Great post Andrasz (#1737 at 0310). Very helpful to summarise the knowns and help keep things on track. I personally found your analysis of the damage and likely sequence very interesting. Engineering background?
The one thing I take exception to is the last paragraph
MODS, could we banish all this nonsense talk about the video to a separate thread on jet-blast ? A) the aircraft was NOT downed by a missile B) those with knowledge of video making / editing have conclusively demonstrated it is fabricated. It has ZERO credibility, it was released hours after the news were already splashed over every conceivable news site, the persistent discussion adds a totally unnecessary clutter on this thread swamping meaningful posts.
Given we don't know what happened, I believe it is a mistake to dismiss something as an irrelevant and meaningless nuisance.
We have a video that increasingly seems to fit the likely circumstances of the explosion. Both our understanding of the crash. And our understanding of what the SBIRS system saw. Not all this information was out before the video was released.
No one has put forward an alternative event or explanation for this this video.
No government body has dismissed this. They obviously have the ability to determine it is a fake. Egypt and Russia in particular both have an incentive to denounce it as a fake if they knew it to be. Even Western governments with no direct involvement in this tragedy would likely chose to reassure their citizens it was a fake (and ISIS couldn't bomb at aircraft with this degree of reliability).
Some people here with significant expertise (Thadbeier) are persuasive it is a fake. Others (DIBO) have presented impressive analysis it is likely genuine. This is often the case with expert opinion.
Some people here initially said you couldn't get that clear an image of an aircraft at FL330 - until others here did just that.
This video is of central importance. If true, then it was a bomb. If it was a bomb, the precise breakup sequence is no longer particularly critical. It is very interesting. But it is not that critical. The bomb is the critical issue.
Egypt and Russia don't want this to be a bomb. People are circumspect about Egypt's expertise and agenda. People are circumspect about Russia's agenda. The bodies are all in Russia. Apparently debris samples are being tested for explosive residue in Russia. So what will we all think if Egypt and Russia say "no bomb?"
Like it or not, that video may (or may not) turn out to be the one piece of transparent evidence we have. And people call it irrelevant.
