wing-body junction
 

makes a fair radar corner reflector- especially when tracking from below and ' in front' . Prox fuse could then account for position of missile when detonated - IMHO slIghtly below port side. :8

Any explanation so far, why nobody from Malaysia is allowed to be part of Investigating Team in Amsterdam? The aircraft was from their country as well as most of passengers too...
:confused:

Malaysia's status with respect to the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) is unclear. If Malaysia is not on the team then it isn't clear whether the reason is that they haven't been invited or that they haven't accepted the invitation.

Malaysia had an independent streak that predates both MH370 and MH17. For example, when the International Criminal Court did not investigate allegations of war crimes at Iraq the Malaysians formed their own tribunal. They tried in absentia George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others. They concluded that the invasion of Iraq was unlawful and that war crimes were committed at Abu Ghraib prison. A year later they found Israel guilty of genocide of the Palestinian people. It is no wonder if the Malaysians find it difficult to get cooperation from countries like The Netherlands, Belgium, Ukraine and Australia who are friends with the US, UK and Israel.

When MH17 was shot down Malaysian officials negotiated with representatives of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) when the other countries wouldn't, resulting in the hand-over of the black boxes to the Malaysians. Surely the black boxes would serve as tickets admitting Malaysia into the JIT, but Malaysia merely handed them over to Dutch officials. I still wonder if that came as an unpleasant surprise to the DPR.

A six member Malaysian team accompanied the train and aircraft that transported human remains to Amsterdam. The bodies were examined by the Dutch DVI team, and the Malaysian DVI team had no opportunity to do likewise. The Malaysians didn't complain.

In August Malaysia's defense minister said he was confident that MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile and dismissed other scenarios. At about the same time (it may have been as early as late July) the JIT nations entered into an agreement to keep investigation details secret if any country objected to a release.

In early September Malaysia said they were seeking support from relevant countries and other parties for Malaysian investigation and security teams to return to the crash site. However, a few days later a DPR representative said the crash site was safe enough, that all Malaysia needed to do was ask, but Malaysia had not done so.

Russia's defense minister said that the Russians were ready to assist and support the Malaysian investigators. To date there has been no sign that Malaysian investigators have in fact received support from Russia's defense ministry.

On Nov. 05 the Malaysian prime minister said that Malaysia expected to play a major role in the investigation and that they were welcome by the Dutch to do so. He also said, "We have preliminary knowledge (of what took place), but it has to be backed by evidence". Malaysia apparently is not interested in evidence that does not fit their "preliminary knowledge".

On Nov. 19 Malaysia's inspector-general of police said that Malaysia must be made a full member of the Joint Investigation Team and not merely a participant in the investigation. Malaysia's ambassador to The Netherlands also expressed displeasure that they aren't members of the JIT.

If Malaysia has been treated badly all this time, then they've waited a very long to complain about it. MH17 did not suffer mechanical failure. The pilots cooperated with ATC and didn't stray into restricted air space. Malaysia has no reason to agree not to disclose any information that would be contrary to the interests of The Netherlands, Belgium, Ukraine or Australia. If they're not already a member of the JIT, then it is hard to imagine their getting in before their government signs the agreement.

The Malaysians have given many mixed signals. Maybe that's just due to their culture, and maybe it is the result of behind the scene political maneuvering.

Thank you NP

According to Malaysian sources Malaysia is now a full member of the Joint Investigation Team that includes officials from Australia, Belgium, Ukraine and the Netherlands. Malaysia does not have a friendly relationship with the other JIT members, and they are not particularly friendly with Russia and the DPR. Malaysia's independence won't necessarily be interpreted as neutrality. They could be regarded by all others as untrustworthy.

It isn't known whether the price of admission to the JIT included Malaysia being gagged by the same agreement that prevents all other members of the JIT from disclosing any information publicly that is contrary to the interests of any member of the JIT. It remains to be seen whether Malaysia's joining the JIT as a full member is a significant event.

