From the preliminary report (page 11):

According to ATC data, at 13.00 hrs the crew of flight
MH17 requested to divert the track 20 NM to the left, due to weather. This also was agreed by Dnipro Control

It is in accordance with the russian report. While the accompanying picture is... laughable.

You should learn to discern a lie from inaccuracy (e.g. audibly they reported about a soviet-made SU-25 (with the word 'veroyatno' likely, possibly) while in the picture there is an american-made EF-111 :-D )

This was my analysis, so no quotes. In answer to your points:

a. An explosion is not a fire? What I said was. Quote: "This would be consistent with charring and staining from the intense heat of the warhead as it exploded nearby."

I think that explanation is both clear and accurate. There was indeed an intense fire from the explosion. Did that fire cause secondary aircraft burning? Most likely. The warhead appears to have exploded to the upper rear of the cockpit, and if fragmentation balls reached the cockpit at a 45 degree angle (against the forward motion of the aircraft) they are highly likely to have reached the wing and fuel tanks too. Fuel tanks and high velocity shrapnel are likely to cause a fire. And since the flight recorder stopped at this time, one can also surmise a large rupture of the fuselage and or electrical system at the same time.

b. How do we know the center section only "caught fire on impact"? It is entirely possible that the center section was on fire in the descent. Do you have contrary evidence? What would make the center section burst into flames only on impact with the soft ground?

c. Which calls into question the sanity of overflying a region where a reasonably high-flying Antonov was shot down by a missile the previous month. And as an aside, are the Russians claiming that the Ukrainians also shot down their own Antonov? The Russian version of events is like a colander, which again calls into question their political and military motivations.

Sadly, all operators in the area use identical equipment, so finding pieces of shrapn
 

At least it could lead to identifying the source of the high speed fragments. That would limit the number of source type probably to a BUk missile. Despite having the same name, being in production for such a long time, different variants, batches etcetera exist, and if lucky, this will further differentiate the source.

Further intelligence would lead to the launch location. The US already has this data, so that would be easier to zoom in on the who.

The US track record on launches is good, they were the first to say that SIberian Airlines 1812 was shot down by a missile, and also the launch of the iskander missile that killed Stan Storiman was detected by the US according to Jeroen akkermans. So I do have trust in this

The identification of the fragments is a first step in nailing the responisible people for this tragedy.

Photo of the missile plume trail and geolocation of the launch site:
http://avva.livejournal.com/2788606.html

loot at map: left side shows UKCC (DON), and find it to the right were "Донецк" (Doneck/UKCCin russian is written). now compare a/c position.

When people think plane must burn after missile hit they think wrong, because it ONE of possible action, but NOT NECESSARY. Often video and photos when target blow up of start buring make with next limits, which wrong for MH17:
1. target is military a/c (mostly jet fighters) - that mean it very compact target full of fuel and ammo and hydraulic/freeze liquids which very flammable
2. old video with Vietnam contain old missiles like SA-2 which have radio-command line and RADIO COMMAND fuse!
3. It mean massive warhead detonating on big distance from target (depend from error of guide radar) and spread alot of strike elements (up to a few dozen thouthands) in all directions or almost all. So when strike elements from big distance meet target they hit almost all target surface (except cause when missile chasing target or fly directly into target - then elements hit mostly aft area with engines so they burn).
In cause of MH17 if missile was 9M38M1 from SA-11 then only nose part of plane (cabin) was penetrated by strike elements because 9N314 generate round field of elements in sector area. Only a few (non-system) elements and parts of missile (nose part with radar/fuse and aft part with engine, also debris from corspe of missile in warhead area and close to it) can shot other parts of plane. Many photo contain very specific area of damage so possible it SA-11.
Strike elements of SA-11 have cube, cuboid and I-beam cuboids.
It very easy to see on my imgur picture
When i seen CNN video i found one specific hole - it definitely cuboid sign of SA-11.

