MH17: Evidence a Missile was Used. Shrapnel, etc.

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instead of realising they saw MH17 breakup (unlike the people who thought they saw it but it was only an Antonov).
Further information on this point? Does it explain the reports of people saying they saw mh17 'escorted' by military planes?
 
Isn't there some method to _prove_ one way or the other, from the pics available now to us, that MH17 was hit with gunfire or not?
If there are a certain number of holes the exact same size, is that enough? This should be solvable here and now with an objective scientific POV.
You'll find some previous posts here showing what 30 calibre damage looks like - it doesn't resemble the damage shown.
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Also against the theory is the specification limits of the claimed culprit plane.
 
Further information on this point? Does it explain the reports of people saying they saw mh17 'escorted' by military planes?

no, sorry, that was a snark reference to the video of an Antonov being shot down that was circulated as images of MH17 going down. One of two actually, but one was quickly picked as a fraud because it clearly showed too many engines. The other didn't show the plane close up, just a streak, fireball in the distance and thick smoke rising.

Not as bad as the "artist" who photoshopped a trailer from the TV series Lost to look like a Malaysian Airlines plane.

Only the "Spanish Air Traffic Controller" said it was being escorted by two fighters. He was soon debunked as fake, apparently having also "witnessed" some other propaganda item a month or two earlier. There was a video 5 or 6 weeks earlier that had a woman claiming the Ukranians regularly "hid" behind commercial jets to sneak up on separatist positions. MH17 witnesses in one village also described something flying up into the clouds, then two explosions,then MH17 falling down through the clouds. They were not asked for more details, and it is unclear if they were talking about a missile or another aircraft.

The whole story seems to be Russian anti-Ukranian propaganda. It may yet turn out to be correct.

I wish they'd tell us what was on the CVR, of which all I've heard is "the last voice on it was NOT the pilot".
 
I was mistaken about airliner O2 PSI....it is not above approximately 1800 PSI. Apologies. I blame poor memory...3000 PSI is a nominal hydraulic system pressure. (ooops....too many numbers in my head, after three decades, and some time away, they get jumbled!!).

Link: https://aircraftengineering.wordpress.com/tag/flight-crew-oxygen/

But, still the fact of CABIN pressurization and PSID remains valid, and correct. (Whew!)

Thass'ok, I'm wishing i still knew more of the scuba stuff and less of the medical O2 stuff......

OK but it's established then, pressure vessels burst from the pressure in THEM not in some other vessel they are carrying? the crew oxy theory belongs on the other Malaysian Airlines thread.
 
I think we've established

d) the Russians DID SEE something on their radar. It was not photoshopped. It was not FlightAware radar so it didn't label the traces, so they had to take a guess.
e) they took the guess that suited their aims (see point C) and said "Ukrainian military" instead of realising they saw MH17 breakup (unlike the people who thought they saw it but it was only an Antonov).

no I don't think they guessed at all - I think someone knew that the characteristics of the 2nd trace, and its complete lack of existence seconds earlier showed that is was not a tailing aircraft of any sort.

I think they simply chose to say that it was another aircraft because of propaganda (which was one of your earlier points)

f) in due course they will come up with "clarified" radar images which will be much the same but labelled correctly, and not apologise for or feel embarrassed by this mistake at all

there is no "clarified" picture to be had - they put the video of the original radar shots into their presentation.

They may well come up with some "clarification", but I agree they are unlikely to make any sort of fuss about abandoning the claim.
 
I think with the new concept of shrapnel - shrapnel - shrapnel in the streets of the world nowadays ,people simply forgot a missile is also a bomb.. and its remaining fuel adds to that bomb capacity. That huge missile deployed its stinky pieces of metal but probably also punched the cockpit right in the middle and navigated thru the main corridor and landed on the floor next to the wings ripping apart the nose of the plane.

Thats what exploded inside.. I dont see su-25s around ,or armor piercing shelling.. or rockets or a smmaller missile of 12 or 20 lbs war head.

