MH17 down near Donetsk
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Truck carrying sam vehicle is same in pictures 6 and 8
Olasek, Thanks for links to pictures by Daily Mail and other. Re denial of location of truck carrying SAM vehicle on road as being from another area, car dealership sign, etc. (Picture 8). It would be easy to identify the location of picture 6, which is in the middle of a town with shop sign, and which shows the same truck (White cabin with blue stripe and yellow side cover behind cabin).
If the publisher of both photos has not come forwards, it is probably because it would be inconvenient for him/his organization to do so.
If the publisher of both photos has not come forwards, it is probably because it would be inconvenient for him/his organization to do so.
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My guess is the reason the separatists and their "supporters" have agreed to hand over the black boxes is because the information contained in them will support what everybody already knows; that MH17 was shot down by a surface to air missile. What the investigators really need is access to the remains of the aircraft.
Last edited by HappyAs; 22nd Jul 2014 at 07:52. Reason: remove BUK
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It will not support even that. It will support that MH17 was shot down by a missile. Black boxes won't tell you if it's SA-11 (Buk), SA-20, S-300, or even air-to-air R73.
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Well - looking at what appears to be shrapnel holes where shrapnel pierced the hull of the aircraft near the cockpit - prayers go out to the pilots, crew, and passengers on board.
Pure speculation - but that shrapnel likely ripped through everything and everyone in the cockpit and sealed the fate of MH17. Shrapnel also likely ripped through at least the forward passenger cabin.
Not hard to picture what happened next.
Accident or intentional act - what happened to that plane and it's passengers is a tradgedy. Holes of Swiss cheese lining up? Doesn't matter here.
Can't imagine the milliseconds that preceded the break up of the aircraft and the chaos.
God rest their souls.
Pure speculation - but that shrapnel likely ripped through everything and everyone in the cockpit and sealed the fate of MH17. Shrapnel also likely ripped through at least the forward passenger cabin.
Not hard to picture what happened next.
Accident or intentional act - what happened to that plane and it's passengers is a tradgedy. Holes of Swiss cheese lining up? Doesn't matter here.
Can't imagine the milliseconds that preceded the break up of the aircraft and the chaos.
God rest their souls.
It is unlikely (but not impossible) that MH17 was shot down using a R60 IR guided missile. Here's why I think so.
There is a great deal of misunderstanding about how missiles work, especially in the media. Arguing that such a missile "would go for an engine" and that the cockpit damage we see with MH17 would eliminate an R60 as a possibility makes some false assumptions.
Guiding a weapon using a signature radiated by the target itself is a weapon designers dream come true. "Heat seekers" take clever advantage of a byproduct of jet engines, namely IR radiation. Some IR guided missiles have been designed to home on the IR signature the hot metal of a jet engine; others home on the hot exhaust plume. Most missiles of this type have a contact fuse, but actual contact with the target is more a matter of luck than anything else. And while it is true that IR missiles have been known to fly right up the tail pipe, this event is very rare. Near misses are the norm and that's why all missiles of this type have proximity fuses, usually optical or radio proximity types. The R60 can be configured with either type of fuse. A successful R60 intercept could result in damage anywhere on the airframe, including the cockpit.
The R60 can certainly bring down a 777, but success is far from guaranteed. The small 3kg expanding warhead can cause only so much damage, but sometimes small damage is sufficient. Airliners, when intact, are quite strong. But once the integrity of the airframe is compromised an airliner operating at around Mach 0.8, can break apart very quickly from aerodynamic forces.
So was it an R60? The photos I've seen of the skin of MH17 showing wide-spread and severe damage suggest that the aircraft was downed by a large blast/fragmentation warhead like the one found on the SA-11, not the much smaller expanding rod warhead associated with the R60.
The R60 has a practical range of around 4km and a very limited head-on capability. That means it's likely an R60 attack would be visual from the rear quarter. Any fighter pilot worth his salt could certainly recognize a 777 at 4km range and not confuse it with a military aircraft, especially a twin engine turboprop. By the way, a 777 has a huge IR signature from the engines, especially from behind and below. An IR missile would not prefer a heated pitot tube.
