From my one close-up view of a SA-2 exploding about 1000 meters in front of me over Hanoi...............
The SA-2 had over twice the warhead explosive weight than this missile we're talking about now. The thing was tryng to hit the flight in front of me/us, but the jamming pods worked and it exploded just behind my buddies, and I/we flew thru the smoke a few seconds later. 20,000 feet or so.
The actual trajectory of the missile that brought down MA17 is still
TBD, so I do not understand all the discussion. Who cares? Meanwhile, a video of a large aircraft that has an explosion and then a burning right wing has been removed from You Tube. It was alledgedly MA17.
(
??? ?????????? ????? ??-30 - YouTube) .
From my personal experience, this looks about like I would imagine. No instant confetti, but a fairly intact aircraft for over a minute until spars and/or other stuctural components melt or fail ( see the report on space shuttle Columbia). A pretty good fire on right wing root, but no big pieces falling off.
We only had a few planes that became unglued within seconds ( was there for a few tours over a 7 year span). Most of the B-52's that were hit in December of 1972 survived for many minutes. enuf war story stuff.....
The benefit of a good analysis of the impact angles and initial damage, then final structural failure modes can help the manufacturers build better planes in the future or improve the existing ones.
Nevertheless, it's interestng to see all the banter from folks that have never been shot at or hit by air defense weapons.