What hit this plane hit it once with all the gifts it brings from the manufacturing and drawing table. Dont be too amazed if studies find a larger missile than a SA 11 flying even a larger path than from the ground nearby.. pehaps from russian soil. See ,when that missile hit that nose it was on a descending path so probably was on a balistic mode..,it means it was at a higher altitude than the mh 17.
 
That huge missile deployed its stinky pieces of metal but probably also punched the cockpit right in the middle and navigated thru the main corridor and landed on the floor next to the wings ripping apart the nose of the plane.


THAT ( ^^^ ) defies the laws of physics and motion. Sorry.
 
Thats what exploded inside.. I dont see su-25s around ,or armor piercing shelling.. or rockets or a smmaller missile of 12 or 20 lbs war head.

It was a detonated by proximity fuse; it detonated outside the aircraft.
 
It was a detonated by proximity fuse; it detonated outside the aircraft.
Plus with machine gun fire wouldn't we expect to see a relatively "straight" line of puncture holes going left to right, or up to down. Instead, we see an array of puncture wounds all over the hull. This definitely looks like the effects of shrapnel vs a machine gun
 
That huge missile deployed its stinky pieces of metal but probably also punched the cockpit right in the middle and navigated thru the main corridor and landed on the floor next to the wings ripping apart the nose of the plane.
The missile can't "deploy its stinky pieces of metal" (smh) and then continue on into the plane. The only way to get the missile to send fragments into the plane is for it to explode. So which is it? Does the missile explode first or go into the plane and then explode? It cannot be both.
 
The missile can't "deploy its stinky pieces of metal" (smh) and then continue on into the plane. The only way to get the missile to send fragments into the plane is for it to explode. So which is it? Does the missile explode first or go into the plane and then explode? It cannot be both.

I'm pretty sure that the bulk of the missile - the engine, tanks, airframe - are often not immediately destroyed by the explosion and can hit an aircraft if the warhead explodes close enough & ballistics are appropriate.

However the Buk is a solid fuel missile - so it does not have the relatively solid pumps that a liquid fueled missile has - leaving (AFAIK) just the nozzle as a reasonably dense remnant - the remainder of the airframe is just a metal tube & likely to be rapidly torn apart by aerodynamic pressures at mach 3+!
 
If Denver comes back, could someone who understands explain it to him? he seems to have a computer game idea of what a missile is. Maybe he's never heard of or cannot imagine solid fuel. Or how fast Mach 4 is.
 
If Denver comes back, could someone who understands explain it to him? he seems to have a computer game idea of what a missile is. Maybe he's never heard of or cannot imagine solid fuel. Or how fast Mach 4 is.
I am all ears.. :)

You mean the rest of the missile cant hit the plane and its totally ruled out that it cant hit the plane after spaying all the shrapnels on it.
 
I am all ears.. :)

You mean the rest of the missile cant hit the plane and its totally ruled out that it cant hit the plane after spaying all the shrapnels on it.

The missile become shrapnel after it explodes (in addition to the specifically designed fracturing material around the warhead). Missies are designed not to hit the plane, they are designed to explode on proximity.
 
I am all ears.. :)

You mean the rest of the missile cant hit the plane and its totally ruled out that it cant hit the plane after spaying all the shrapnels on it.

Hi Danver.

Yup.
The nose of the missile contains the radar it uses to guide itself. The back is the rocket part. The shrapnel is in the middle. It gets launched at the target, but that of course keeps moving, and if it's a military plane it will try to evade it as well. So as the missile gets closer it uses its ow radar to keep twisting and turning towards the target. The missile is about 8 metres or 24 feet long. When it is about 30 metres or 100 feet from the target, it explodes. It knows the distance from how fast the radar signals get back to it.

The explosive is in the centre, with the shrapnel packed around. The rocket body in that area is also scored into squares, sort of like a chocolate bar. The detonation is shaped so the fragments form a coned shape going forwards, while of course also expanding in every direction around. The middle of the cone is empty, as the nose of the rocket is in the way. The nose gets damaged/broken and thrown off course by the blast. It mostly likely keeps going up for a while then curves and drops to the ground. The hot gasses from the detonation,and the shrapnel all heated up by it, spread out and hit the target at about 1800 miles an hour.

