I've kind of been following this story with a bit of bemusement and surprise, wondering how could this possibly happen? Also wondering if maybe it is another carefully designed ploy to get into their system, perhaps, showing them a form of dummy without any real tech, perhaps, only to unleash another form of trojan on the sly. At first, I read that, without an instruction signal, it was designed to find a suitable landing area to land. Today, I read a report on Fox which stated other likely scenarios instead. It does seem likely that they would have a better contingency plan than to deliver it on a silver platter if only the signal is lost. Which leads me to my next possible conclusion. Could the Chinese hacker connection have reached that deep? First question that comes to mind is which companies designed it and which companies did the hackers hit?

 

Well, Lockheed Martin reports a significant and tenacious cyber attack which was thwarted, but they couldn't find any source in China, though it sounds like the making of some intense drama, a lot more probable than a lost signal? Probably a very closed system during its actual operation.

Edited December 12, 201114 yr by Realitycheck

Aha, this sounds like the most plausible scenario, report of a Russian sale of an advanced jammer of sorts, named the Avtobaza.

There is a claim that Iran jammed the signal and fed it false coordinates, so it "thought" is was landing at its home base

 

http://blogs.scienceforums.net/swansont/archives/10567

Only problem with that theory is that military grade GPS units include logic to counter spoofing. One aspects of that logic is to look for sudden "jumps" in coordinate data and signal strength. If either is detected, you can assume you're being spoofed.

 

Something else I find interesting is that Iran's display of the aircraft hides the undercarriage. It's somewhat jarring/ugly. Why do that? Why not show the WHOLE aircraft off? It could just be bad taste, but I wonder if the undercarriage is damaged which would imply a crash landing, not the controlled landing they're advertising.

Edited December 17, 201114 yr by InigoMontoya

Iran has the plane , is having a look to see how it all works and the USA has undoubtedly brought forward advances in Iranian Technology . Well done USA ! , how can you ask the world to sell the Iranians nothing advanced when this is your hypocritical stance ?

If the plane was forced to land on unfinished terrain, that conceivably could have damaged the gear.

 

If the plane thought it was at a different altitude, maybe it never extended its landing gear.