Malaysia a full member of joint probe team | New Straits Times

The wreckage that was removed from the debris field under Dutch supervision is headed to Gilze Rijen Air Base in the Netherlands. This is where the partial reconstruction work will be done by the Dutch Safety Board.

Dutch Safety Board | Investigations & Publication | Investigation crash MH17, 17 July 2014

Ukraine Ignored Warning To Close Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 Airspace Before Tragedy

UKRAINE was urged to close the east of the country to civil aviation days before the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July but ignored the warning.

Sources at Eurocontrol, the organisation that manages Europe’s air traffic, said its experts spoke privately to their Ukrainian counterparts about the potential threat after more than 20 Ukrainian military aircraft were destroyed by Russian-backed rebels.

The Ukrainians continued to let planes fly over the affected area, however. The sources said Eurocontrol did not have the power to interfere with countries’ decisions.

The revelation looks certain to fuel the anger of the families of the 298 passengers and crew — 38 of them Australians — who died when the plane was shot down on July 17.

Some families are taking legal action against the Ukrainian government for refusing to shut the airspace above the conflict zone. They say there was abundant evidence rebel forces were using missiles that could have endangered civilian aircraft.

In the week before the downing of MH17, separatist militias shot down at least four Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 airforce jet fighters and one Antonov-26 transporter, which was flying at 6500m.

Following the destruction of the Antonov on July 14, Ukrainian authorities raised the minimum height at which civilian aircraft were required to fly over the region from 8000m to 9700m but refused to close the airspace. MH17 was flying at 10,000m when it was hit.

According to a source at Eurocontrol, experts from the organisation identified at least three reasons for serious concern: first that pro-Russian separatists had already downed a number of Ukrainian military aeroplanes using anti-aircraft weapons; second, separatist forces were jamming communication frequencies; and third, there had been a breakdown in communications between Russian and Ukrainian air-traffic control.

Several airlines re-routed their flights weeks before the attack on the Malaysian plane, which is believed to have been targeted by mistake. Several others, including Malaysia Airlines, did not.

Elmar Giemulla, a lawyer acting for the families of four German victims, has filed a lawsuit against the Ukrainian government at the European Court of Human Rights for its failure to close the airspace. He said the lives of passengers had been endangered for financial and political reasons.

“Presumably the Ukrainian authorities wanted to avoid losing the revenue from transit fees — up to $US1 billion ($1.19bn) per year — and also for political reasons, as shutting your airspace means admitting a loss of control and a loss of sovereignty,” he said.

Siemon Wezeman, a weapons expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, also criticised the Ukrainians’ failure to act. “Considering the Antonov was shot down with heavy anti-aircraft systems, and how widely they were used in the area, one must wonder why the airspace wasn’t shut down completely,” he said.

There was further controversy last week when it emerged that Dutch authorities had removed from their report into the crash a clause in an earlier version that said Ukraine had raised the altitude level for civilian airlines.

Ukraine intelligence sources said they had been made aware that several anti-aircraft systems had crossed from Russia into Ukraine at least a week before the MH17 incident. But they claimed the intelligence was not “100 per cent reliable” and could not have been used as grounds for “drastic moves” such as shutting airspace.

“I blame the Ukrainian authorities for not closing the airspace and Malaysia Airlines for not taking a decision to avoid it,” said Robby Oehlers, who lost a cousin in the tragedy.

He doesn't blame those who sent and operated the TELAR?

it's less important who shot the plane

imagine Belgium and Netherlands having joint SAM practice shooting drones from a very high altitude, the authority which lets the civilian plane in that zone would be guilty if that plane is accidentally shot down and it's of less importance if the mistake was from Belgium or Netherlands military

"Ukraine intelligence sources said they had been made aware that several anti-aircraft systems had crossed from Russia into Ukraine at least a week before the MH17 incident. But they claimed the intelligence was not “100 per cent reliable” and could not have been used as grounds for “drastic moves” such as shutting airspace."

and this is utter BS, because ukraine intelligence sure knew at what altitude their planes got shot down, the only question is if they let the plane cross the dangerous zone with intention of accusing russian rebels of downing or it was just a classic soviet negligence, they are the first responsible in both cases

They couldn't have achieved the masterful stroke of checkmate if they had closed their airspace!