@ silverstrata
 

a. Heat damage in the cockpit area is only on the outside. The co-pilots chair shows no burn mark, the carpet on the floor shows no burn marks, the business class seats we have seen show now burn-marks. The overhead bins we have seen show no burn marks. So no evidence for secondary fires inside the aircraft, not even in the cockpit

b. The tail section of the aircraft broke up at lower altitude, proof for this is distribution close to main impact point. Tail section parts show no burn marks at all. The tail section, up to door 3 right shows no external or internal burn marks. The crew rest bunks, close to the center fuel tanks show no burn marks. Do I need to continue? Engine fire is not unlikely, but this can also be caused by sharpnel alone.

Further, there is no flame or smoke visible in the sky on the only video that started before the impact. Black clouds only started after explosion when the plane hit the ground.

There was only a fireball from the explosion of the missile, and that's it. No resulting fire afterwards, not traces of fire on the outside. Shrapnel could have penetrated the wings and the engines, but not resulting into fire.

The SU-25 does not operate armed on 10'000m. Its max altitude is 7000m unarmed.

At least the radar echo, if not faked, is showing another aircraft. Can be a MIG-29 or can even be anything else.

"At least the radar echo, if not faked, is showing another aircraft. Can be a MIG-29 or can even be anything else."

Radar echo is just what it is, an echo. Echo's could come from clutter, reflections, even birds. Being an echo is no proof of being an aircraft. In this case the most likely explanation is that the echo's are parts of MH-17 when it fell apart.

If you have doubts, please read below.

Russian ATC lesson 101 ? the phantom SU25 | who is strelkov - the many mysteries of the Russian Involvement in Ukraine

What frequency of echo, alt, speed, modulation?
Even SA-11 can separate targets by onboard soviet computer by type - aerodynamic target, aeroballistic and hover/low speed.
It possible by analising of modulation of signal from target by parts of plane, number of engines and rotating parts in it. Qualified personnel can hear difference between targets and even what maneurs target can do.
And i dont talk about acquisition of target on radar... Farina&Studer for who wanna understand how radar plot track on screen.
Su-25 can climb on 10k meters, but airspeed will be much lesser then MH17 speed.
Holes in roof of cabin mean plane with gun had alt more then 10k m. Then this atacker must be shown on Dnipro and Rostov radars (since Rostov radar seen Su-25 on alt=5000m). Also Su-25 altimetr dont have ability for show alt more then 10k m.

About Buk missile which can fly dozen miles after detonating:
At end of video falling aft part of missile, how you can see it cannot fly, but can fall.

@silverstrata


Just been pondering over the map illustration on page 21 of the prelim report. The position of the wreckage from the last FDR point is relatively concentrated and of only a short trail parallel to the aircraft's track. Of note and referring to photos of the wreckage distribution there appears to be no main impact crater.

What would be a reason for MH17 to decline the request to go to FL35? Not that it really matters either way, but conspiracy theorist will likely grasp on to this "refusal" as being somehow meaningful.

Most likely they were simply too heavy.

Speed indicated on primary radar is radial speed. When sharply climbing, IAS can be much higher. Its is quite normal (by my experience - in times of military service I worked on primary radar). From blip on the screen, type of a/c can not be determine (Su-25/MiG-29 etc). But if it is military plane, it is equipped with special coding transponder, so Russian air defence can distinguish Ukraine military plane.

It is quite interesting, that investigators omit this official information. I don't know if this unknown plane is involved in accident. But it is the only primary radar information available. If investigators consider it not credible enough they should say so.

For me, radar plot is much more credible then pictures from "v_kontakte". I saw too much fakes there... Too much... We heard fake audiofile of rebels "radio communication" (with different timestamps inside pakets), fake wideofile of Buk without one rocket (took in town that was taken by Ukraine army from April) etc. I can easy fabricate any similar "evidence" by one hour. I can hardly believe that the SAR vas launched an there was no witnesses of terrible noise of its rocket engine...

Dnipro and Rostov radars are probably only secondary radars and military planes can not be seen there.

The accident is very politicised and it is impossible to distinguish little pieces of true in mountains of lies.

Umm, where did the Ukrainian map come from? They didn't provide their primary radar data, the map captures screenshot of the situation at 13.20. Who superimposed red lines, solid and dotted? Dutch or Ukrainians? I think Ukrainians.