I understand that the SA-11 can be deployed from a sophisticated multi vehicle system including several types of radar and a command and control protocol which should minimize accidentally misidentifying and shooting down an airliner. This is what you would expect if the SA-11 system were operated by a fully operational army defense system. But it appears that the missile can also be fired by minimally trained solders from one vehicle using just the guidance radar after observing nothing more revealing than a "blip" on their screen. Given a trigger happy crew without any real idea of what they're shooting at, makes a mistake like this one much more likely to be caused by a ground based missile crew as opposed to a more highly trained fighter pilot who can see his target with his eyeballs.
When I was a kid flying combat missions over North Viet Nam I watched many of my fellow pilots as they were downed by SA-2 missiles. The fragments of the 777 which fell to earth are not inconsistent with the fragments produced when a SA-2 makes a successful intercept.
In summary, the bulk of the evidence points to a SAM, as far as I'm concerned, but unlike some, I'm not sure just exactly who did the shooting.
There is a great deal of misunderstanding about how missiles work, especially in the media. Arguing that such a missile "would go for an engine" and that the cockpit damage we see with MH17 would eliminate an R60 as a possibility makes some false assumptions.
Guiding a weapon using a signature radiated by the target itself is a weapon designers dream come true. "Heat seekers" take clever advantage of a byproduct of jet engines, namely IR radiation. Some IR guided missiles have been designed to home on the IR signature the hot metal of a jet engine; others home on the hot exhaust plume. Most missiles of this type have a contact fuse, but actual contact with the target is more a matter of luck than anything else. And while it is true that IR missiles have been known to fly right up the tail pipe, this event is very rare. Near misses are the norm and that's why all missiles of this type have proximity fuses, usually optical or radio proximity types. The R60 can be configured with either type of fuse. A successful R60 intercept could result in damage anywhere on the airframe, including the cockpit.
The R60 can certainly bring down a 777, but success is far from guaranteed. The small 3kg expanding warhead can cause only so much damage, but sometimes small damage is sufficient. Airliners, when intact, are quite strong. But once the integrity of the airframe is compromised an airliner operating at around Mach 0.8, can break apart very quickly from aerodynamic forces.
So was it an R60? The photos I've seen of the skin of MH17 showing wide-spread and severe damage suggest that the aircraft was downed by a large blast/fragmentation warhead like the one found on the SA-11, not the much smaller expanding rod warhead associated with the R60.
The R60 has a practical range of around 4km and a very limited head-on capability. That means it's likely an R60 attack would be visual from the rear quarter. Any fighter pilot worth his salt could certainly recognize a 777 at 4km range and not confuse it with a military aircraft, especially a twin engine turboprop. By the way, a 777 has a huge IR signature from the engines, especially from behind and below. An IR missile would not prefer a heated pitot tube.
I understand that the SA-11 can be deployed from a sophisticated multi vehicle system including several types of radar and a command and control protocol which should minimize accidentally misidentifying and shooting down an airliner. This is what you would expect if the SA-11 system were operated by a fully operational army defense system. But it appears that the missile can also be fired by minimally trained solders from one vehicle using just the guidance radar after observing nothing more revealing than a "blip" on their screen. Given a trigger happy crew without any real idea of what they're shooting at, makes a mistake like this one much more likely to be caused by a ground based missile crew as opposed to a more highly trained fighter pilot who can see his target with his eyeballs.
When I was a kid flying combat missions over North Viet Nam I watched many of my fellow pilots as they were downed by SA-2 missiles. The fragments of the 777 which fell to earth are not inconsistent with the fragments produced when a SA-2 makes a successful intercept.
In summary, the bulk of the evidence points to a SAM, as far as I'm concerned, but unlike some, I'm not sure just exactly who did the shooting.