Sadly, one of the captain's body is still missing! And I don't like this game!:mad:

It's not a planned practice, it's a covert invasion. The guy wants to grab money from victims (country and airline), not from the invader.

A mugger missed and shot a passenger, do you blame the taxi driver?

that's a separate issue which has to do with politics and this is not a forum about politics

The fact is you are the authority. You have the information about planes being shot from high altitude, being it russian SAMs, russians war planes, aliens, whatever. You don't close that airspace. Civilian airliner is shot few days later. You are 100% guilty, no excuse.

SAM Missiles
 

Can't imagine how anyone thinks Ukraine are responsible for this. They closed their airspace at altitudes threatened by MANPADS weapons which was how previous aircraft were downed in E. Ukraine. They had ATC control of the airspace over East Ukraine (they didn't over Crimea which was closed). They are not privvy to movements of Russian military equipment inside the rebel controlled area.

Blaming Ukraine for the shoot down of MH 17 is like blaming the police for a murder by not arresting the perpetrator prior to it happening. Absurd.

Ukraine closing airspace?
 

To come back on the lawsuit in Germany, it is all about money. Germany was chosen because its legislation is most likely to help the victims in this case. Further, their mention that Ukraine earns a billion US$ on the routes seems way off for me. Remember that Poetin threatened to close down the siberian air routes for western airlines, and newspapers estimated at that time that this would cost Russia about 200 M Euro/yr.

On the other hand, wonder what would be needed to close down an airspace if it is lucrative foreign income for a country? Especially in a country like Ukraine that is technically bankrupt. What solid evidence did they have before MH17? If you take a look at the Antonov crash 3 days before, there is no indication that this is hit by high altitude system. people ejected safely, pilots were captured by rebels (no after action report), movies show an intact plane going down with an engine on fire. All together proves nothing, could have been an engine failure. It would have been different if it had splattered apart in the sky.

Further take into account that a high altitude SAM system in hands of a bunch of rebels is unheard of. Before july 17th, portable sam missiles were the threat to deal with concerning rebels.

I can imagine the Ukraine government wanted more evidence before closing down the airspace. They got it, but not in the way expected.

And before condemning Ukraine, we flew for years over troubles in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, the Gulf, and other regions with rebels below. So Ukraine is no exception.

For me it is clear that the system fault is in countries deciding over the safety of their own airspace. It is the butcher that checks his own meat. There is always danger in this, and aviation history has several comparable examples. Solutions are not easy. Multinational organisations could work, but in general the troubled spots are not connected to these organisations. And where would they get their info.

Even if the rebels shot down MH17 (which is the most likely scenario), Ukraine will be helt responsible for monetary damages, because the rebels do not represent a country but are in fact Ukraine citizens. Only when regular Russian soldiers on Ukraine soil under Russian command have carried this horrible act, Russia can be helt responsible. That is no politics but law.

Certainly, many countries will re-evaluate their policies in keeping airspace open or not, or advising their airlines to avoid certain areas. No doubt MH17 will have impact here.

2nd January 2015 addition: I checked the facts around the downing of the An-26 on July 14th and I have to reconsider part of above:

The An-26 wreckage footage was available on 14th July. The tail clearly shows it has been hit by fragmentation warhead. One of the crew members was able to contact Ukraine authorities to confirm that they were hit by a missile.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine...ssia-1.2706039
So clearly no accident.
However: at that moment it was considered that this was either a Russian Pantsir or even an air to air missile. The Ukraine@war used to claim that it was a BUK missile from Russian territory. But missile trail is to small to fit a BUK. So it is still debated who or what shot it down.
http://ukraineatwar.********.nl/2014...-buk-that.html
http://ukraineatwar.********.nl/2014...-confirms.html

Unless the police wait till a high-profile victim is passing on the street, then open fire on the heavily armed perp.
It has been suggested that the Ukrainians carried out an airstrike timed to be right underneath MH17, hoping that the rest would take care of itself.

