Malaysian airliner shot down over Eastern Ukraine - Page 61

Four days after the Boeing 777 came crashing down into the fields of eastern Ukraine, the flight recorders from flight MH17 were finally handed over to the Malaysians at a surreal night-time ceremony in Donetsk, while the bodies of 282 victims began a slow train journey out of the country's south-eastern conflict zone.

Almost 12 hours after negotiations with the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, a Malaysian delegation was handed the two "black boxes" – chunky devices which are in fact orange – by Alexander Borodai, the self-styled prime minister of the Donetsk People's Republic, in a late-night press conference guarded by dozens of Kalashnikov-wielding rebels, on the 11th floor of a government building in Donetsk that has been occupied by the rebels.

Before handing over the boxes Borodai took the chance to insist again that the pro-Russia rebels in east Ukraine had nothing to do with the downing of MH17 and blamed the Kiev government, which he said had "both the technical ability and the motive" to bring down the plane.

Colonel Mohamed Sakri, part of the Malaysian delegation, thanked "his excellency Mr Borodai" for agreeing to the transfer, which came after Borodai spoke personally to the Malaysian prime minister by telephone earlier in the day.

Train with remains of Malaysian plane crash victims arrives in Ukraine's Kharkiv
(Reuters) - A train carrying the remains of victims of a Malaysian plane downed over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine arrived in the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, a Reuters witness said.

Ukrainian officials say the remains will be taken to the Netherlands. Almost 300 people were killed when the Malaysian airliner went down on Thursday, most of them were Dutch.

(Reporting by Sergei Karazy, Writing by Gabriela Baczynska, editing by Elizabeth Piper)

A piece of wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 that was shot down in eastern Ukraine last week bears telltale marks of small pieces of high-velocity shrapnel that apparently crippled the jet in flight. Riddled with these perforations and buffeted by a blast wave as it flew high above the conflict zone, the plane then most likely sheared apart.

The wreckage, photographed by two reporters for The New York Times in a field several miles from where the largest concentration of the Boeing’s debris settled, suggests that the destruction of the aircraft was caused by a supersonic missile that apparently exploded near the jet as it flew 33,000 feet above the ground, according to an analysis of the photographs by IHS Jane’s, the defense consultancy.

The damage, including the shrapnel holes and blistered paint on a panel of the destroyed plane’s exterior, is consistent with the effects of a fragmenting warhead carried by an SA-11 missile, known in Russian as a Buk, the type of missile that American officials have said was the probable culprit in the downing of the plane.

It is impossible from these photographs of the damaged plane to determine what specific model of missile was used. But the SA-11 is a member of a class of weapon that carries a fragmenting warhead with a proximity fuze. If a missile like that functioned as designed, it would cause damage like that evident in the debris of Flight 17.
source

On July 22 2014 20:51 JinDesu wrote:
Given the position of the missile damage, I would imagine that the missile had to be flying towards the plan. If so, it would either be a missile launch from the ground ahead of the plane (in front of it's flight path) - or if Russia would stick to the second aircraft theory, a warplane coming from in front of the airliner. Given Micronesia's comment on the radar being at the front of the plane, if there were a SU-25 ahead of the airliner, it would have been picked up by the radar and would be on the black boxes. That should make it a simpler task of ruling out if the SU-25 (unless the SU-25 has AA capabilities beyond radar ranges of an airliner, if someone knows this?).

On July 22 2014 20:58 Xiphos wrote:


You should finish that thought.

On July 22 2014 21:07 xM(Z wrote:
would a ground to air missile, hit a plane from below?

On July 22 2014 21:07 xM(Z wrote:
would a ground to air missile, hit a plane from below?

On July 22 2014 21:22 zatic wrote:

The missile has a proximity fuse, so it does not need to hit the plane directly, but will explode as soon as it is near enough to the target that the shock and shrapnel of the nearby explosion will destroy the target. So it might very well explode next to the target plane, even when fired from below.

On July 22 2014 21:40 xM(Z wrote:

i was asking thinking that from the angle the shrapnel pierced the plane, one could tell if the missile was below or ahead/on the same plane, as the airliner which in turn, would tell you if it was a ground to air or air to air missile.

Edit: i read m4ini reply too; it does more explaining. tnx

What I’ve been told by one source, who has provided accurate information on similar matters in the past, is that U.S. intelligence agencies do have detailed satellite images of the likely missile battery that launched the fateful missile, but the battery appears to have been under the control of Ukrainian government troops dressed in what look like Ukrainian uniforms.

On July 22 2014 22:07 PaleMan wrote:
interesting article by Robert Parry



link

Yes, there are limitations to what U.S. spy satellites can see. But the Buk missiles are about 16 feet long and they are usually mounted on trucks or tanks.

but the battery appears to have been under the control of Ukrainian government troops dressed in what look like Ukrainian uniforms.

On July 22 2014 22:07 PaleMan wrote:
interesting article by Robert Parry



link

On July 22 2014 22:21 Roggay wrote:

Wait...
This article says :


But then it says :


I really doubt you could see the uniform people are wearing with a satellite, but then again I might be wrong.