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Malaysia Airlines insurance policy info
Some info about the "unusual" kind of insurance policy Malaysia Airlines has:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/bu...l?ref=business
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/bu...l?ref=business
The single shot that starts a war?
Reported by Reuters on Friday 18th of July
A single warning shot fired in the air, to keep the party on the road and not shots fired at OSCE members as reported.
Monday 21st July
The Dutch expert Mr Van Vliet told reporters at the station: “I have inspected the train and the wagons and the quality of the storage is good … acceptable.”
So..
Three days to gather bodies over a 25 square kilometre area, in the middle of a war zone by a population that is one of the most literate, yet poorest in Europe.
The black boxes were handed over once the Malaysian investigators arrived as promised the day that the boxes were found by separatist leader Alexander Borodai.
The bodies left a day after the search was finished and as promised, to a destination under control of the Dutch.
The separatists were reported as saying they would not send them to Keiv, so a delay, if any, could be attributed to figuring out the logistics of separatist controlled train meeting a Dutch plane in a safe location.
The journalists first on the scene were allowed access as they were already accredited with paper passes because they had been reporting on the conflict.
It is understandable and reasonable (in context), that a relatively small military force would initially seek to protect itself from evidence being tampered with by the enemy and so restrict access to outsiders.
Looting of valuables seems to have taken place, a ghastly aberration of human behaviour that is not uncommon, four were arrested in Lockerbie and over forty took souvenirs of the Space Shuttle crash.
If the separatists wanted to hide tampering or nefarious activity they could have simply asked the media to leave.
In the absence of investigators the wreckage was disturbed to remove bodies, this is called tampering with evidence by western politicians.
"Grotesque violations" at the crash site according to the Oz foreign ministers address to the UN, but the balance of evidence suggests it is the circumstance of where the crash occurred that has had the most impact on a lack of an efficient sterile, clinical western cleanup, with the media kept at arms length.
The irony is that a full-on western response with victim mapping ect, would have delayed the removal of victims, as experienced at Lockerbie and other disasters.
Pan Am Flight 103 - Metapedia
“After the crime, comes the cover-up,” Mr Abbott said. “What we have seen is evidence tampering on an industrial scale — and that has to stop.”
So an industrial scale criminal cover-up, in front of scores of cameramen and photographers?…PM Abbott's past poor accuracy on filtering fact from fiction about such matters is on record..
“We are confident that we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within about a kilometre…"
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 black box in an area 10km by 10km | News.com.au
Looters and the industrial scale criminal behaviour aside, hats off to the ill-equipped and trained local police, miners, fireman and villagers for locating, marking and moving the victims, they deserve our respect,
as Dutch Forensics expert Peter Van Vliet said:
"I think they did a hell of a job in a hell of a place".
BBC News - Dutch forensic team 'impressed' by work at MH17 crash site
The question is whodunnit and why?
Sergei Kavtaradze, told Reuters by telephone: "Today 17 new workers and four official experts from Kiev arrived in Donetsk. Soon they are due to arrive at the site of the tragedy. We support the maximum number of experts possible."
A spokesman for the OSCE in Geneva said about 30 of its observers and experts were already at the scene and a "contact group" of diplomats from the OSCE, Russia and Ukraine had met and spoken with separatist leaders by video link earlier.
Rebel's commender fires a warning shot when 2 #OSCE members leaved the road to inspect #MH17 part in a field. Mission left back to #donetsk
The Dutch expert Mr Van Vliet told reporters at the station: “I have inspected the train and the wagons and the quality of the storage is good … acceptable.”
So..
Three days to gather bodies over a 25 square kilometre area, in the middle of a war zone by a population that is one of the most literate, yet poorest in Europe.
The black boxes were handed over once the Malaysian investigators arrived as promised the day that the boxes were found by separatist leader Alexander Borodai.
The bodies left a day after the search was finished and as promised, to a destination under control of the Dutch.
The separatists were reported as saying they would not send them to Keiv, so a delay, if any, could be attributed to figuring out the logistics of separatist controlled train meeting a Dutch plane in a safe location.
