(cont)
The missing warhead signaled something important to the analysts: that the missile may have evaded Saudi defenses.
The missile, in order to survive the stresses of a roughly 600 mile flight, was almost certainly designed to separate into two pieces once near its target. The tube, which propels the missile for most of its trajectory, falls away. The warhead, smaller and harder to hit, continues toward the target.
Burqan 2-H
Engine
Missile body
Warhead was missing
from debris
This would explain why the debris in Riyadh only appears to consist of the rear tube. And it suggests that the Saudis may have missed the missile, or only hit the tube after it had separated and begun to fall uselessly toward earth.
Some U.S. officials said there was no evidence the Saudis had hit the missile. Instead, the debris may have broken up under the pressures of flight. What the Saudis presented as evidence of their successful interception may have simply been the missile ejecting its tube as intended.
The Location of the Explosion
A blast 12 miles away at Riyadh’s airport suggests the warhead continued unimpeded toward its target.
At around 9 p.m., about the same time debris crashed in Riyadh, a loud bang shook the domestic terminal at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport.
“There was an explosion at the airport,”a man said in a video taken moments after the bang. He and others rushed to the windows as emergency vehicles streamed onto the runway.
Another video, taken from the tarmac, shows the emergency vehicles at the end of the runway. Just beyond them is a plume of smoke, confirming the blast and indicating a likely point of impact.
A Houthi spokesman said the missile had
.
There’s another reason the analysts think the warhead flew past the missile defenses. They located the Patriot batteries that fired on the missile, shown in this video, and found that the warhead traveled well over the top of them.
Saudi officials have said that some debris from the intercepted missile landed at the airport. But it is difficult to imagine how one errant piece could fly 12 miles beyond the rest of the debris, or why it would detonate on impact.
The warhead passed over the Saudi missile defense unit.
Estimated trajectory of warhead
Estimated trajectory
of missile body
Missile defense
Trajectories estimated by David Wright, Union of Concerned Scientists
The Impact
Smoke and ground damage suggest the warhead struck near the airport’s domestic terminal.
Imagery of the emergency response and a plume of smoke also reveal information about the nature of the impact.
A photo of the plume taken from a different location on the tarmac appears consistent with plumes produced by similar missiles, suggesting the explosion was not an errant piece of debris or an unrelated incident.
Riyadh airport
Daraya, Syria
By identifying buildings in the photo and video, Mr. Lewis’s team was able to locate the spots from which the images were taken, revealing the precise location of the plume: a few hundred yards off of runway 33R, and about a kilometer from the crowded domestic terminal.
King Khalid
International Airport
Emergency vehicles seen on runway
Dark areas indicate
ground damage
from vehicles
Domestic
terminal
Direction of
missile
NORTH
Image courtesy of
The blast was small, and satellite imagery of the airport taken immediately before and after the blast is not detailed enough to capture the crater from the impact, the analysts said.
But it does show ground damage from the emergency vehicles, supporting the finding that the warhead hit just off the runway.
While the Houthis missed their target, Mr. Lewis said, they got close enough to show that their missiles can reach it and can evade Saudi defenses. “A kilometer is a pretty normal miss rate for a Scud,” he said.
Even the Houthis may not have realized their success, Mr. Lewis said. Unless they had intelligence sources at the airport, they would have little reason to doubt official reports.
“The Houthis got very close to creaming that airport,” he said.
Laura Grego, a missile expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, expressed alarm that Saudi defense batteries had fired five times at the incoming missile.
"You shoot five times at this missile and they all miss? That's shocking,” she said. “That's shocking because this system is supposed to work.”
Analysis by Melissa Hanham, Jeffrey Lewis, David Schmerler and Nate Taylor of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and David Wright, Union of Concerned Scientists. James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Laura Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists reviewed the analysis.
Rick Gladstone contributed reporting. Additional work by Neil Collier, Derek Watkins, Barbara Marcolini and Rob McDonagh.
