MH17 down near Donetsk
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Tampering?
But he also isn't above falsifying his work.
So he put earphones next to a souvenir for scale? so? the souvenir clogs are flotsam, not evidence. Do you think he enlarged the holes in the wing, for effect? or aren't you going to look at that?
My point was, yes, he had a great camera; yes he is a photographer, a professional photographer, so his pictures are worth looking at because he knows what to photograph. Did you read his bio? he's been there, done that, (been wounded too), he knows what's important to document.
Yeah, granted the "aluminium balloon jab" was a bit simplistic, but I guess I'm just a bit shocked at the degree of breakup of MH17, the "cripple7" is a strong aircraft, the 'Frisco accident demoed that, but I'm trying to make sense of this. Not that degree of breakup would have made any difference to the poor pax. This missile it seems, tracks to a predicted intercept point, so it makes sense it hit the cockpit area as evidence suggests so far at this early stage. A large hole there and would explosive decompression have broken the cockpit away? Possibly then violent pitch up/pitch down causing the wings to fail and that would probably do it.
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Broke in air, burned on ground
would explosive decompression have broken the cockpit away?
The cockpit and the tail section ended quite far apart, in clean condition. If the missile exploded low enough, some shrapnel could have hit the fuselage where it narrows, helping to detach the rear section. Cockpit and port wing show a lot of missile damage; the tail I can't see yet.
A lot of the main fuselage is missing/smashed/incinerated, to the extent that the OCSE (political) observers are claiming the "rebels took the fuselage away" . There still exist small sections of fuselage, one piece of overhead lockers that I've seen, a big curled section standing on end....
The port wing seems to have taken much of the initial blast, and broke off, unburned. Starboard wing and engine seem to have stayed attached, ended up burning. Fire started only on impact when the centre fuel tanks ruptured. The port wing by this time too far away to flash over to that. Cockpit would have separated early on, or just held on by a thread until ground impact, which was most likely not nose first.
Fuselage+right wing unit would have tumbled, raining out people and cargo on both ends; most would not have burned, the ones who did will be hard to recognise. Most would not be strapped in (mid afternoon and awake) and seats were dislodged from the floor (or the floor from the frame) by the missile impact, though some appear to have concertinaed on ground impact (some empty).
They were not "drained of blood" as that silly rebel said. But they would not have bled a lot, perhaps that's what he meant. By the time they got whatever hitting the ground injuries they got, they were indeed dead, combinaton of freezing and no oxygen up there. Horrible as this is, at least they'd not have known what hit them, literally, unconscious while still in the first surprise stage of what's happening??.
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See for yourself
and is that consistent with the apparent HE fragmentation damage? 
https://secure.flickr.com/photos/jeroenakkermans/
In brief, no, this was a nice old style missile with much smaller warhead shrapnel. Enough to do the job though. The newer bigger spinning rods just let them be more sloppy with the aim and still not miss.
Akkermans' photographs
He may well be a first-class news photographer. There are plenty out there. I have no wish to discredit the value of any illustrative content in these photographs. However "dressing the set" should be confined to studio photography - there's NO excuse at a crime scene, no matter what the nature of the items disturbed.
As for "knowing what to photograph", other than taking the obvious shots of airframe parts peppered with holes made from the ingress of sharp objects, many of which have appeared previously under many different bylines, you couldn't go wrong in this situation and his photographs resemble everything else shot at the scene. You'd have to be an air accident investigator to really know what to photograph other than the obvious.
And speaking of the obvious, the core information about this crime became available within about 12 hours of the event - well before those involved had time to "manage" the situation - and no objective person is likely to arrive at significantly different conclusions. The subsequent 5h!t-storm of obfuscation by every party with an interest (Russians, separatists, Ukranian government, USA) is already starting to obscure the picture.
As for "knowing what to photograph", other than taking the obvious shots of airframe parts peppered with holes made from the ingress of sharp objects, many of which have appeared previously under many different bylines, you couldn't go wrong in this situation and his photographs resemble everything else shot at the scene. You'd have to be an air accident investigator to really know what to photograph other than the obvious.
And speaking of the obvious, the core information about this crime became available within about 12 hours of the event - well before those involved had time to "manage" the situation - and no objective person is likely to arrive at significantly different conclusions. The subsequent 5h!t-storm of obfuscation by every party with an interest (Russians, separatists, Ukranian government, USA) is already starting to obscure the picture.