It's equally absurd to suggest that the Russians or their friends in eastern Ukraine would have the slightest interest in committing such an act.

But somebody did.

Air Strike
 

The concept of a Ukranian air strike on rebel positions from under MH 17 is completely unfounded.


Firstly, a SU-25 can barely keep up with a B777 unloaded and loaded down with armaments can't climb above 16000 feet.

Secondly, if you read the transcripts of the Russian ATC operator at the time he/she clearly states that they see nothing on radar apart from MH17 itself breaking apart and the two other flights in the general vicinity. The Russian presentation about the radar data is a blatant propaganda sell with the "other" target just being the predicted track of MH 17 and the "actual" target being the aircraft itself breaking apart. So there is absolutely no doubt that any of the SU-25 theories are false and all have originated from Russian/rebel sources in any case.


As for the rebels not gaining anything out of the shoot down I agree. It is pertinently clear that they were not intending to down a commercial aircraft and did it by mistake, albeit recklessly.

I don't envy the dutch criminal investigation team trying to track down the perpetrators. There's every chance that whoever launched the missile was trigger happy and did it without exercising due diligence. If so there's a fairly good chance that the BUK crew have probably ended up buried in a ditch somewhere and will never be heard from again. In that scenario Russia needs to be held responsible in my opinion for supplying the rebels with SAM weapons (if they were indeed provided by Russia).

Excuse me for showing this silly propaganda video, but I have been wondering why Dutch investigators left behind so much plane debris.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-43NmR9ppBo

Especially, I saw the the right side rear door being collected from the bush, but still it was left behind. Why?

(and yes, indeed, there is no bullet hole shown in the video even when the propaganda reporter so says and those eyewitness reports are silly vs reality)

I hate to see so many plane parts left on the fields @Ukraine.

I wonder if it would be possible to fund one truckload extra to be gathered and taken to investigators. Via crowd (& press) funding, perhaps?

Yes, and the witnesses are probably staged. Their faces made inrecognisable otherwise it would be clear that these are not locals.

Further, dutch DSB employees were at the scene during recovery, there is interview footage proving that.

The dutch made clear they will only reconstruct the nose section and the wings, so only these parts are collected. It might be shocking, but in general the debris of a crash is processed in a recycling plant. Sometimes debris is stocked for ten years of so after which it is shredded. PA 103 is unique, and here also only the nose section is reconstructred. I guess they also didn't reconstruct the tail of TWA 800.

Even if your crowdfunding would succeed I guess the extra truck or trainload will not be enough to recover what is left behind and also it would end up sitting on a pile in Gilze Rijen.

@AreOut
>at what altitude their planes got shot down

btw. is there any info of other than one AN26 being shot from higher than ~5km (manpad range).

The AN26 14.Jul was shot from 6...6,5km and missile came from Russian territory.

So far I'm not aware any BUK caliber missile launch from Ukraine soil before 17th of Jul. I strongly believe that all UA info and rebel info about multiple BUK launchers on separatist hands are fake (there was only one, the one that was photographed very many times, the Bellincat one).

14th july shotdown
 

According to the erratum, in the original dutch report it was mentioned that it was an An-24 flying at FL210 (6.4 km)

See
http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/uploads...nl-erratum.pdf

I don't understand why it was removed of the dutch translation instead of added to the English document....

Out of curiosity:
What happens with Boeing777 engines when the cockpit is destroyed?

Do the engines retain their thrust as long as they get fuel?
Do fuel pumps continue working if cockpit is lost?
Do engines go idle when control from cockpit is lost?
Do engines shut down when control from cockpit is lost?

Engines retain their settings when control from the cockpit is lost. Thrust isn't changed.

Examples enough. In Tenerife the Panam set the engines on fulll power, and after the collision with cockpit gone they stayed on full power untill the (remaining) engines destroyed themselves. (killing at least one person)

TWA engines remained on thrust when the cockpit was cut off.

