BLOCKING ACCESS TO MH-17
 

FWIW Donetsk, Ukraine (CNN) -- International investigators' quest to carry out their duties at the crash site of the downed Malaysian airliner hit another roadblock Wednesday: land mines, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council claims that "terrorists" -- the term it uses to describe rebels -- have set up firing positions and laid mines on the access road to the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

This makes the work of international experts "impossible," the agency said.

Dutch investigators in Ukraine did not cite mines specifically but announced Wednesday that unsafe conditions kept their contingent from visiting the crash site for the fourth straight day.:mad:

ABOVE FROM CNN

Ukraine officials: Rebels plant mines near MH17 site - CNN.com

OSCE Interview - Machine Gun
 

Rageye,

From the interview with Michael Bociurkiw,


Michael Bociurkiw is clearly not an expert and admits that in the video interview. He is clearly just highlighting as a non-expert holes that to him looks like machine-gun fire. I expect that if you showed him images from A-10 Warthog with SAM warhead damage then he would describe the damage as looking like "machine-gun fire".

The article is BS.
It is true, where the material is two layered in the enforced cockpit section the inner layer looks perforated from outside to inside and the outer layer is bent to the outside, as if a bullet has been shot from the inside.
The explanation is simple to understand.

When the hot fragments of the warhead (they are very hot, glowing at the beginning) hit a single layer of metal, they just penetrate, they nearly melt through. All the expansion of gases the fragment causes goes to the inside.

If the fragment meets a doubled layer metal construction the first sheet again is perforated, but at the same time a lot of pressure is building up between those two sheets of metal due to expanding gases and melting of parts of the first metal, thus bending the edges of the inlet hole to the outside. Then the second metal sheet is penetrated. This principle is used to protect armored vehicles by using multiple sheets of metal layers instead a thick one.

And this pilot in the article has no idea of how an air-to air gun is used and where a pilot intending to shoot down an airliner would aim at. A head on path with a closure rate of 1500 km/h to hit the cockpit area from the front quarter (like the damage would suggest) would be the last maneuver some pilot would try.

He would be better to comment on thing he has a basic understandig.

No. It is not like a shell burst that is reflected in a spray around the burst point. It is more akin to shotgun pellets that are projected forward and expand like a cone.

As I said before, the fuzing is designed to detonate before the target to give the optimum spread of shrapnel as it reaches the target.

If the frag damage is limited to a small area then is shows they were extremely unlucky.

It may be that I've missed them, but not seen any photos of what must be hundreds of passenger seats, is that unusual? Or just the random nature of where things have fallen?

There are lots of pictures of seats, most of which are too gruesome to show.

Just the sort of info I was looking for - guess it might be part of the missile then. Not sure if there is any aircraft part it could be at that size ?

The outer layer of the (perforated) cockpit area shows signs of being very close to detonation of the warhead, so close that it was touched by expanding hot ball of fire/gases, not only spreaded with shrapnel. The skin is blackened from the smoke, burned, almost scorched by high temperature, there is a pattern of thousands very small craters from light, tiny, high-speed particles.

So maybe the outer layer of fuselage was for a split of second heated to high temperature, to a point where the alluminium alloy was softened and edges of shrapnel holes were bent outwards by air escaping from the pressurised hull ? Or somehow by the external 0,9 Mach airflow ?

Re: the missile . . .

Missiles fired from the Buk system travel at approximately 3200km/h - or around 3000 fps.

The missile doesn't impact the target - but detonates in close proximity.

When it does detonate - it doesn't "stop" in the air - instead its momentum continues to carry it along its trajectory.

While some parts of the missile may impact the target and fall with it - many pieces of the missile will continue to fly past the target.

So - I highly doubt that you will find many "pieces" of the missile scattered about the debris. The plane came apart in a relatively wide area - and I suspect most of the parts of the missile (if it was a missile) came down some distance away from the aircraft. Best chance to find pieces would likely be if any are imbedded in the aircraft.

These objects all fell from high altitude and momentum carried them downrange of the point of impact (even if only slightly). The simple fact that the two were traveling at different speeds will create some distance between the debris field of the aircraft and missile.

More Parts
 

Added a piece of the forward bulkhead https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3839/...eddff506_o.jpg seen here...


and the piece held by a fence seen here...
http://cdn.salzburg.com/nachrichten/...1-53854440.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-0...Cockpit_v2.jpg

Not to be pedantic, but the missile is designed to hit the target directly, that's what the seeker head is supposed to do. Therefore missiles have besides the proximity fuse also a contact fuse. A non maneuvering and non jamming big target like a T777 is prone for a direkt hit. The proximity fuse is there to ensure a kill, even if the missile would miss the target, because of bad steering, electronic jamming or target evasive maneuvering.

There is therefore a high probability that parts of the Missile system can be found in the vicinity of the cockpit section.

Well - then I learned something new today. I understood that the 9M38 and the 9M317 contained only (proportional nav) proximity fuses. I think the belief is that this was a 9M38. Is there a source that verifies the 9M38 also contains a contact fuse?

This describes the missile and its variants
Buk missile system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Skin material?
 

What is the outer skin material and thickness on the cockpit area, and in particular is it different metal immediately around the windows and supporting the wipers?

I've noticed that some parts of the skin appear to crater while other parts are simply punched through.

A typical skin material near a cockpit is 2024-T3 or -T4, 0.040 THK.


A windshield frame is usually a complex shape of AL ( can be 7075) extrusions, may include steel parts.

do you have a photo to precise your question's location? No doubt lots of reinforcements behind the skin to withstand bird strikes etc.

re cockpit skin
 

I know that for protection against bird strikes on the 767, the ' skull' or " crown" portion above the windows was changed to titanium instead of thick aluminum. This was the result of a test ( chicken gun ) of an x pound bird at 400 mph at that area. On the early 767, the hydraulic system valves and certain switches were located in that area .

I do not recall for sure re the 777, but I believe that titanium was/is used for the area immediately above the windows for similar reasons. And its a good bet that the window surround channels are also titanium due to strength and weight considerations and corrosion .:8

https://flic.kr/p/otbtvY

closeup cockpit/port from Jeroen Akkermans

SA-11 ???
 

If flight MH17 was downed by a SA-11 like depicted below, than people on the ground should have noticed the noise and smoke trail.


https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.n...50463350_n.jpg

As you can see on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPtDy18Nk5I the SA-11 produces a lot of noise and leaves a clearly marked smoke trail.

I have not heard of any wittinesses confirming this.
There are several villages in the vicinity and there was an almost clear sky at the time of the accident

I don't suppose that anyone has been allowed to ask them. All visits to the area so far have been under the supervision of the pro-Russia militia. Not much upside and a lot of downside for the locals if they point the finger at the militia as having launched.