There was a maneuver to avoid weather, taking the plane 20nm to the left, it's kinda reflected on the Russian map which starts tracking MH17 around Donetsk, so what's the problem?


Dutch were obviously not going to include that slide from Russian MOD presentation and Russians probably didn't send them any maps, just the data, so Dutch put the Ukrainian one in the report, what's wrong with this?


This map does not claim to show plane's course plotted from either primary or secondary radars so we shouldn't read too much into it.

Karel_x wrote

You seem behind the curve. You do realize that the Russian analysis of that video was wrong.

From the Russian brief. English translation from Russian Embassy in UK.

Special Briefing by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on the crash of the Malaysian Boeing 777 in the Ukrainian air space, July 21, 2014

Not Krasnoarmeisk but Lugansk. The question arises as to why the Russians got the geo-location so wrong and lied about the car advert having a Krasnoarmeisk address?

The junction in Lugansk where the video was taken.

https://goo.gl/maps/Ltvqx

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/cla...-3#post-117606

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/cla...-3#post-117620

Ukraine provided:
primary radar data
secondary radar data
MOSE-S data.
problem is that they faked route before abeam of Donetsk.
look at their presenation again:
??????? ?????????? ?? ?? ?????????? Boeing 777_ 21 07 2014 - YouTube

Think yourself: if Rostov (RND) civilian radar had been only secondary, would you see on the video of the record from it the separation of the target into a circle and a square?

Explanation of the separation

TEEEJ

The billboard did have a Krasnoarmyesk address. They actually naively (at best) or purposely misleading (at worst) believed that the billboard with the address visible of a car dealership in Krasnoarmeysk had to be located in Krasnoarmeysk. It obviously makes more sense to advertise in nearby towns rather than in the town you're located in - which was the case verified by other photographs.

And yes the ID of the video at the intersection in Lughansk is accurate.

No, it didn't. Explanation in Q17 at FAQ and addendum to it (containing picture of the ad): the billboard was an ad for JAC J5 car assembled by Bogdan car factory in Ukraine. The ad contained words in Ukrainian "national autodealer Bogdan". Apparently, Russian Ministry of Defence searched for those words and found a car seller Bogdan in Krasnoarmejsk, unrelated to the car factory Bogdan.

Bogdan is an Ukrainian first name (literal translation "given by god").

The preliminary report doesn't support this. From the page 14:

"The data obtained was the following:
- Primary surveillance radar recorded by the Russian surveillance aids
- Secondary surveillance radar (SSR / Mode S) 6
- Automatic Dependant Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) 7 ground based reception."

If we consider the SA-11:

1. According to the map released by the DSB the last FDR position was at position "N48.123 E38.522".

2. Zaroschenske SA-11 (9K37M "Buk-M1") Armed Forces of Ukraine (position N47.983333 E38.451389)

3. Distance to the target 16.4 km...(((

Nice try, but
is same lie as Su-25 and Krasnoarmeysk.

Could be anything, weight restrictions, turbulance, weather.

too many things are missed in this report.

It would be over 40 km to the alleged rebel Buk location, ie out of range.


Problem is they say "transponder data became unreliable at 13:18Z" while Dutch report say 13:20 and they even have ATC communications recorded up to the last point. Another minute and a half from "N48.123 E38.522" takes the plane to the crash location.


Would be great if Dutch released last transponder data but they didn't.


As it is it looks like Boeing was in range of two Ukrainian Buk batteries and a possible rebel launcher.


Another thing, in their presentation Russian MOD said there was increase in radar activity on that day but they didn't specify what type of radars (as far as I remember) while Germans say Nato Awacs recorded presence of a different system, not Buk's.


Perhaps all Buks in that area were outside Awacs zone, though,

Debris Field Map
 

Not sure if anyone has already posted this but seems to be a pretty comprehensive map of the debris field scattered over the 3 villages of Hrabove and Rozsypne / Petropavlivka . With aerial photographs & description of individual pieces of wreckage & graphics of original aircraft .

Map of a Tragedy: How Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Came Apart Over Ukraine - WSJ.com

Who are "they" ?

