Fireball over NW Europe of the evening of 13 February 2013: Re-entry of a Soyuz r/b

Reports are pouring in of a very long duration, bright fireball near 22:15 CET (21:15 GMT) seen from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Reports indicate 30-40 seconds visibility, and an "explosion" halfway, and some reports indicate sonic booms.

This fireball was with a high degree of certainty the re-entry of a Russian Soyuz 3rd stage, #39083 (2013-007B), the 3rd stage from the Soyuz that launched the Progress cargoship Progress-M 18M towards the ISS on February 11th.

USSTRATCOM issued a TIP message indicating decay at 21:15 +/- 1 m UTC near 49N, 13 E.

Below is a quick map (made using Orbitron) of the trajectory and approximate position of the re-entry.

click map to enlarge

Time, general description and reentry data all fit quite well.