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MH17
The route was approved by Eurocontrol ATC, safe per ICAO, IATA.
However the airline has a responsibility to apply contingency planning as is done with high terrain on a route. Escape routes are planned by an airline to cater for the event of engine(s) failure or a depressurisation over areas of very high terrain.
Therefore it is no excuse to say that the route was approved by the Eurocontrol ATC. It must be assumed that an engine failure or depressurisation can occur at anytime. A B777 at a cruise altitude cannot maintain normal cruise altitude with a 50% loss of thrust due to an engine failure. At the sort of weight at that stage of flight, the one engine inoperative maximum altitude would have been in the region of 20,000 to 23,000 feet (depending on actual weight and air density). The point is that it is not relevant to say that as the upper limit of the war zone is 32,000 feet and as the aircraft was at 33,000 feet it was therefore, "safe". No consideration was given to a possible engine failure, depressurisation or cargo fire, requiring an immediate descent and placing it well with the assumed missile range. As we now know, 32,000 feet was a painfully flawed assumption in any case.
This route was taken for purely commercial reasons, now the airline is hiding behind an ATC approval. Since then, they have also flown over Syria.
However the airline has a responsibility to apply contingency planning as is done with high terrain on a route. Escape routes are planned by an airline to cater for the event of engine(s) failure or a depressurisation over areas of very high terrain.
Therefore it is no excuse to say that the route was approved by the Eurocontrol ATC. It must be assumed that an engine failure or depressurisation can occur at anytime. A B777 at a cruise altitude cannot maintain normal cruise altitude with a 50% loss of thrust due to an engine failure. At the sort of weight at that stage of flight, the one engine inoperative maximum altitude would have been in the region of 20,000 to 23,000 feet (depending on actual weight and air density). The point is that it is not relevant to say that as the upper limit of the war zone is 32,000 feet and as the aircraft was at 33,000 feet it was therefore, "safe". No consideration was given to a possible engine failure, depressurisation or cargo fire, requiring an immediate descent and placing it well with the assumed missile range. As we now know, 32,000 feet was a painfully flawed assumption in any case.
This route was taken for purely commercial reasons, now the airline is hiding behind an ATC approval. Since then, they have also flown over Syria.
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I think someone posted this yesterday, but I didn't read it at the time (it's in Italian).
«Così è stato colpito l’aereo» - Corriere.it
«Così è stato colpito l’aereo» - Corriere.it
Enlightning...
How Malaysian Plane was Shot Down - Corriere.it
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The route was approved by Eurocontrol ATC, safe per ICAO, IATA.
However the airline has a responsibility to apply contingency planning as is done with high terrain on a route. Escape routes are planned by an airline to cater for the event of engine(s) failure or a depressurisation over areas of very high terrain.
Therefore it is no excuse to say that the route was approved by the Eurocontrol ATC. It must be assumed that an engine failure or depressurisation can occur at anytime. A B777 at a cruise altitude cannot maintain normal cruise altitude with a 50% loss of thrust due to an engine failure. At the sort of weight at that stage of flight, the one engine inoperative maximum altitude would have been in the region of 20,000 to 23,000 feet (depending on actual weight and air density). The point is that it is not relevant to say that as the upper limit of the war zone is 32,000 feet and as the aircraft was at 33,000 feet it was therefore, "safe". No consideration was given to a possible engine failure, depressurisation or cargo fire, requiring an immediate descent and placing it well with the assumed missile range. As we now know, 32,000 feet was a painfully flawed assumption in any case.
This route was taken for purely commercial reasons, now the airline is hiding behind an ATC approval. Since then, they have also flown over Syria.
However the airline has a responsibility to apply contingency planning as is done with high terrain on a route. Escape routes are planned by an airline to cater for the event of engine(s) failure or a depressurisation over areas of very high terrain.
Therefore it is no excuse to say that the route was approved by the Eurocontrol ATC. It must be assumed that an engine failure or depressurisation can occur at anytime. A B777 at a cruise altitude cannot maintain normal cruise altitude with a 50% loss of thrust due to an engine failure. At the sort of weight at that stage of flight, the one engine inoperative maximum altitude would have been in the region of 20,000 to 23,000 feet (depending on actual weight and air density). The point is that it is not relevant to say that as the upper limit of the war zone is 32,000 feet and as the aircraft was at 33,000 feet it was therefore, "safe". No consideration was given to a possible engine failure, depressurisation or cargo fire, requiring an immediate descent and placing it well with the assumed missile range. As we now know, 32,000 feet was a painfully flawed assumption in any case.
