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MH17 Report

bbc.co.uk

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Re: MH17 Report

#131

Post by Const-me »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #117
escapologybb wrote: post #12

Can anyone break down how they knew that the missile exploded within a one square metre volume of air, just above and to the front of the plane please? Do they do it just from the pattern of debris, or do they use other methods as well. I think I got that they can use the microphones in the cockpit to work out the direction the missile fragments came from, but not quite sure on the details. Thanks in advance!

I'm interested that the missile effectively missed. Is this the intended method of action, nearby explosion with shrapnel impacts or should the missile have entered the body of the plane in a, militarily speaking, perfect deployment. With such weapons do they choose the point of impact, ie is the cockpit the target, or are the weapons not that "refined".

Intended.

Planes are too fast and too maneuverable. Especially military planes — SAMs weren’t actually designed to down civilians. That’s why missiles have proximity-based detonators, so called “proximity fuze”, to explode at the right moment.

BTW, here’s 8 minutes video about the history of that technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq_Uy5hGazc

Re: MH17 Report

#132

Post by tptacek »

powertower wrote: post #127
tptacek wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're moving the goalposts here. Is there any controversy over whether Ukraine has BUK launchers, or use 9M38M1 missiles? Both Ukraine and Russia clearly do. Nobody forced in anyone in Russia to make the easily falsified claim that they didn't have any 9M38M1 missiles. The only reason it's interesting to establish that they did is that it harms an alibi they weren't forced to offer. The Dutch report, and a lo…

I've seen no conclusive evidence that the missile was launched from within any definite area and by any definite side. Both sides have access to those areas, and the control of those areas was always fluid. The only thing I've seen conclusively is the size of the anti-Russian rederick. Which has been of such giant proportions that less than 2 hours after the crash happened, it was made out to be all Putin's fault, an…

The report we're commenting on right now demarcates the area, and it's not hotly contested.

Re: MH17 Report

#133

Post by trhway »

tremon wrote: post #116
trhway wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the first Antonovs were downed using ATA missiles (read: fighter planes), no, rebels had never had such capability, i.e. planes and Russia didn't ventured the planes in. >although I can't read them There are also some tweets in English down on the twitter page i linked. Also you can Google translate it. The capture of the BUK systems was well communicated on both sides - in Russian and Ukrainian news at the time, be…

If you don't mind me picking your brain about this, here is what I've been able to find from the DSB report (page 183): "On 6 June 2014, [..] an Antonov An-30B had been downed using a MANPADS at an altitude of less than 4,500 metres near Slavyansk. On 14 June 2014, [..] a Ukrainian Air Force Ilyushin 76MD had been downed during landing at Luhansk [using a MANPADS]. During the weeks that followed, other incidents occu…

>Would you say this information is a fairly complete summary, or have there been more (unconfirmed) shootings?

the list is a bit short, and if you look at page 182 of the report (or wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ukrainian_aircraft_los...) you'll see 2 su-25 shot down on July 16. One of them was shot down at 6-8 km altitude. This time Ukraine blamed a Russian plane (which was never sighted nor attacked anything else nor had any other traces left nor there were any other signs of Russian planes in other situations/places. To compare - we know that Russia helped rebels with tanks and soldiers as there is ample evidence of this. You can't hide planes in the age of smartphones/YouTube/twitter/etc - all the aspects of this war are very well documented there).

Re: MH17 Report

#134

Post by ptaipale »

iofj wrote: post #129
tremon wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if an area of land is a warzone and it's known there are anti-aircraft missiles deployed But it was not known there was anti-aircraft missile capability until April 14th (a few days before the MH17 crime). You're making the exact logic fallacy that the DSB criticized in its report. All incidents from before that Antonov downing on the 14th were done using MANPADS (i.e. shoulder-carried missile launchers). These don…

That seems unlikely: government planes were being shot down in the area starting in April (22/4 to be exact), months before the incident. Those planes were delivering military supplies and shooting at and bombing the separatists, so it's not like there was no reason to shoot them down. Before the MH17 incident, 17 planes were shot down in that area. As the report puts it "But none of the parties involved made any con…

Flying a civilian plane at 10 km on its daily route is not "provocation".

It seems we'll keep seeing every attempt being made to shift the blame on Ukraine, not the ones who actually decided to pull the trigger. Russia is active in stopping an investigation to find out who it was. That tells me a lot.

Passenger planes routinely fly over conflict zones. A plane flying at >10 km cannot be mistaken for a fighter-bomber. Unless the operators of BUK were, well, drunk, which is still what I suspect, but equally irresponsible.