Both were 747s, but in Lockheed electra's or even A380 the same happens. The Quantas A380 lost control of the engine 1 by severed cables after an uncontained engine failure and they couldn't shut it down. This accident was discussed at EASA, including the difficulty to evacuate an aircraft when engines remain running out of control, but no new safety measures were suggested.

So I am pretty sure the same applies to the 777.

In case of MH17, it is not unlikely that the left engine suffered an uncontained engine failure, given that the forward ring of the intake was found at the cockpit crash site. It is possible that it ingested some radome parts or worse that could have destroyed the fan disc. It would have lost thrust altogether while the right engine would still function. Without countersteering from the cockpit the plane would enter a spin.

The Dutch Safety Board on Sept. 10 described in a strange way their reason for changing the Dutch language version of the preliminary report.

In Dutch the explanation is this:
Op 10 september 2014 is een wijziging doorgevoerd in de Nederlandse vertaling van het Engelse rapport van eerste bevindingen. Van pagina 14 is de zin "De NOTAM met luchtruimbeperking was uitgevaardigd in reactie op het neerschieten van een Antonov 24 vliegtuig op 14 juli dat op een hoogte van FL210 vloog." verwijderd om de Nederlandse vertaling in overeenstemming te brengen met het Engelse document, waarvan de tekst leidend is voor het onderzoek.

In English the explanation above is this:
On September 10, 2014, a change was made to the Dutch translation of the English preliminary report. On page 14, the sentence "The NOTAM with air wide restriction was enacted in response to the shooting down of an Antonov 24 plane on July 14 that flew at an altitude of FL 210." was removed from the Dutch translation in order to align it with the English document, the text of which prevails over the Dutch version.

The Dutch report is not a translation of the English report. If the Dutch report is a translation of the English report, then the sentence in question could not have materialized out of thin air during the translation process. The preliminary report must have been written in Dutch and then translated into English. Further evidence can be seen at the bottom of every page of the English report. There you see pagination notes such as "6 von 34" which in this example means "6 of 34" in English. They failed to change the pagination notation from Dutch to English.

To refer to the Dutch report as a translation of the English report is misleading. The Sept. 10 change to the Dutch report made it less informative rather than more informative. Why the sentence was deleted has not been explained. We know that every member of the Joint Investigation Team (Ukraine, Belgium, Netherlands and Australia) has the right to block the release of information.

In the English preliminary report the paragraph with the omitted sentence is the last paragraph of section 2.4.3 on page 13. If the sentence had not been omitted then the English translation of the Dutch source document would read as follows:

NOTAM A1492/14 established a Temporary Restricted Area from FL260 to FL320 within an area covering the eastern part of the Temporary Reserved Area established by NOTAM A1383/14. The NOTAM with air wide restriction was enacted in response to the shooting down of an Antonov 24 plane on July 14 that flew at an altitude of FL 210. NOTAM A1492/14 was valid from 18:00 hrs on 14 July 2014 until 23:59 hrs on 14 August 2014. The restriction did not apply for flights of Ukraine state aircraft.

Not misleading
 

In case of reports in multiple languages, it is common to designate one report as THE report in case there are differences in interpretations between different language versions. In this case the English report is THE report.

Most Dutch people master English language, so it wouldn't be a problem to write it in English directly, without a dutch side-step. The choice for English is also logical for the international review by the other countries.

Most likely, the sentence was present in all reports, but was forgotten to be removed probably after reviewing by all parties involved. Maybe because it was factual not completely proved.

Left Side at door L1
 

During the recovery of the wreckage this picture was made. The link is here:
Cockpit van MH17-Boeing geborgen | NOS

This picture shows the left forward section up to bulkhead electronics bay/ landing gear and up to floor level. The location of door L1 can be seen, doorframe and door had been ripped off.

