On September 16, 2017, at around 14:00 a pair of Ka-52 attack helicopters with the crews in command of Lieutenant-Colonel A.V. Smakhtin and the Senior Lieutenant A.S. Volchkov took off from Pushkin airfield in Leningrad Oblast in the vicinity of Luzhsky training range to perform training and demonstration shooting. At 14:47, at an altitude of about 50 meters, at a speed of 200 km/h, the pilots received permission from the Zapad-2107 exercises command to enter the attack heading and prepare for shooting. At that moment, there was a spontaneous launch of three unguided S-8 aircraft rockets from the wingman machine under command of Senior Lieutenant Volchkov. The fired missiles exploded in close proximity to the audience consisting of military attaches, military industry experts and journalists. Three people were injured by the explosion and fragments. Also two military trucks were damaged.

Video # 1 of helicopters approach

Video # 2 of helicopters approach, captured from a different angle

Video # 3 of the consequences

Video # 4 from the helicopter cockpit

After a detailed analysis of the available video materials, volunteers of InformNapalm volunteer intelligence community found that one of the helicopters fired three missiles, and not one, as reported by many media outlets. One of the damaged trucks was identified as the UAV control vehicle of the RB-341V Leer-3 system (airborne GSM jammer system). The following equipment was also caught on camera: transport containers for Orlan-10 drones, P-230T unified command vehicle, P-260T Redut-2US control and communication system.

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