Re: MH17 Report

#135

Post by TeMPOraL »

ptaipale wrote: post #134
iofj wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems unlikely: government planes were being shot down in the area starting in April (22/4 to be exact), months before the incident. Those planes were delivering military supplies and shooting at and bombing the separatists, so it's not like there was no reason to shoot them down. Before the MH17 incident, 17 planes were shot down in that area. As the report puts it "But none of the parties involved made any con…

Flying a civilian plane at 10 km on its daily route is not "provocation". It seems we'll keep seeing every attempt being made to shift the blame on Ukraine, not the ones who actually decided to pull the trigger. Russia is active in stopping an investigation to find out who it was. That tells me a lot. Passenger planes routinely fly over conflict zones. A plane flying at >10 km cannot be mistaken for a fighter-bomber.…

I don't think anyone is really trying to shift the blame. The operators of BUK deserve all the blame they can get. The point is whether or not assign additional blame to people responsible for routing the passenger plane over the conflict zone. Personally I say yes, they should be assigned some smaller but non-zero amount of blame.

Re: MH17 Report

#136

Post by vsl »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #81
ptaipale wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you really get that info before hand? That question is not new and is rather simple to google, see for instance http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-find-the-route-your-plane... I dislike the message here, which shifts the blame on the victims (the captain who chooses the flight path, and who was killed). The blame belongs with the operators of that BUK system. (Incidentally, this victim-blaming has been one them…

This shows exactly why dismissing something as "victim-blaming" is usually missing the point. You can't discuss stupidity of that concept in terms of the most common uses of the phrase, but hopefully people are not as emotionally charged about airplanes getting shot down. Yes, it's obviously moral fault of whoever operated that BUK system. But flying over an active warzone where planes have already been shot down sho…

No, not really. Military planes were shot down, yes, but those operated at much lower altitudes. It's damn hard to shoot down an aircraft flying at 10k feet, you need something like BUK to even be able to reach that high. That's why these fly levels are generally consider safe even over (low-tech) conflict areas; this isn't limited to UK.

More readily available AA weapontry is only good against low-flying targets and it was thought at the time that the "rebels" did not have high-end military equipment from Russia. That's an intelligence failure, granted, but not irresponsibility by the airline.

Re: MH17 Report

#137

Post by alkonaut »

powertower wrote: post #103
alkonaut wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both sides own BUKs. Only the Russian side has these BUKs. One of the key findings is which specific warhead version was used. The report doesn't spell out who did it, it does however conclude that a BUK missile from the Russian military shot down the plane. That BUK may have been stolen or on holiday in eastern Ukraine.

> Only the Russian side has these BUKs. How is that even logical? These are discontinued older model BUK missiles. Meaning only a place like Ukraine would have them in any significant numbers.

Both russia and Ukraine operate the specific older SAM (BUK-M1-2) and the missile in question (9M38M1) but I was under the impression that there were different types of warheads and that the warhead in question was only fielded by russia. This seems incorrect though, the entire system in question is still used both by Ukraine and Russia. So the warhead+missile identification does not rule out Ukrainian BUK, however the claim that Russia do not use BUK-M1-2 with 9M38M1 missiles is easily falsifiable, so it's really a very stupid thing to try from the russian side -- recent photos of this system in Russian duty are easy to find. These are discontinued in manufacturing, not in field use.

Re: MH17 Report

#138

Post by d0mine »

tptacek wrote: post #84
d0mine wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is so obvious why do you think the report does not say that?

The report answers that question.

The direct quote from the article: the report does not say who fired the missile

Re: MH17 Report

#139

Post by ptaipale »

aerique wrote: post #60
ptaipale wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you really get that info before hand? That question is not new and is rather simple to google, see for instance http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-find-the-route-your-plane... I dislike the message here, which shifts the blame on the victims (the captain who chooses the flight path, and who was killed). The blame belongs with the operators of that BUK system. (Incidentally, this victim-blaming has been one them…

I think both sides are to blame here. It's definitely questionable to fly over a warzone with a public passenger aircraft. Sooner or later something like this would have happened. This doesn't mean the Russians shouldn't have cooperated better. (BTW I'm Dutch.)

No, it's not "definitely" questionable. Public passenger aircraft fly over warzones all the time, also today.

Re: MH17 Report

#140

Post by aaren »

aaren wrote: post #28
lennartkoopmann wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They triangulated it using the three microphones I guess. Also I guess you can figure that out by looking at the debris pattern because they seem to have a lot of knowledge about the used rocket.

There were actually four microphones - captain, first officer, cockpit and observer (see page 46, Figure 9). Four receivers is sufficient to determine the sound origin at a point in space, with an associated error volume (three receivers only allows you to determine a curve in space). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration

The problem is complicated if we consider that the missile is moving at supersonic speeds (~mach 3 + aircraft speed).

I don't know much about supersonic fluids. For anyone interested in following this up, here is a paper on "Reproduction of Virtual Sound Sources Moving at Supersonic Speeds in Wave Field Synthesis":

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/230702229

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