This route was taken for purely commercial reasons, now the airline is hiding behind an ATC approval. Since then, they have also flown over Syria.
balpa criticizes airline safety assessments
BBC News - Balpa criticises airline route safety assessments
I flew for a British Airline that deliberately lied to us re terrorism and were forced by Balpa to accept our life insurance risks; it's about time the public became aware of the gambling with their lives...let alone the crews.
In the 70s we I flew into 5 of these zones...three were with the risk of being shot down and two with being blown out of the skies. There is a file on one incident...but this is closed under the official secrets act ...still (1976).
One factor that hasn't been widely discussed here is who benefits if the action was deliberate? The Ukraine.
I flew for a British Airline that deliberately lied to us re terrorism and were forced by Balpa to accept our life insurance risks; it's about time the public became aware of the gambling with their lives...let alone the crews.
In the 70s we I flew into 5 of these zones...three were with the risk of being shot down and two with being blown out of the skies. There is a file on one incident...but this is closed under the official secrets act ...still (1976).
One factor that hasn't been widely discussed here is who benefits if the action was deliberate? The Ukraine.
Dear BB97 and Flap 5,
AI, SQ and many others were in the vicinity if not on the same route during that time. Do they consider engine drift down as well? By your standard, all other airlines too hidding behind an ATC approval. Do you know that SQ immediate response was they don't use that airspace but later issued an apology as " insensitive statement"?
Is Syria a prohibited airspace or has the airline's country regulator imposed a ban? FAA ban does not necessary means everyone else in the world must follow. Situation on the ground fluctuates from time to time.
Isn't there some fighting in Iraq? So many flight still going over the top of it.
The Russia accusation of MH17 being off track, look carefully at the airways they qouted, it was L69 where MH17 was in fact on L980.
Easy to finger point, next time point it in the mirror!!
AI, SQ and many others were in the vicinity if not on the same route during that time. Do they consider engine drift down as well? By your standard, all other airlines too hidding behind an ATC approval. Do you know that SQ immediate response was they don't use that airspace but later issued an apology as " insensitive statement"?
Is Syria a prohibited airspace or has the airline's country regulator imposed a ban? FAA ban does not necessary means everyone else in the world must follow. Situation on the ground fluctuates from time to time.
Isn't there some fighting in Iraq? So many flight still going over the top of it.
The Russia accusation of MH17 being off track, look carefully at the airways they qouted, it was L69 where MH17 was in fact on L980.
Easy to finger point, next time point it in the mirror!!
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No KatSLF, not correct. An immediate driftdown from FL330 would be required at that weight (I am a B777 captain), so you would be below FL320 well before exiting the war zone. The whole argument is irrelevant anyway because 32,000 feet does not protect you from a missile. No civilian airliner should fly anywhere near a war zone, period.
Remember that in war, "friendly fire" accounts for many deaths and injuries (I am also an ex military pilot). If professional military personnel can mistake their own forces, how safe do you feel as a civilian airliner above these "military" people on the ground who are not true professionals? They are rebel insurgents, often intoxicated and they have their finger on the trigger. Still want to risk "gliding into Russia" KatSLF? Oh and if the aircraft depressurises, it won't be gliding. The crew will execute a Rapid Descent.
Remember that in war, "friendly fire" accounts for many deaths and injuries (I am also an ex military pilot). If professional military personnel can mistake their own forces, how safe do you feel as a civilian airliner above these "military" people on the ground who are not true professionals? They are rebel insurgents, often intoxicated and they have their finger on the trigger. Still want to risk "gliding into Russia" KatSLF? Oh and if the aircraft depressurises, it won't be gliding. The crew will execute a Rapid Descent.
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A large hole there and would explosive decompression have broken the cockpit away?
The cockpit and the tail section ended quite far apart, in clean condition.
The cockpit and the tail section ended quite far apart, in clean condition.
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@KatSLF
Just to remind you that there was known to be at least one passenger from the Lockerbie disaster who was for a short period both alive and conscious after they had impacted the ground.
Typically it would take between 30 seconds and 1 minute for those passengers not incapacitated in the accident but ejected from the a/c to loose consciousness though lack of oxygen at that altitude. Whether many would regain consciousness as the oxygen levels increased on the way down is another question.
