The scrape marks on both sides of the VS are of interest,.

Looks like very accurate cut off part

External Influence
 

Possibly intended meaning has not been correctly conveyed in the literal translation of "influence" from Russian to English.

A better translation would have been "external factors". Airframe, systems, engines and crew are discounted as being a cause or contributory factor. When these are then viewed against the background of sudden loss of speed and altitude, the disposition of the wreckage, the only causes left must be external factors. Examples of which are, some kind of severe wx phenomena, bird strike, explosives on board ( not necessarily pax related, but also cargo related) and finally a missile strike. This last less likely, given that in the case of MH17, where a BUK system is suspected, the disposition of the wreckage bears little resemblance to this one. I am afraid if comparisons are to be made this one seems closer to the Pan Am Lockerbie disaster, where the break up sequence was such that the centre section came straight down and the debris field was wide with the cockpit and tail sections remaining relatively intact. That also occurred not long after the aircraft had reached its cruise altitude.

The mid-air separation of both the nose and tail sections (both free of any signs of fire damage ) of the aircraft from the mid section of the fuselage with both wings remaining attached in its fall, exhibiting an intense fuel fed combustion, leaves little doubt that the external factor referred to was an expansion of flammable gases of a large magnitude, generating sufficient linear forces to cause relatively uniform breaks of the fuselage at its two major structural assembly stations (hoop stress is four times that of lateral stress) This would further suggest that the origin of such a force is most likely to have been situated in the centre section of the fuselage, possibly close to the centre fuel tank, with its attendant fuel vapour.

BTW this "staining from possibly longterm hydraulic/skydrol leaks" are clearly visible on this part outside.

http://clip2net.com/s/3pKFqm5

http://clip2net.com/s/3pKFqm5


This dots looks suspicious. Could they be attributed to normal use scratches /damages ?

Metrojet published a bunch of tech docs:

http://urgent.metrojet.ru/files/tehd...1102175048.zip

Most interesting is a tech log filled at SSH prior to the last flight and maintenance summary check also performed at SSH. There is nothing suspicious that could be relevant to the crash though.

Where is the Horizontal Stab? Could a failed pitch trim mechanism have caused this. AKA Alaska 261. If the attachment point fails, could this cause the horizontal stab leading edge to go full up, causing the plane to nose down, then at some point the aerodynamic forces cause it to go the other way causing a climb, and on and on until it fails completely and departs the airplane. If the tail had departed because of a pressure bulkhead failure, the horizontal stab should have remained with the rest of the tail section... then again maybe not.

Just interested in why the section in the photograph in post #498 appears to have suffered heat damage to the exterior whilst the section in post #500 (VS etc) appears not to show similar effects of heat.


Am I getting disorientated?

The picture by Kulvastukas is interesting. If that is the tail section, that would be door 4R. On both sides of this section of the aircraft we see the aircraft skin peeling outwards and now what looks like impact marks from many small projectiles of some description on the inside of door 4R. On the picture just under the 'A' in the Airbus titles there seems to be similar damage.

All I will say is that I'm glad I don't operate into SSH.

Link is to a Russian News broadcast. At the 3:27 mark, there is a row of three seats, found, I believe, near the tail section. Multiple puncture holes and perforations in seat backs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18_eXE0qgHc

Major components identification
 

Major components which i have not found yet on pictures ... but hope someone else has:

a. top and aft section of the vertical tail structure,
b. rudder,
c. horizontal stabilizer (looks like it came clear off - which might suggest a high speed failure),
d. 4 of 8 passenger doors (it is easy to identify 3 in their proper position, 1 without position),
e. 1 of the 2 engines,

It might be possible that we can already see the complete fuselage. But the photos are not good enough. You need to be able to measure the various 'sections'.

Please note: At this stage a large number of items and components have already been moved from their original place and position. For example the cockpit section has been turned, collections made of airco ducts, collections of baggage, one of the doors that sat stuck in the ground appears to have been taken out and laid flat ...

An upset (suggested by preliminary and rough FR24 data, cause(s) unknown), followed by loss of control (causes unknown), high speed steep descent, overspeed failure of part of the tail and horizontal stabilizer, wing-fuselage inverting, going into a kind of flat rotation, losing both engines and APU during that rotation, and hitting the ground in that attitude ... could be one of the possible scenario's - based on the pictures that are available till now.

Only after rejecting such options, and only with clear possible evidence (like we had early on with MH17), would it be useful to spend time on more exotic (but not impossible) scenario's like bombs and missiles.

I very much doubt these holes were present before the accident. Maybe they occurred due to contact with debris or with the ground or maybe they're shrapnel holes.

That's the top of the door and that trim panel doesn't normally get touched by anyone or anything, in normal service.

susier, post #513

ZeBedie, As one emirates expat pilot suggested in LJ, "it's not too difficult to bribe someone of cleaning team at SSH to put some 1 kg of plastic explosive full of nails into one of the bins in the tail kitchen" :(

That door trim panel would not be in service in that condition. It doesn't get touched, there's no chance of trolleys banging it and damaging it etc. Although one should imagine the crew do a security search on a cold aircraft, if the aircraft has been sat overnight then a device of some sort could be hidden. It would only need to be very small. Perhaps hidden behind the back row or in an over head. However if it was here then I don't see how shrapnel would make marks on the door as there is a toilet between the cabin and the door.

Not suspicious, the dots are just rivets where the paint has eroded off of the rivet heads.

To my knowledge the door trim is a solid slab of plastic and there are no rivets. Could you provide more information on how it is constructed? I'd be interested to see.

He doesn't mean the rivets, you're looking at the wrong dots. Look at the picture again and you'll see he's drawn a red circle around the dots he refers to.

HeartyMeatballs:

Having worked for a top russian airline, I must say these security searches are sometimes overlooked and not thorough enough. Once I had to so to speak 'cool-down' DfT inspectors after they found our cabin crew failed on certain points and that was at a major EU airport. On other occasion I witnessed cabin crew sneakily smoking in aft galley during turnaround. Regret to put shadow on Russian airlines, but it's all about safety after all. Can imagine what it's like at SSH and tiny charter carrier.

[the uninformed musings of a non aviation professional]

Looking at the pictures of the tail section and the "missing" HS, might this have been a scenario similar to Alaska 261 (accepting it's a completely different aircraft type), where a connection to the HS failed, causing it to suddenly deflect in the airstream, in this case resulting in a rupture of the rear fuselage and also the separation of the HS?

[/the uninformed musings of a non aviation professional]

JAS