Mahatma Kote wrote:
Simple pressure probably won't cause complete structural failure - though there are quite a few accidents where differential pressure has caused an ultimate failure of the aircraft or significant damage. Examples are
Turkish Airlines Flight 981 - lost cargo door
American Airline Flight 96 - lost cargo door
These accident clearly came to my mind. But remember that regulations have changed after these accidents because the cabin floor of the DC-10 was considered too weak. Both planes stayed intact. AA 96 landed safely. For completeness I mention United Air 811, also landed safely, after loosing forward cargo door (And that is a large door).
Mahatma Kote wrote:
On similar major incidents to MH17, the disruptive event caused immediate separation of part of the aircraft and subsequent disintegration of the rest due to aerodynamic overloads.
This is suspected, but not explained - which is exactly my point.
Mahatma Kote wrote:
PA-103 (Lockerbie)
TWA-800 ( US)
Incidentally, in both of the above incidents, the main part of the aircraft continued flying until ground impact or detachment of wings etc.
MH17 appears to have done the same thing with late detachment of the tail after loss of the cockpit and 1st class cabin early on.
PA 103 main part disintegrated on high altitude.
TWA800 main part disintegrated on impact.
Clearly not the same. Only other plane to disintegrate on high altitude is china airlines 611. That took 10 - 15 s.
Differences between TWA800 and PA103:
TWA800: 18000 feet, no damage to engines or tail during separation.
PA 103: 31000 feet. During separation the front section folded to the right and hit the nr 3 engine, which was detached. Also debris damaged both horizontal stabilizers.
One strange thing about the break up is that 3 of the landing gears and wheel wells and the aft cargo hold stayed together. Strange because the 747 likes to break just after the body landing gear wheel well (SQ0600, klm tenerife and others).
From MH17 evidence so far it looks most likely that the missile exploded in front of the left side of the cockpit. It caused the aircraft skin to blacken and deform by the blast, next to numerous holes in the skin, probably all cockpit windows destroyed, killing crew and ravaging avionics. Result decompression (doubt if this is explosive decompression. Calculations show so far it still took several seconds before cabin pressure was gone).
And then what?