MH17 down near Donetsk

[DozyWannabe]

Folks, we're on a hiding to nothing if all we throw around is conjecture and reheated Cold War rhetoric. So let's get a few things straight on the political front - to whit:

1. Russia is no "backwater" or "banana republic". The state may have lost its "superpower" status with the fall of the USSR, but it would be naive in the extreme to assume that there is not enough infrastructure in place to play the situation with complete precision.
2. Vladimir Putin [and I cannot emphasise this enough] is not stupid. From what is known he was no Party apparatchik, he was a senior figure in state security counter-intelligence. The reason he wields the power he does is because he knows exactly where every closeted skeleton lies, where every body is buried, and exactly who put the bodies there. He is *absolutely* not to be underestimated.
3. If the "pro-Kremlin" rebels did indeed shoot MH17 down, they've just cut Putin off at the knees - and if the people responsible are not currently making every possible effort to vanish, they will either end up being handed over to spare the Kremlin's blushes, or face-down in a nondescript field with a shiv in their back.
4. While the area where the aircraft came down is held by the rebels on paper, it is still very much an unstable region. Any person who successfully smuggles out wreckage with proof of an external explosion will effectively get to name their price with the Kiev government. If this occurs, whatever becomes of the flight recorders will essentially be moot.

[SAMPUBLIUS]

18th Jul 2014, 19:36 re pjm

re the black box moot bit . re dozywannabee

actually a few seconds thought re the black boxe(s) CVR and FDR.

At best the FDR *might* show via acceleration traces what side of the plane was hit by the missile, and algtitude, speed, etc at that instant. So big deal

And the CVR **might** have caught a WTF ???

And it doesn't add anything of significance - but makes for good media fodder.

Of course there may be some other conversations IF plane was divereted or if they noticed anything . . . but IMHO such conversations with ground or ATC are already recorded .

[p.j.m]

Tweetbot Catches Russian Government Editing Flight MH17 Wikipedia Info

Tweetbot Catches Russian Government Editing Flight MH17 Wikipedia Info | Gizmodo Australia

The original version of the Wikipedia article listing civil aviation accidents stated that MH17 had been shot down “by terrorists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic with Buk system missiles, which the terrorists received from the Russian Federation.”

yeah, not guilty at all.

[1a sound asleep]

My #1 concern is getting the victims bodies and their personal items from the crash scene right now. Flight recorders wont tell us much. Those responsible will deny everything

[Stanley11]

Agree with Dozywannabe,

The best play for Putin would be to dis-associate himself from the incident. Find the trigger-man/men and deliver them to the investigators. He has nothing to gain from this and surely no spin artists could turn this into something worthwhile.
Best play for Russia: Secure the corridor and area with the Polite People for the investigators. Deliver the perps. Get the investigators out of the area with the bodies and all remaining evidence. Carry on the blame game.

[p.j.m]

Originally Posted by 1a sound asleep

My #1 concern is getting the victims bodies and their personal items from the crash scene right now.

You have to wonder who's video recorder the soldier is using..

[Stanley11]

getting the victims bodies and their personal items from the crash scene

Unfortunately, they'd be looted by now

[CISTRS]

We have seen the stacks of passports already taken without due process. The wallets, cash, credit cards are already surely looted.

[Stanley11]

Why no fireball

From previous posts, it appears that the main tail section was found a distance away from the main crash site. This suggests that the tail section broke apart from the main body.

SAMs of this class typically have a proximity fuse, i.e. it doesn't need to contact the aircraft to explode and damage the aircraft. The 777 is a large aircraft. There is a high chance that the missile exploded near the tail of the aircraft sufficiently to cut through the tail section or at least enough for the tail section to separate. The aircraft would then lose it's ability to sustain flight and fall to earth. The lack of a flaming decent / smoke trail points supports this theory, i.e. the main fuel tanks were intact and not ignited upon missile impact/explosion.

[KatSLF]

A crew member on Vincennes, who originally identified the plane as civilian, complained it was so dark in the operations area that he could not read the (paper) listing of civilian flights.

Crew on deck with binoculars (or perhaps even without, at only 11nm) would have seen what it was; there would be no way to combine that knowledge with a blip on the screen in a dark control room.

The same would apply to MH17. The locals standing outside would have known it was a civilian craft on a normal route where they regularly see these. The guy at the dark enclosed SAM controls would see only a blip.... heading his way from the west, where all the previous danger has come from.

