but not on an investigation. Wondering how to do that, I asked myself, "Huh, do they ever go to conferences?"

It turns out they do: ISASI, the International Society of Air Safety Investigators annual conference.  It was in Nashville, so I simply had to go. 335 investigators from 45 countries, utterly fascinating. I got to sit with Boeing, Gulfstream, Delta, UK military, Iceland, Australia, NZ, FAA, NTSB, US Navy and Air Force (and an Air Force materials lab guy who I totally geeked out with) and a myriad of others. Holy wow, utterly amazing 4 days.

But back to Prigozhin. By chance, I was the one who caught the breaking news at our table during a break. I spun the screen to show the investigators around my table. Their very first question? "What air frame?" We each tossed out ideas. And after about 3 minutes (ridiculously fast unless it was preplanned, which Russia is now denying) someone found that it was an Embraer Legacy 600. We all nodded like that was about right and we should have guessed that one. (I had offered the very similar Gulfstream and the dissimilar Antonov An-24 turboprop.)

Embraer Legacy 600

Then they all turned to me. "You're the guy who follows headlines with your geopolitical series, why do you think it took Putin so long to knock him out?" LOL!

My answers were:

1. Putin had to wait to get any Wagner troops who wouldn't sign with the Russian Army out of the country to avoid another rebellion. Once they were in Belarus, he was safe from that.
2. Also, Putin had to consolidate power at home. I felt it was clear how shaky his grasp is as he had to fire/disappear 3 major folks from the Russian government/military before he dared to move.

That discussion ended abruptly when the video popped up. They're crash investigators after all, so the analysis of that ranked as far more interesting. "Dead stick." "Missing wing." Spin rate. Verticality of descent rather than arcing flight path. And a ton of other factors I'd never have gleaned from the image. Far more interesting to them than any mere politics. LOL!

So, yeah, a very interesting place to be on hearing the news.

Typical of a 4-day immersion conference, I'm heading home with reams of notes and a very full brain. [grin] The key to my success there? The depth of my research. I could ask those next level questions. When they talked about reading the black box from this crash or that, I didn't have to ask "What crash?" or "What kind of plane is that?" But having studied it, I was easily accepted. And being at that technical conference hopefully will give my future adventures with Miranda even more depth!