Significant is that there are no holes in the plating below floor level. The buckling of the plates above floor level suggests some pressure wave, but this could also have been caused by the impact or post impact recovery works.
Together with the picture of the other side of the cockpit, which shows two intact windows on the FO side, and also no or few holes, it suggests that the impact of the high velocity objects are very local, conenctrated in a band running straight over the captain seat roughly in direction of door R1, fanning out.

Like a cone from a missile exploding to the left front of the aircraft.

http://nos.nl/data/image/2014/11/20/27144/xxl.jpg

It seems some pieces are still being collected...
https://twitter.com/ArnoldGreidanus/...04812943077377

https://translate.google.fi/translat...-geborgen.html

(it would seem the engine ring/nacelle was also originally left behind, this pic might show another ring/nacelle https://twitter.com/ArnoldGreidanus/...706240/photo/1 )

Parts were originally going to be disposed in Ukraine, but now perhaps not...?

Evidence of Missile fired?
 

Today RTLnieuws announced that they had new photographic evidence that suggested that MH17 was shot down by a surface to air missile. These photos were taken at The photo's were taken by a local citizen that had turned them over to the Dutch criminal investigation team.

RTL nieuws has hired a bureau to investigate these pictures. Some of these images have been around in low res, but these were high res images and exact date and time was known. These images were used to determine the flight path of the missile, and the expected launch location is within rebel controlled territory. From satelite images before and after the crash. they determined that the launch location would be in a grain field in the picture below, where a burn mark was seen in the right corner of the burned field. This location had been visited by a BBC correspondent after the disaster.

http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/sites/defaul...?itok=hhQnhKAU
Nieuw bewijs MH17 | RTL Nieuws
Hoe onderzocht RTL Nieuws de nieuwe MH17-foto's? | RTL Nieuws

re: Latest BUK launch material

I think there is strong indicators that those photos are authentic.
But are there indicators that they are not from the moment of MH17 crash?

btw. ukraine@war seems to have made a good summary of it again.

Buk's warhead has 6000 or more striking elements. The very local impact means that almost all that charge was absorbed by the cockpit. However the deck's floor has a small number of holes.

I'd say that over captain seat in direction of right-side frontal door was one surface of the thick cone of shrapnel pieces, another surface closer to the wing center section.

According to the rtlnieuws sources there are time and date stamp attached to the photograph which match the downing of MH17. There is a third photograph of the actual smoke cloud after the crash. The three photographs were checked by two different companies, both concluded these are genuine photographs. The third picture of the smoke cloud makes the set complete and gives additional proof to the credibility.

The photographs were used together with crash time etc to determine the launch location.

The ukraine@war link is here:
http://ukraineatwar.********.nl/2014...from-july.html

It also has a translation of an interview of the eye-witness by RTL nieuws. Worth reading.

The witness had been interviewed and the photo's had been given to the criminal investigation team. ALso, it is reported by NOS and RTLnieuws that the USA has transfered all their data to the criminal investigation team too, including the launch data they never share.

The most important questions now: who manned this Buk and who gave the orders? And why shoot MH17 in the first place?

FYI: very rough estimate. Surface area of a sphere

A = 4 pi R^2.

For a 10-m radius A = 1,200 sq.m.

Shrapnel density: 6000/A = 5 pcs per sq. m.

FYI: a HE shell (a kind Buk's warhead belongs to) produces expanding disk of striking elements. If time is applied then the hit cloud can be described as a cone.

Here is a static picture of it at some moment:
http://sa.uploads.ru/t/X9N8j.jpg

I have made the following picture with the photos, region map and preliminary report's weather data are joined:
http://sf.uploads.ru/H7zC3.png

Not true. With some idealization, the shrapnel forms a cylinder expanding in radius and height. It's neither disk nor cone. Anyway, the surface area is many hundreds of sq. m. depending on the distance from the explosion to the plane.
Shrapnel density is not high.

More on the report
 

Location of the field is south of Snizhne.

See the dutch report:

http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/sites/defaul...alyse_v1.0.pdf

The report doesn't proof that this is the launch site. It is circumstantional evidance. It only shows it is out of the ordinary. It can be used to support other launch data or photo's made from another direction.