The point is, the shrapnel goes out sideways, not at right angles but about 60 degrees from the direction of the missile's travel. The wreckage you marked up is from just below the pilot's window. You can see how the paint is even blistered on it frm the heat of the blast. It would have been in the triangle formed by the fuselage and left wing. There is evidence the left engine also got badly hit, and so was the wing. We've seen no shrapnel damage further back than the wing line.

The blast would be strong enough to push the plane off course. Also to almost stop it. So it would go into a stall and start to drop. But with one wing damaged and one engined not running, it would be a spin stall. With one side badly holed, and the decompression pushing from inside, add the spin and the fuselage would start to break up very quickly. After the front middle fell off, there wasn't mush left to hold the cockpit, so that broke off. Having one wing down, it turned to the left. The back body and tail started to break up. These were not hit by the missile, but only by pieces breaking off the front, and the force of the spin. The middle and tail got dropped off,and the centre with the 1 1/2 wings kept going another mile before crashing to the ground and catching fire.

The farmers are starting their harvest now. In a few weeks someone, 10 or 12 miles from the crash spot, will find bits of missile and hand it in. They won't be big pieces, but they'll get caught in the tractor and he'll hear them and he'll know what he found.

I'll put you a picture if I can find it, or look back through this thread you'll find one.
 
Sorry @ Kat....a LOT of speculation there. I prefer to wait until the DCVR and DFDR transcripts are made public.
 
You'll find some previous posts here showing what 30 calibre damage looks like - it doesn't resemble the damage shown.
#177
#121
#141
Also against the theory is the specification limits of the claimed culprit plane.
A 30mm (you said 30 calibre, but maybe you meant 30mm) isn't the only weapon that can be attached to a plane, which _probably_ was an SK 25, which seems to have the ability in the more advanced versions.
Those pics aren't definitive.
And, btw, although I certainly don't claim to be an expert, I can state with personal-experience certainty that automatic fire doesn't necessarily land in a line of dots, as one person suggested.
I certainly see numerous round holes of the same size in the cockpit. That's what's bothering me. However, I'm not yet taking a position on the means of destruction. I need to study it further.
Regarding Kiev saying it didn't have any planes in the vicinity, contrary to the Russian vid of their radar, I don't believe Kiev. They could have released their radar data or communications recordings in rebuttal, but chose to stand silent on the subject. Indeed, that's my main reason for distrusting Kiev. They haven't been forthcoming with anything.
 
Sounds interesting. Then again sorry to be kinda pedantic but doesn't this put Russian militaryforces in a spot of being laughing stock when they have claimed that they saw SU-25(actually I should check this out did they mean SU-25 or just generic militaryaircraft) ganing altitude of passenger plane. To be honest I am kinda siding with military specialists than some random forum poster. Then again that is just my bias and does not mean that something could not happend like an mistake in reading radar data.

Russian authorities don't get challenged by the Russian media and the "official briefing" was, in my opinion, for internal consumption to counter a story that was generating a lot of blow back on Putin. The evidence against the Russian military specialists interpretation of the radar has been well documented here. You don't need to be a radar expert to note that the "SU25" target identified by the Russian experts is not moving laterally which is absolutely required for an aircraft to remain airborne. Since the physics of flight is given in the first hour of ground school, I would call the Russian interpretation intentional misdirection rather than a "mistake".
 
I certainly see numerous round holes of the same size in the cockpit.

Consistent with pre-fragmented warhead sleeve such as the one illustrated in post 167 of this thread - which is a smaller warhead from an older SA-6



Regarding Kiev saying it didn't have any planes in the vicinity, contrary to the Russian vid of their radar, I don't believe Kiev. They could have released their radar data or communications recordings in rebuttal, but chose to stand silent on the subject. Indeed, that's my main reason for distrusting Kiev. They haven't been forthcoming with anything.

Kiev, unlike Russia, is taking the investigation seriously, and complying with standard ICAO procedures - which are that you do NOT release information to the press - you secure it and pass it to the investigators.