While that quotation has been widely distributed on the Net, its provenance and reliability are both unknown.

Latest news from the Netherlands
 

It was a busy news week in the Netherlands, even after the preliminary report was shared with the public.

About 100 next of kin have united themselves in 'foundation MH-17' and start putting pressure on Rutte to send investigators to the crash zone. The dutch prime minister reacted bij sending 30 extra people to Charkov, ready to enter the crash site after it is considered safe enough. But to the surprise of many people, the crash site is still considered too unsafe.
Unfortunately, today they proved right, because heavy fighting (mortar fire) took place at the crash site. One of the dutch reporters got caught in the fight and was evacuated. Not much chance of a quick return of the investigators
Slachtoffers vliegramp | RTL Nieuws
Vliegramp MH17 | RTL Nieuws

After de DSB the public prosecution office didn't want to stay behind and held a short press conference. They are still confident to find the responsible people, had collected 500 pieces of 'trace evidence' stemming from victims and personal items, including 25 metal pieces, which were now in the process of being identified.
500 sporen veiliggesteld in onderzoek naar MH17 | RTL Nieuws
Allthough the public prosecution office would like to trial the responsible people in The Netherlands, it has not yet been decided in what country a trial will be helt, if it ever comes so far. It might take 15 years before this happens.

It should be noted that it is not uncommon in such a tragic accident that parts end up in victims body or personal items. So I guess also here it is important to go back to Ukraine as quickly as possible

AWACS seen emission from target (which flown on alt 10km)
Frequency of SA-3 same as SA-11 - 3 cm.

Frequency of SA-3 same as SA-11 - 3 cm.
 

Do you mean that the frequency of both systems is the same, or that it is simply in the same band? It should be exactly the same before you can make this statement.

An AWACS is not a SIGINT or ELINT plane It's function is to check the sky's for airplanes and guide interceptors to target or coordinate friendly forces.( AWACS = Airborne (Early) Warning And Control). It was not designed as a signal intelligence plane. If you want to do signal intelligence, you use a RC-135 and if you want to know ground forces movement you select the E-8 JSTARS. Both were nowhere near.

The detection of SAM-sites is easy when they use their radar suit. A surveillance radar like the Snow Drift can find targets up to 85 km, but can be detected and identified at much longer range by any Radar Warning Receiver. Russia came with graphs of Ukraine radar activity, so they were monitoring too.

In the cold war, the Sovjet Union built great radar stations able to search for aircraft over the horizon and their own version of an AEW&C plane.
With nearly 40.000 Russian troops near East Ukraine border, I do not doubt that part of this is air defence. So if they wish, they can easily cover the battlefield by search radar.

This makes the Russian presentation even more suspect. It is like proving somebody is a thief by showing a rather vague mobile phone picture, while at the same time you have several High density professional camera footage of the same guy, which you do not share.

Yes Fire Dome (9S35M1 of SA-11, search mode) and Low Blow (fire and tracking channels of SA-3) have same wave length - 3cm.
Since SA-3 mostly killer then AWACS probably prefer SA-3 then SA-11.
AWACS had a few ESM upgrades (Block 1, 20/25 and 30/35) which added to Sentry ability for detect and track radar emitters.
Working radar near border is routine and usual thing, it cannot argue against Ukraine or Russia, only against separatists since they dont had systems like SA-3 or SA-11.
Anyway, Russia must detect fire mode of 9S35M1 radar (wave length 4 cm) but all what we heard is 9S18M1 in search mode and very far from MH17 death.

@ValeryD: The "Zaroschenske hypothesis" you proposed is an easy one to disagree with. How would a missile shot from a position ~ in the 3 o'clock of an aircraft end up by "impacting" said aircraft from ~ its 11/12 o'clock (with no significant heading change by said aircraft)? It's simply not possible.

Indeed, intention looks pretty clear here. "Sadly" the alleged unreliability of the transponder is not consistent with the FDR data (no xpder info from the Dutch, for now: analysis in ongoing, they wrote).


