MH17 Crash- Investigation reconstruction and conclusion

[Vector4Food]

Task saturation watching the autopilot fly a STAR?

Yeah, they weren't on any freq at all that I would've been monitoring, but I imagine with X center, of whom the AWACS was likely talking to and being the middle man on.

Worst of it is for the controller; I doubt they had any ability to see you guys, or any coalition aircraft since I doubt they'd be running with transponders on, I wonder if they passed any sort of traffic

"Cathay 645, traffic directly below you, capped at 15,000 is a whole bunch of really pissed off Americans raising hell..."

I imagine being in a civilian airliner in that sort of proximity, low enough to be engaged by more and more threats, it has to be unnerving to have almost no way to even know you're under attack... It's really amazing in Iraq and Afganistan, despite the tons of lead thrown around no civilian aircraft were shot down (except DHL?)

 

[Skåning]

http://ad.easa.europa.eu/blob/EASA_SIB_2015_22.pdf/SIB_2015-22_1

Hey what have you guys been doing about the Eastern Turkey, northwest Iran transit area? A week ago the Russian navy was bombing Syria from the Caspian Sea, it's low level missiles transiting parts of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.

It's a major thoroughfare for guys from our area going to Europe. The airlines were avoiding it then but are back in that area now. I know it was last week but any advice on keeping an eye on that situation?

I saw EASA did publish info about it but without any recommendations.

 

[Ruck]

"Cathay 645, traffic directly below you, capped at 15,000 is a whole bunch of really pissed off Americans raising hell..."

I remember being on a flight (civilian, as pax in the back) passing over a hot-and-sandy place, looking down at pretty much exactly that out of my window.

 

[MikeD]

Worst of it is for the controller; I doubt they had any ability to see you guys, or any coalition aircraft since I doubt they'd be running with transponders on, I wonder if they passed any sort of traffic

"Cathay 645, traffic directly below you, capped at 15,000 is a whole bunch of really pissed off Americans raising hell..."

I imagine being in a civilian airliner in that sort of proximity, low enough to be engaged by more and more threats, it has to be unnerving to have almost no way to even know you're under attack... It's really amazing in Iraq and Afganistan, despite the tons of lead thrown around no civilian aircraft were shot down (except DHL?)

We were running with an assigned Mode 3, as well as Mode 1/2 insofar as transponders, as AWACS had to keep track of us; so ATC may have seen us operating out there depending on their radar coverage ability.

 

[mshunter]

It's the real world.

I've been over plenty during my international days. The freight guys? Far more.

That's a very busy route in Simferapol's airspace from Europe to the Middle East and Asia.

That's almost like saying "What are passenger airliners doing in airspace that the pirates are flying in". Africa is full of jet traffic, not on flight plans, no transponders, running all sorts of contraband around the skies.

Hell, I remember when the US and Iran were talking smack about one another and here I was taking pictures of the sunset over Tehran.

How many deliberate shoot downs were there in those regions while you were flying through there? It's much simpler to route traffic around than it is to pick up bodies. Flying over a country (Iran) that doesn't like us is a whole different deal than flying over a country with " rebel forces" who have already shot down other aircraft.

 

[ryan1234]

Opening of the Falklands. Argentine AF used Lear 35s with no defensive systems as navigation pathfinders, reconaissance aircraft, and decoy birds against the Brits. On one occasion, two of them were picked up by HMS Coventry who fired 3 Sea Dart SAMs at them, of which they able to avoid all three. Later on a different engagement though, one of their other Lear 35s was shot down by HMS Exeter by a Sea Dart.

The Sea Dart's actual Pk kinda sucked 26 fired, 7 kills (including one British on British frat of a helo).. The Argentinians also had them. The demise of the Sea Dart was from the Type 965 TTR, the replacement TTR, type 1022, yielded much better results against the low flying A-4s.... despite that fact the Argentinians managed to sink 7 British ships.

Curiously, during the war, an Argentine 707 managed to outmaneuver two Sea Darts fired from the Cardiff (the same ship responsible for the frat)

Also during the Gulf War... the Gloucester managed to lock onto a Iraqi Silkworm anti-ship missile and successfully shoot it down with a Sea Dart. The Silkworm was targeting the USS Missouri at the time.

 

[Lawman]

The Sea Dart's actual Pk kinda sucked 26 fired, 7 kills (including one British on British frat of a helo).. The Argentinians also had them. The demise of the Sea Dart was from the Type 965 TTR, the replacement TTR, type 1022, yielded much better results against the low flying A-4s.... despite that fact the Argentinians managed to sink 7 British ships.

Curiously, during the war, an Argentine 707 managed to outmaneuver two Sea Darts fired from the Cardiff (the same ship responsible for the frat)

Also during the Gulf War... the Gloucester managed to lock onto a Iraqi Silkworm anti-ship missile and successfully shoot it down with a Sea Dart. The Silkworm was targeting the USS Missouri at the time.