ICAO Annex 13 section 5.12 (e) refers:

Non-disclosure of records
The State conducting the investigation of an accident or incident shall not make the following records available for purposes other than accident or incident investigation, unless the appropriate authority for the administration of justice in that State determines that their disclosure outweighs the adverse domestic and international impact such action may have on that or any future investigations:
a) all statements taken from persons by the investigation authorities in the course of their investigation;
b) all communications between persons having been involved in the operation of the aircraft;
c) medical or private information regarding persons involved in the accident or incident;
d) cockpit voice recordings and transcripts from such recordings;
e) recordings and transcriptions of recordings from air traffic control units;
f) cockpit airborne image recordings and any part or transcripts from such recordings; and
g) opinions expressed in the analysis of information, including flight recorder information.
 
The hot gasses from the detonation,and the shrapnel all heated up by it, spread out and hit the target at about 1800 miles an hour.

It's actually about twice that speed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurney_equations

Typical SAM warheads are 2 parts metal, 1 part high explosive and have cylindrical warheads


The blast would be strong enough to push the plane off course. Also to almost stop it.

No. Freaking. Way. The wind blast on the nose is already at 563 mph; tripling that for a few milliseconds won't stop an aircraft. It will crush the nose certainly; but the nose is not strong enough to support the inertia of the rest of the aircraft.
 
A 30mm (you said 30 calibre, but maybe you meant 30mm) isn't the only weapon that can be attached to a plane, which _probably_ was an SK 25, which seems to have the ability in the more advanced versions.

The GSh-30-2 is not attached to the Su-25 but mounted in the nose/belly of the plane. It's the standard armament.
https://dev.withsix.com/attachments/20182/Su-25 GSh-30-2K.jpg

Which kind of weapon would you suggest was mounted on the Su-25? And the even better question: why?
 
Sorry @ Kat....a LOT of speculation there. I prefer to wait until the DCVR and DFDR transcripts are made public.

Too many separate threads here. I wrote up the whole tragic story blow by blow yesterday on one of them. Not speculation. Forensics. I am tentatively revising where the missile came from, but not the final angle of attack.

The CVR might tell us something about fighter escort, that is all. So far all they said about the CVR is "the last voice was not the pilot". And I have very very VERY bad feelings about that.

The FDR will tell us NOTHING about anything after the moment the missile hit. Avionics gone. Controls gone. Instruments gone. FDR sitting in the tail getting power, but NO DATA SIGNAL.
 
Isn't there some method to _prove_ one way or the other, from the pics available now to us, that MH17 was hit with gunfire or not?
If there are a certain number of holes the exact same size, is that enough? This should be solvable here and now with an objective scientific POV.
There is. 30mm cannon slug doesn't fit to 12,7mm machine gun hole. Any of Ukraine plane doesn't carry a machine gun, unless somebody have tuned some unorthodoxic system.
 
The CVR might tell us something about fighter escort, that is all. So far all they said about the CVR is "the last voice was not the pilot". And I have very very VERY bad feelings about that.

I am curious what your source is for that. Ukrainian authorities released a statement that the CVR recorded the sound of explosive decompression and got a lot of blow back for violation of procedures cited by MikeC in #261. It is not clear that someone from the government listened to the recording or only got written interpretations. (The fact that there is audible proof of explosive decompression is not particularly useful since that is obvious in that the aircraft broke up at altitude based on the Russian radar.)

Given the geopolitical implications of this incident I would expect access to the CVR and FDR records is very tight and leaking results would be a quick way to end a career.
 
I am curious what your source is for that. Ukrainian authorities released a statement that the CVR recorded the sound of explosive decompression and got a lot of blow back for violation of procedures cited by MikeC in #261. It is not clear that someone from the government listened to the recording or only got written interpretations. (The fact that there is audible proof of explosive decompression is not particularly useful since that is obvious in that the aircraft broke up at altitude based on the Russian radar.)

Given the geopolitical implications of this incident I would expect access to the CVR and FDR records is very tight and leaking results would be a quick way to end a career.

