Zimm, it's just speculation regarding the Aim9x being fooled by old flares. When the news first broke about the engagement and how the first missile missed and then the Aim120 was used, many defense journalists remembered the story of the Aim9L/M having a similar thing happen, being tuned to ignore NATO flares, but then went right after WarsawPac flares - the exact words being "The Aim9 REALLY liked the Russian flares". So everyone just figured this was flare-gate 2.0. The pilot specifically said he lost the missile and didn't see what happened to it, that could be just classification/orders to say that, or it could mean the flares did spoof it, or just as likely that the missile just failed for some other reason. The pilots mentioned several times in the vid that the air to air weapons are constantly loaded and offloaded, for decades with some rounds, never being used. All this moving/reconnecting plugs/wires and the long shelf life = missiles WILL fail.
The pilots said they did close fly by's in front of the nose of the SU22 not once, but three times dumping flares, this is after yelling at him multiple times on GUARD to break off. I imagine once those bombs came off it wasn't long before missiles were in the air, based on their description of events. Sure sounds like the ROE gives every chance to the Syrian AF to NOT get shot down, and this guy just ignored everything, either due to orders, or his own volition.
Very impressed with the professionalism of these USN officers on that stage, excellent brief, and I can't wait to read the written version they do for Proceedings naval magazine.