The journalists first on the scene were allowed access as they were already accredited with paper passes because they had been reporting on the conflict.
It is understandable and reasonable (in context), that a relatively small military force would initially seek to protect itself from evidence being tampered with by the enemy and so restrict access to outsiders.
“You can walk around the crash scene, there’s nobody stopping you,” Fairfax Media's chief correspondent, Paul McGeough, said. “Once you have one of these Mickey Mouse press passes that the rebel government - so called rebel government - will issue you with … you’re pretty well free to go where you want to go.
“At the railway station … where the train [holding the bodies of victims] is sitting at the platform, as I approached the platform a guy came at me with a gun ordering me to back off. I showed him my press pass, he smiled and said ‘come on in'.”
“At the railway station … where the train [holding the bodies of victims] is sitting at the platform, as I approached the platform a guy came at me with a gun ordering me to back off. I showed him my press pass, he smiled and said ‘come on in'.”
If the separatists wanted to hide tampering or nefarious activity they could have simply asked the media to leave.
In the absence of investigators the wreckage was disturbed to remove bodies, this is called tampering with evidence by western politicians.
"Grotesque violations" at the crash site according to the Oz foreign ministers address to the UN, but the balance of evidence suggests it is the circumstance of where the crash occurred that has had the most impact on a lack of an efficient sterile, clinical western cleanup, with the media kept at arms length.
The irony is that a full-on western response with victim mapping ect, would have delayed the removal of victims, as experienced at Lockerbie and other disasters.
The boy lay at the bottom of my stairs for days. Every time I came back to my house for clothes he was still there. 'My boy is still there,' I used to tell the waiting policeman. Eventually on Saturday I couldn't take it no more. 'You got to get my boy lifted,' I told the policeman. That night he was moved."
“After the crime, comes the cover-up,” Mr Abbott said. “What we have seen is evidence tampering on an industrial scale — and that has to stop.”
So an industrial scale criminal cover-up, in front of scores of cameramen and photographers?…PM Abbott's past poor accuracy on filtering fact from fiction about such matters is on record..
“We are confident that we know the position of the black box flight recorder to within about a kilometre…"
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 black box in an area 10km by 10km | News.com.au
Looters and the industrial scale criminal behaviour aside, hats off to the ill-equipped and trained local police, miners, fireman and villagers for locating, marking and moving the victims, they deserve our respect,
as Dutch Forensics expert Peter Van Vliet said:
"I think they did a hell of a job in a hell of a place".
BBC News - Dutch forensic team 'impressed' by work at MH17 crash site
The question is whodunnit and why?
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Satellite imagery of the debris field:
DigitalGlobe's Before and After Satellite Images of MH17 Crash Site | On Space
DigitalGlobe's Before and After Satellite Images of MH17 Crash Site | On Space
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This picture (from the collection posted before) seems to show the "toilet paper" discussed before as seen falling from the sky in the video. It definitely is larger than toilet paper, but I have no idea what it is.
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What I gather from reading many sources by now is that an individual BUK missile launcher's radar will not display civil aircraft transponder codes on a stand-alone basis. In order to display such codes the individual launch vehicle would have to be tied into either the ATC system's radar or a central military radar with ATC secondary radar capabilities.
To the experts: is this correct?
To the experts: is this correct?
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Despite the rhetoric, I have the distinct impression that whoever was in charge of the area at the time most likely did a good job - the area was kept secure and within a very short space of time, considering the environment, a refrigerated train was located and moved into place. Bodies were collected, bagged and placed in the container. The black box was located and kept secure.
The men involved were not from a highly trained established army but a rebel group with political motivation. They seem to have done pretty well in the circumstances.
The men involved were not from a highly trained established army but a rebel group with political motivation. They seem to have done pretty well in the circumstances.
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What I gather from reading many sources by now is that an individual BUK missile launcher's radar will not display civil aircraft transponder codes on a stand-alone basis. In order to display such codes the individual launch vehicle would have to be tied into either the ATC system's radar or a central military radar with ATC secondary radar capabilities.