I would also expect windblast type injuries to abound to arms and legs as they would not have been falling like a trained parachutist would.
Just to remind you that there was known to be at least one passenger from the Lockerbie disaster who was for a short period both alive and conscious after they had impacted the ground.
Typically it would take between 30 seconds and 1 minute for those passengers not incapacitated in the accident but ejected from the a/c to loose consciousness though lack of oxygen at that altitude. Whether many would regain consciousness as the oxygen levels increased on the way down is another question.
I would also expect windblast type injuries to abound to arms and legs as they would not have been falling like a trained parachutist would.
Caygill says: Just for clarity, any "countermeasures" installed on airliners are designed to defend against heat seaking manpads at low altitude, primarily during before/after landing/takeoff phases. They would provide zero protection against radar homing SAMs like the Buk-1m.
MPADS missiles are a desirable weapon for terrorists and are a potential threat to civil aviation for many obvious reasons. Therefore, it seems logical to equip airliners with anti-MPADS systems, with flares being one way to counter these missiles. However, there are so few commercial airliners fitted with defensive systems that's it's hard to draw any conclusions about them at this point in time. Are they effective? Are they too dangerous? The potential danger associated with flares is of major concern and that is one reason American Airlines has been testing JetEye, an automated system to detect an attacking missile and defeat it using a powerful laser.
What is known is that military aircraft equipped with the capability to eject flares to counter heat-seeking missiles can just as easily dispense chaff, using the same system, in an attempt to counter radar guided missiles. This is nothing new. I first dispensed chaff from a flare dispenser 48 years ago. AirForce-1, which is technically a military aircraft can dispense flares as well as chaff and is also equipped with sophisticated Active Electronic Counter Measures.
Is the time ripe for airliners to be fitted with anti-missile systems and if so, what kind? Certainly a flare dispenser would be loaded with chaff if the radar guided threat were more serious than that from an IR guided missile, but is the radar threat more serious? Should airliners also use active ECM?
I don't claim that these are ALL the civil aircraft shot down with missiles, but a quick search shows 6 were downed by shoulder fired IR missiles (Air Rhodesia Flight 825, Air Rhodesia Flight 827, 3 Transair Georgia airliners on 3 consecutive days, and Lionair Flight 602) killing a total of 285 people.
Three were downed by sophisticated radar guided missiles (KAL-007, Iran Air 665, and MH-17) killing 857 people.
Of the ones downed by MPADS, they were, for the most part, landing or taking off in an active fighting zone and/or carrying military personnel. In one case, the airline was warned it would be shot down if it continued to carry high ranking enemy soldiers. In other words, if you're flying in and out of a war zone on an airliner, expect some risk.
The ones downed by radar missiles, on the other hand, carried no such apparent risk. None of them were flying into or out of an active war zone and it has to be assumed none of the passengers knew they were putting themselves in harm's way.
When it comes to civilian airliners three times as many innocent, unsuspecting people have been killed by sophisticated radar missiles fired by organized military forces as have been killed by shoulder fired missiles operated by irregular forces operating in known combat zones.
Does that mean that anti-radar counter measures should be a higher priority than anti-IR measures? Personally, I think and all IR defense is short-sighted. In any case, a quick look at the history of missile intercepts and civilian airliners does strike me as interesting and somewhat counter-intuitive.
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he had a great camera;
yes he is a photographer, a professional photographer, so his pictures are worth looking at because he knows what to photograph.
Also those people accusing him of tampering with the crime scene, how do you know he did ? Another journo / rebel / whatever person might have moved the stuff around and he just spotted the photographic composition.
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The flight deck floor under the commander's seat appears to have similar perforations to the outer skin on the port side (10 pence piece size holes with the primer showing underneath) (only one visible on starboard) and the remains of the windows look heavily sooted (or it may be mud - it's probably been lifted or moved off the ground)
Is the FDR fed telemetry from the avionics bay perhaps it won't have had much time to do a lot.
Sorry, photo for reference: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/jer...s/14715119004/
Is the FDR fed telemetry from the avionics bay perhaps it won't have had much time to do a lot.
Sorry, photo for reference: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/jer...s/14715119004/
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ekw: "You've got to remember that in the heat of the moment protagonists will often try to take the credit for positive outcomes, whether they are in the loop or not. The early boasts are entirely understandable."