@ blackbird69, re: "An AWACS is not a SIGINT or ELINT plane". Errr, not primarily, indeed, but some AWACS (all?) have a pretty impressive SIGINT/ELINT capability. There are more aerials to an E-3 than just the big rotating plate.

to AlphaZuluRomeo:
- the missile hits from above downward with advance to the target's course;
- the cockpit is curved;
- the MH17 is a moving object with the speed 250 m/s (also hitting the cloud of 'high-energy penetrating objects' made by the missile);
- the most known picture shows also tangential marks of impact;
- Zaroschenske is just a spotted position not the firing one (as Snizhne for the rebels's Buk);

There is no such an attack direction which completely rules out rebels's guilt.

to Lena.Kiev:
See the video since 1:10

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


to anonymousdefender:
Every mention of Su-25 in the briefing was accompanied with the word 'supposedly'.
Regarding the failed attempt to geolocate the video in Krasnoarmeysk it is more likely someone's laziness in their PR department. They just took a widely circulated version from social networks at that moment without a thorough check. Ukrainians also mistakenly claimed the video was recorded in Krasnodon.

to BATHIK:
That's not true. See this Yandex map

The hitpoint is less than 38 km from Russia's border.
There are plentiful alleged rebels's Buk positions.

frequency of those mentions, however, makes one recall the adage generally attributed to Dr. Goebbels - If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.

This is not true.

The first Russian general mentioned the fighter jet (Su-25) five times during the briefing. Only the first time he used word "presumably". After that he was talking about the plane without any doubt.

The second Russian general, while talking about the "plane" (it is obvious that Russians tried to present a large falling piece of the Boeing as a Ukrainian fighter) was pretty affirmative too.

Everybody can watch the briefing.

Why are the Buks at Zaroschenskoe Ukraine ones? I can´t see at the Sat Pics anything that look like Ukraine. It is also possible that were the captured Buks of the A1402 Depot. Only the Russian said that there were Ukraine Buks. Whre is the different between Ukaine Buks and captured Buks by Separist?

Buk's warhead has two detonators, one in front and one at the back, depending on how the missile approaches the target it detonates either one or both. Relative to the missile the cloud of shrapnel then looks like a forward looking cone, backward looking cone, or a donut. That's according to posters with experience operating Buks on Russian military forums, so far this information remains unchallenged, take it or leave it.



If that is true, there's no way to determine where the missile came from and how it detonated without reconstructing the cockpit and tying up strings like they did on Dexter.


Buk missiles are also low on maneuverability, the exhaust all fuel in the first 15 seconds of the flight and after that they only glide towards the target, giving them a relatively limited scope for correction.


There's also visible damage to the left wing which could account for the projectiles hitting the cockpit from 2 o'clock, ie Zaroschenskoye.

9N314 have only one detonator.
Dynamic field of strike elements is result of vector summing of speeds. Angle of detonation depend from relative speed of missile-target. And cone forming by this summary speed (look on my picture where im draw what shape have dynamic field of strike elements in cause of hit from side - violet lines instead of red lines which work for static warhead). For warhead not good idea to have 2 detonators since it decrease output power.
Anything what you really know and dont read on sites?
Yes! He did it!
So where thousand of holes from dynamic field of strike elements which must puncture fuselage and left wing between holes in cabin and hole in left wing?
So strange warhead - only scratch left wing by single shot - sniper, but devastate a cabin and killed pilots - murder, and nothing between it! And how right engine lost part with hole from schrapnel if cone go in direction cabin-left wing, do you have second warhead for it?!
But this not true!
So still missile with high probability come from ahead, not from side.
Another picture with dynamic field of strike elements if missile come from ahead. Point of detonation above and some on left side.
Violet lines - cone of schrapnel.
Lines 1-4 is horisontal projection. How we see most strike elements in that cause can bypass fuselage and wings. Also hits in left wing and right engine have same probability to meet target by system elements or non-system. In really, i think left wing and right engine hitted by single pieces which non-system for field of strike elements.
Lines 5-6 is vertical projection of field. It how cabin was penetrated.
20 seconds for 9M38M1 and 45 seconds of total flight time.
Maneurs up to 19 g on start and 13 g at end.