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2 Funfly
Yes, I had the same feeling that the locals had done a good job. Note, that most of the people involved were not armed rebels (those were rather commanding) but ordinary farmers, retired miners and similar folks just living around in small villages. Blaming them that the bodies were not carried with due dignity and that they were picking up and looking at some personal items sounds too demanding.
Yes, I had the same feeling that the locals had done a good job. Note, that most of the people involved were not armed rebels (those were rather commanding) but ordinary farmers, retired miners and similar folks just living around in small villages. Blaming them that the bodies were not carried with due dignity and that they were picking up and looking at some personal items sounds too demanding.
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there is one piece of wreckage that does seem to show signs of being ripped through by something
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On the rare occasions I still look at this site, I'm always immediately reminded why my visits are so rare. Any time anything happens in aviation, all the conspiracy theorists, armchair experts and the odd person who just wants to say something different, whatever it is, all come out of the woodwork and turn any semblance of informed and rational discussion into a free-for-all of ill-informed and ill-considered conjecture.
To the poster who thinks the rebels have done a good job in securing the crash-site, well done sir! You evidently think leaving the bodies of victims of a major disaster lying in the sun for three days is perfectly acceptable. Not to mention tampering with evidence, looting and threatening journalists and investigators. Great job.
Then we have the chap who thinks the cockpit was "ground zero". I guess we're always going to have a few of them. It's just purely coincidental that a rebel leader is saying they've shot down a civilian aircraft. Maybe they mistakenly though they'd fired a missile, none of them could actually remember how many they had in the first place. And then we have the experts, who conveniently ignore all the evidence because they know better. I mean, taped conversations admitting to shooting down an aircraft, a BUK missile launcher driving back to Russia, a trace of a missile launch, they are all just circumstantial evidence, which doesn't prove anything.
Why is the idea that the plane was shot down by mistake by a bunch of nationalist thugs, and that someone had seriously miscalculated in providing them with sophisticated weapons, so hard to accept?
I'm surprised no one has yet suggested the wreckage in Ukraine is actually MH370. But maybe I shouldn't be putting ideas in anyone's heads.
To the poster who thinks the rebels have done a good job in securing the crash-site, well done sir! You evidently think leaving the bodies of victims of a major disaster lying in the sun for three days is perfectly acceptable. Not to mention tampering with evidence, looting and threatening journalists and investigators. Great job.
Then we have the chap who thinks the cockpit was "ground zero". I guess we're always going to have a few of them. It's just purely coincidental that a rebel leader is saying they've shot down a civilian aircraft. Maybe they mistakenly though they'd fired a missile, none of them could actually remember how many they had in the first place. And then we have the experts, who conveniently ignore all the evidence because they know better. I mean, taped conversations admitting to shooting down an aircraft, a BUK missile launcher driving back to Russia, a trace of a missile launch, they are all just circumstantial evidence, which doesn't prove anything.
Why is the idea that the plane was shot down by mistake by a bunch of nationalist thugs, and that someone had seriously miscalculated in providing them with sophisticated weapons, so hard to accept?
I'm surprised no one has yet suggested the wreckage in Ukraine is actually MH370. But maybe I shouldn't be putting ideas in anyone's heads.
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-0...t-flight-mh-17
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Interesting look at the public relations battle going on, and how Russia's control over their media influences people's perceptions there.
The Russian Public Has a Totally Different Understanding of What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
Russia Conspiracy Theories Trap Putin Malaysia Airlines MH17 | New Republic
As the crisis surrounding the plane crash deepens and as calls for Vladimir Putin to act grow louder, it’s worth noting that they’re not really getting through to Putin’s subjects. The picture of the catastrophe that the Russian people are seeing on their television screens is very different from that on screens in much of the rest of the world, and the discrepancy does not bode well for a sane resolution to this stand-off.
Russia Conspiracy Theories Trap Putin Malaysia Airlines MH17 | New Republic