[amizaur]

"I refer to the images from bobik 57 on page 21 above. The scars do rather look like shrapnel has impacted."

Those scars looks rather like something hit or slided on that surface - possibly other plane fragments hit that fragment when it was desintegrating in the air - than holes/marks left by small shrapnels from exploding warhead.

[Stanley11]

Crew on deck with binoculars (or perhaps even without, at only 11nm)

Sir, it is not easy to conduct a visual identification/recognition of a target at 11nm away on a moving platform (heaving ship), even with a gyro stabilized bino. Environmental conditions (heat haze, atmospheric dust, etc) will distort the image, aspect of the target, illum, etc.

[Passagiata]

Dozywannabe:

Any person who successfully smuggles out wreckage with proof of an external explosion will effectively get to name their price with the Kiev government. If this occurs, whatever becomes of the flight recorders will essentially be moot.

Good point. In fact, they shouldn't wait for a rebel to think of it. A massive reward of millions (and safe harbour in the West) should be offered without delay!

[JakartaDean]

M1 or M2?

Amizaur said:

Here is a video showing how an engagement looks like for operators of a Buk-M1 Launcher:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSXMhaFntrU

At 1.19 we see the operator's consoles, horizontal situation being displayed on the larger, circular orange display. I'm not sure what the right retangular orange display is for - vertical situation, precise target tracking, missile tracking ?
There is also a green oscilloscop-like display - not sure what it does, and a TV display for targeting using a visual channel.

From 1.24 to 1.29 we see a target engagement on the circular display - first the radar is scanning wide 120deg horizontal sector (7deg in elevation), we see a blip of a target detected. As the target is selected, the scanning is quickly reduced to 10deg zone, and just after that - target is locked on and the beam is tracking it.

All this looks quite "analog" - no syntetic situation display with computer generated target markers tagged with speed and altitude data - only analog "blips" on radar, the range is determined by the radar display grid, the speed - probably by the rate of movement on the display, and the altitude of the target - well, I have no idea if it's displayed anywhere ? Maybe after the target is locked on, some numerical or at least analog data about speed, course and altitude is calculated and displayed... somwhere....

The video you linked to is the M1, or "Gadfly" in Nato terminology. What I've seen around here and elsewhere refers to the Grizzly. This link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDXScnEKaP0 shows the M2 in operation.

If you pause the video right at 22 seconds you can see some form of IFF, but I'm not sure what it is saying. I'm also not sure if Ukraine and Russia still share the same type of "friend" designation in their IFF systems. Does anyone know?

[Green Guard]

Passagiata

smuggles out wreckage with proof of an external explosion

Isnt it external explosion if air-to-air missile was used ?

A massive reward of millions (and safe harbour in the West)

another words "bribe by the west"...so desperately needed these days

[dukof]

A month ago the militia complained of Ukrainian fighter jets trying to trick them into downing passenger planes. Explained in video from 18th of June.

http://i.imgur.com/3VQOmaL.jpg

Too see video, turn on captions for English translation, from 1:10;

JUNE 18, 2014: E. Ukraine separatist claims Kiev is baiting militia to shoot down passenger planes

[GunpowderPlod]

Ukranian BUK systems in Russian hands

ARC Government: three anti-aircraft missile regiments of Ukraine's Armed Forces join Crimean side - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podc

[uksatcomuk]

Are there any reports from other a/c in the area ?

There was a flight 55 miles to the SW at same alt , similar heading.
Would not crew or passengers have seen the plume ?

[Caygill]

p.j.m

Quote:
The original version of the Wikipedia article listing civil aviation accidents stated that MH17 had been shot down “by terrorists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic with Buk system missiles, which the terrorists received from the Russian Federation.”
yeah, not guilty at all.

Rightly so. With +10k edits, I would have done the same if I've seen such a statement on Wiki. Wikipedia is not a platform for opinions or value loaded rethoric, full stop.

[OleOle]

At least the last ten flights of MAS17 took a more southerly route - over the Sea of Azov or even over the Black Sea - kind of avoiding the Donezk region.

Malaysia Airlines (MH) #17 ? 15-Jul-2014 ? EHAM / AMS - WMKK / KUL ? FlightAware


What would be the reasons to take a more northerly route this day?