There are many things that don't add up or outright contradictory. For example everyone takes it for granted that the bodies in the back were 'burnt', just because an unverified source says so. With the forward fuselage burnt and the rear not, I would expect it exactly the other way around. I find it hard to fathom how there could be unburnt bodies in the front, which crashed pretty much intact. I recall the well informed captain whoever in charge of the committee 'monitoring' SAR activities (the same who said the pilot reported engine trouble) stating that the wreckage was in two pieces, with the tail burnt. Perhaps something was lost in translation, or outright incorrect.
Also these 'heat flashes' have never been confirmed by any official US government source. Sources 'close to the Pentagon' or 'informed about the investigation' are as credible as my own ramblings (maybe less).
For now all we can rely on are the released photographs (and satellite map) which conclusively tell us the following:
- The plane broke up in mid-air, with the severance and fragmentation of the tail and rear fuselage early in the sequence
- The wings (minus engines), centre and front sections hit the ground in one piece
- The wings and centre section was apparently engulfed in a fireball fed by fuel from ruptured tank(s) as the soot and scorching marks on the engines far away from the ground fire cannot be explained otherwise. The dumping of much of the on-board fuel is also necessary to explain the relatively small ground fire (the nose section just 15 metres from the wing shows no sign of fire)
- The lack of anything but normal data with an abrupt stop on the FDR is consistent with what we could expect (and did predict)
Everything else is unconfirmed hearsay at the moment, as Kulverstukas well summed it up a few hundred posts ago there was absolutely no meaningful new information since two days, and we all go round and round in circles.
It is hard to judge whether the UK etc. and now Russian government reactions are based on any real intelligence or they are just the usual willy waving exercises. There is a lot of political capital that may be gained by appearing to do something on a matter where public expects firm action.
Last edited by andrasz; 6th Nov 2015 at 15:27.