There are more reports on burining marks in fields around Eastern Ukraine, but these all concerned Grad rockets or artillery. None of these fields were ploughed after their use to erase the burning marks. The ploughed up area is very suspicious.

The other data showed that the supposed launch site is on high ground and partially shielded by trees.

Conclusions of the report (translated from dutch)

(chapter 2.3)
Using the satelite images and the open sources pictures it was possible to determine the location of the recognition marks. These recognition marks were used to determine a vision line to the base of the smoke trail. The exact location of the launch site can not be determined by this analysis, because the lowest part of the smoke trail is not visible. However, the vision line crosses a field (out of the ordinary) that is suspected to be launch location of the BUK missile.
******
(chapter 3.3)
Based on recent and historical satelite images it can be concluded that the shape and colour of the suspected field deviates from earlier years and surrounding fields. landsat images from 2003-2014 and google images from 2010 - 2014 show a stable field that never before has shown this shape.

When we take a look on the image of july 21st 2014, we see that the grain in surrounding fields is being harvested. The investigated field shows no traces of a normal harvest, most likely it has been ploughed. Only in the bottom area a few traces of straw an be seen. Satelite pictures hardly show any vegitation. Black stains are visible in the northwest corner and these are probably burn marks.

It is noteworthy that a wall of earth was erected around the field. This could have been made to contain the fire in the patch and prevent the burning of the weat in the rest of the field.

Based on the vision line analysis and the burning mark analysis we conclude that it is possible that the smoke trail stemmed from this field.
*******

I guess it is very interesting to talk to the farmer who owns the field. He might have helped the Buk crew by setting up a perimeter.

A thin cylinder (that is with the height much lesser than it's radius) is usually
called a disk.

The cone is an area formed by that expanding disk during the event. All
objects within that area would be hit by striking elements.

The @blackbird69's post i answered was about the small size of the damage
area. 'Many hundreds of sq. m.' would produce a much larger area of holes in
the fuselage.

It depends on the ratio of the average speed of striking elements to the difference between the speeds of the missile and it's target.
If the speed difference is much lesser than the average speed of HE (as in
the case of a MANPAD hitting into the aircraft's tail) then holes would be
densely distributed throughout a relatively small area. If the speed difference
is close to the average speed of HE (that is the case of MH17) then the hit
area would be greater and less dense of holes.

Anyway holes must be evenly distributed throughout the damage area, not
the patches of holes as on the deck's floor.

Those many hundreds of sq. m. refer to the surface of the expanding shrapnel. All thousands of fragments are distributed over this surface, 360 degrees. Hence, the fragment density cannot be high if the warhead detonated at more than 10 m from the plane. Intersection of the shrapnel front surface with the fuselage is a projection of the fuselage, i.e. it's a flat surface in order of 10 sq.m. It is physically impossible to have many fragments in the fuselage. Without accurate knowledge about the warhead and circumstances of the explosion we cannot give accurate numbers, but estimate should be in order of dozens to, may be, about a hundred of fragments that could hit the cockpit.

I have no doubt that the investigation team can find competent experts who produce more accurate data.


This is true in principle but is useless practically as you do not have any reliable data on the Buk warhead expansion after the detonation.
The fragment velocity decreases with flying distance. The shrapnel front surface expands as a square of the flying distance.

Both your statements are assumptions. We've got not enough data. We cannot confirm or reject them.

But if you are talking about the patterns inside the cabin, the uneven hole distribution is expected due to shrapnel ricochets, path deviations and absorption by airframe structural components.

I often read that it is estimated that BUK has exploded far above the center line of MH17...
But to me it would seem (by looking at the explosion damage of cockpit parts) that the MH17 cockpit has gone inside the explosion.

The radius of the BUK warhead explosive destruction is far less than 10m.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxN...blE/view?pli=1

Also some initial shrapnell track analysis have indicated that explosion might have been on the level of cockpit windows:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxN...QmM/view?pli=1