Do the Ukrainians actually have access to what is on the CVR and FDR? I can understand their motives for countering anything coming from Russia, but I understood the boxes are in the UK right now..?
 
Just an aside... Google for video/film of aerial dog fights (be sure to add "aerial" or you will get some very nasty videos!). You will find very few post WWII videos that involve air to air gun/cannon fire. The newest one I found was a digital reenactment from a 1972 encounter between Israel and Egypt. Missiles have been virtually the only weapon used for air to air combat for decades. The concept of Ukraine building a rube goldberg aircraft to intentionally shoot down a commercial airliner defies logic. To accomplish this the pilot would have a visual, so could not be an accident.
 
It's actually about twice that speed.
<snip>
No. Freaking. Way. The wind blast on the nose is already at 563 mph; tripling that for a few milliseconds won't stop an aircraft.

Oh good. Thank you. Someone who can help me with the maths on this.

So the shrapnel/shock wave hits at 3600 mph? what do the pitot tubes have to say about that? no seriously, what speed is wind shear? does it toss the plane around? a 3600 mph blast at 45 degrees won't push it off course any?

After the detonation blast comes the back blast as the partial vacuum it formed is filled in. What will that do? what will either blast do for lift? which, I am told, is what keeps planes in the air? Can B777's turn supersonic?

I'm not being snarky here,Id really much appreciate it if you could run the numbers for me.
 
Do the Ukrainians actually have access to what is on the CVR and FDR? I can understand their motives for countering anything coming from Russia, but I understood the boxes are in the UK right now..?

My understanding is the boxes are in the UK laboratory, the data from them is being recorded and transcribed and handed to the Dutch, who are the lead investigators. It is between them as departure country and Malaysia as aircraft owner. Crash nation usually also has a say but it goes by agreement, based partly on expertise. The Ukrainians would be getting reports, not full recordings, which they lack the expertise to interpret. Oh, the aircraft and engine manufacturers get involved too, for their technical expertise.

From memory, the Ukrainian statements was along the lines of "the CVR recorded the sound of explosive decompression caused by a terrorist missile" all in one breath. It was the first anyone had heard of CVRs that interrogate approaching SAMs as to their origins, so they copped a lot of flack for politicizing it. They may accidentally get left of future distributions lists. (do we have a cross fingers icon here?).

My "last voice was not from the pilot" comes, from memory, from a Dutch spokesperson and was the only thing they said about it. Last VOICE not last SOUND.
 
A blast 30m away probably doesn't actually do much at all to an aircraft course even at 3600mph - I expect it isn't sustained or voluminous enough to do more than be a nasty bit of turbulence on its own and it is dissipating at the inverse cube law, plus any pressure will tend to flow around the aircraft as the path of least resistance.

What destroys the aircraft is that the shrapnel tears apart its structural integrity, and then the sustained airflow at 500 knots over a now not-very-streamlined shape causes it to "manouvre" wildly exceeding its structural strength and coming apart.

The Ukrainians will not get left off any distribution lists, because the accident happened in their country, so under international rules they are actually the responsible country - although in this case they are letting the Dutch lead the investigation.

Among other unauthorised and probably speculative releases of "information" RT.com is saying that there's nothing unusual on the CVR....

Preliminary examination of flight MH17’s cockpit voice recorder (CVR) revealed “nothing out of the ordinary,” a source close to the international investigation told the New Sunday Times.
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“So far, from what the team has heard, there was nothing unusual. The last voice heard was not the pilot’s. No, there was no indication that the pilots saw or sensed anything off,” the source said.
Content from External Source
Given that "preliminary examination" is of the condition of the equipment and not the contents of the memory, one can only consider that yet again the obvious errors are deliberate and intended for domestic consumption.
 