I think this is a really important point. Given the prevalence of false internet claims I think it is incredibly disengenuous to rely upon those statements to lay blame and justify critical international policy actions. I'm sure intelligence agencies are smarter than that but if they are not it would explain a lot.
I think there are so many examples here where the publics in many countries are being treated like fools.
As for the media, there was a time (short-lived it seems) when journalists were intrepid questioners of truth. Now they appear to be nothing more than spineless servants regurgitating perfunctory propaganda.
I think this is a really important point. Given the prevalence of false internet claims I think it is incredibly disengenuous to rely upon those statements to lay blame and justify critical international policy actions. I'm sure intelligence agencies are smarter than that but if they are not it would explain a lot.
I think there are so many examples here where the publics in many countries are being treated like fools.
As for the media, there was a time (short-lived it seems) when journalists were intrepid questioners of truth. Now they appear to be nothing more than spineless servants regurgitating perfunctory propaganda.
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Yesterday I read that some hunks of the nose of the plane has been cut loose and hauled away soon after the crash. (this could just be another tidbit from one of the many departments of lies and misdirection that are in full gear) . However is it possible that some good satellite photos could have recorded the initial crash conditions. I know it was overcast and cloudy but perhaps some other spectrum could image through the clouds with some detail. Anyone know how long before the skies cleared of clouds? One can imagine the radome and nose might have looked like swiss cheese.
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"The cockpit and the tail section ended quite far apart, in clean condition. If the missile exploded low enough, some shrapnel could have hit the fuselage where it narrows, helping to detach the rear section. Cockpit and port wing show a lot of missile damage; the tail I can't see yet. "
Not sure there's any indication of the tail coming off until shortly before the end, nor the port outer wing section, and there's certainly nothing that looks like the shrapnel damage found at the cockpit anywhere that far back.
The well-photographed cockpit remains (actually the bottom half of the forward fuselage) and a lot of bits that seem to be universally from the forward part of the fuselage, including windows and a portion of fuselage including an emergency exit and the starboard side Malaysian flag are all clustered towards the western end of the wreckage path, 6km away from the tail, which is only about 700m south of the main wreckage.
The tail, APU, outer port wing, some other bits of what are possibly horizontal stabilizers and interior furnishings are right at the eastern edge, not far south of the main fire from the centre section wreckage with at least one wing and the engines and MLG. The early Akkermans shots are mostly from round here and he's carefully photographed two seat row markers on overhead lockers - 17 and 31, which are from the front over the wing back to nearly the tail, suggesting that some of the rear fuselage ended up here too. The 'ia' of 'Malaysia' on the port side of the fuselage, which is from around the wing root is here, too, along with the tail fuselage piece with the aircraft registration on.
There are quite a few largish bits visible on the satellite photos which no one appears to have photographed, possibly because they're unreachable by foot or far from roads. Something looking like a wing section is within the chicken farm to the west of the tail crash site.
It's notable that the wreckage trail bends round to the left as it goes on, ending up about 30 degrees from the original aircraft direction.
Not sure there's any indication of the tail coming off until shortly before the end, nor the port outer wing section, and there's certainly nothing that looks like the shrapnel damage found at the cockpit anywhere that far back.
The well-photographed cockpit remains (actually the bottom half of the forward fuselage) and a lot of bits that seem to be universally from the forward part of the fuselage, including windows and a portion of fuselage including an emergency exit and the starboard side Malaysian flag are all clustered towards the western end of the wreckage path, 6km away from the tail, which is only about 700m south of the main wreckage.
The tail, APU, outer port wing, some other bits of what are possibly horizontal stabilizers and interior furnishings are right at the eastern edge, not far south of the main fire from the centre section wreckage with at least one wing and the engines and MLG. The early Akkermans shots are mostly from round here and he's carefully photographed two seat row markers on overhead lockers - 17 and 31, which are from the front over the wing back to nearly the tail, suggesting that some of the rear fuselage ended up here too. The 'ia' of 'Malaysia' on the port side of the fuselage, which is from around the wing root is here, too, along with the tail fuselage piece with the aircraft registration on.
There are quite a few largish bits visible on the satellite photos which no one appears to have photographed, possibly because they're unreachable by foot or far from roads. Something looking like a wing section is within the chicken farm to the west of the tail crash site.
It's notable that the wreckage trail bends round to the left as it goes on, ending up about 30 degrees from the original aircraft direction.