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Do the Ukrainians actually have access to what is on the CVR and FDR? I can understand their motives for countering anything coming from Russia, but I understood the boxes are in the UK right now..?
It's a bit of a mystery.
Dutch officials were reported to be "stunned" by what they saw as a "premature announcement" and said that they had not provided this information.[148]
Content from External Source

I wrote up the whole tragic story blow by blow yesterday on one of them. Not speculation. Forensics.
While I'm sure your analysis might be very well-informed speculation grounded in sober contemplation, I think it's a bit much to call it 'forensics' unless you're on the investigation team itself and have access to all the information and physical evidence.
Putting together a virtual analysis based only on what's available on-line is not going to be complete or infallible.
Not that you shouldn't, just don't over-estimate it.
 
OK here is the CVR story

http://www.nst.com.my/node/19598

New Straits Times. Mostly quoted or quoted out of context on a large assortment of Russia sites. Hmmmm

Orly quotes unnamed sources close to the investigation.

Suggests nothing unusual heard.
 
There is a theory that after missile break-up the remains impacted the top of the wing causing the green skid marks? This could possibly be another source of info and a possible tie up to identification of a Buk system? If it is possible I don't think that the Russians will assist with such an investiagion by providing paint samples, but other SA-11 operators would, plus the examples that the US has obtained for intelligence evaluation. (See operators at link). Possibly the investigators will find a piece of missle body within the wreckage? Are the Russian using a standard green paint that can be matched up?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system
 
Just an aside... Google for video/film of aerial dog fights (be sure to add "aerial" or you will get some very nasty videos!). You will find very few post WWII videos that involve air to air gun/cannon fire. The newest one I found was a digital reenactment from a 1972 encounter between Israel and Egypt. Missiles have been virtually the only weapon used for air to air combat for decades. The concept of Ukraine building a rube goldberg aircraft to intentionally shoot down a commercial airliner defies logic. To accomplish this the pilot would have a visual, so could not be an accident.
Some Harriers in the Falklands War of 1982 used their guns against the Argentinians, but I do not recall how effective this was, and I remember watching a History Channel 'documentary' about the Gulf War in which an American pilot was having trouble locking on to an Iraqi jet and considered using guns, but I think in the end it was a missile...

I'm getting old....
 
The explosive velocity of TNT is 6900m/s = ~15,000mph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_explosive_detonation_velocities

That would be the initial velocity of the fragments. Obviously they would slow down over 50m but probably could easily blast into the port side and out the starboard if there was no heavy material in between (e.g. galley). BombDr, do you agree?

(Qualifier) Obviously I have not seen a single piece of the AC, and not seen any reports of missile parts or any wreckage that was not from the 777. You are correct to assume though that should a missile with that type of warhead explode close to the airframe, it would pass though without too much difficulty, and even the harder parts would struggle to resist the damage. In addition, the passing of the fragments through the body of the aircraft most likely create secondary frag, multiplying the numbers of unguided metal in a confined space.

I did once do a body recovery in Afghanistan in which the victim had the lever/trigger of the vehicle fire extinguisher embedded in his upper thigh/buttocks having passed through the seat he was sitting on.
 
It's a bit of a mystery.
Dutch officials were reported to be "stunned" by what they saw as a "premature announcement" and said that they had not provided this information.[148]
Content from External Source


While I'm sure your analysis might be very well-informed speculation grounded in sober contemplation, I think it's a bit much to call it 'forensics' unless you're on the investigation team itself and have access to all the information and physical evidence.
Putting together a virtual analysis based only on what's available on-line is not going to be complete or infallible.
Not that you shouldn't, just don't over-estimate it.

I am quite certain I will NOT find out who pushed the button.

I've personally only ever investigated road accidents, but I've read a LOT of air crash reports ( a light plane I used to fly in crashed, that got me started -- we were able to go up close to that; Also the pilot survived to say what happened.).

I know the people doing the job will do well, if they continue to get access. They, too, will have to depend on photographs -- the same ones available to us -- for the early appearance of the wreckage, especially locations. And they, too, may have to rebuild the plane in pictures, not in a hangar, if they're not able to transport everything to a suitable location.

But I've seen two-page reports from people based on the "evidence" from a single skin panel etc. Saw one claim a high explosive warhead,they mustn't have seen any panels at all. I think we need to know, if for nothing else than to be able to recognise these.
 
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