I've never been a big fan of Pk analysis on SAMs based of the number shot to aircraft/targets killed ratio.

The sheer TTP of salvoing multiple missiles at single targets to increase Pk leads to a bit of an elevation of suck since a lot of overkill is occurring by default.

The other part of it is no missiles effectiveness of a kill matters if it prevents the target from completing it's mission or forces it to maneuver into an envelope where it dies from another platform. I have yet to meet anybody who would say the Pk on system X is so low Im gonna not perform escape maneuvers because I'm more worried about ending up low slow and in the WEZ of ZSU curtain fire.

 

[Cptnchia]

How many deliberate shoot downs were there in those regions while you were flying through there? It's much simpler to route traffic around than it is to pick up bodies. Flying over a country (Iran) that doesn't like us is a whole different deal than flying over a country with " rebel forces" who have already shot down other aircraft.

Actually, sometimes it's not easier to just re-route traffic. There are actual areas of the globe where airliners cannot fly due to driftdown terrain issues and only one route path makes sense. Close that route and there may not be another route that can be flown due to terrain or other geopolitical reasons.

As for flying over "trouble spots," it happens all the time. I know it's Wiki, but it works. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_incidents I've flown over combat ops in Africa while flying for SJA. It happens on a daily basis. It's the nature of international ops.

 

[MikeD]

I've never been a big fan of Pk analysis on SAMs based of the number shot to aircraft/targets killed ratio.

The sheer TTP of salvoing multiple missiles at single targets to increase Pk leads to a bit of an elevation of suck since a lot of overkill is occurring by default.

The other part of it is no missiles effectiveness of a kill matters if it prevents the target from completing it's mission or forces it to maneuver into an envelope where it dies from another platform. I have yet to meet anybody who would say the Pk on system X is so low Im gonna not perform escape maneuvers because I'm more worried about ending up low slow and in the WEZ of ZSU curtain fire.

Yeah, shot to hits is pretty macro, and doesn't take into account the quality of the shots taken.....ie- target parameters, shooter or target maneuvering or not, countermeasures used or not, etc.

 

[ryan1234]

I've never been a big fan of Pk analysis on SAMs based of the number shot to aircraft/targets killed ratio.

The sheer TTP of salvoing multiple missiles at single targets to increase Pk leads to a bit of an elevation of suck since a lot of overkill is occurring by default.

The other part of it is no missiles effectiveness of a kill matters if it prevents the target from completing it's mission or forces it to maneuver into an envelope where it dies from another platform. I have yet to meet anybody who would say the Pk on system X is so low Im gonna not perform escape maneuvers because I'm more worried about ending up low slow and in the WEZ of ZSU curtain fire.

I partially agree with you. I'll just say that if the Pk is low, there may be certain performance issues leading up to a specific way to threat react. The A-4s exploited the poor TTR performance against low targets with background clutter which was the reason for the majority of misses, their target was the ship carrying the SAM.

So if a SAM system has a crappy Pk, I know there's a way to DEAD it out whether by saturation or other tactics. If it needs to fire three missiles at one target, what if I bring in 3 or 4 aircraft. If a system has a good Pk and can engage multiple targets then it works great as an area denial tool.
On the opposite side, there were 7 British ships sunk during the Falklands War. If you're facing a saturation attack by multiple targets say, Super Etendard shooting exocet missiles... or A-4s coming in low.... or Silkworm anti-ship missiles.... having a good Pk changes the tactical scenario.
The A-4s really didn't threat react that much, the acceptable level of risk...rightly or wrongly was just high.

At the end of the day, if a ship has a finite number of missiles... Pk matters.

 

[MikeD]

I partially agree with you. I'll just say that if the Pk is low, there may be certain performance issues leading up to a specific way to threat react. The A-4s exploited the poor TTR performance against low targets with background clutter which was the reason for the majority of misses, their target was the ship carrying the SAM.

So if a SAM system has a crappy Pk, I know there's a way to DEAD it out whether by saturation or other tactics. If it needs to fire three missiles at one target, what if I bring in 3 or 4 aircraft. If a system has a good Pk and can engage multiple targets then it works great as an area denial tool.
On the opposite side, there were 7 British ships sunk during the Falklands War. If you're facing a saturation attack by multiple targets say, Super Etendard shooting exocet missiles... or A-4s coming in low.... or Silkworm anti-ship missiles.... having a good Pk changes the tactical scenario.
The A-4s really didn't threat react that much, the acceptable level of risk...rightly or wrongly was just high.

At the end of the day, if a ship has a finite number of missiles... Pk matters.

The problem is, the A-4 tactics of SAM avoidance.......whether by luck or by planning.......of going in low, unfortunately wasn't apparently balanced out by proper weaponeering and attack planning to ensure same, seeing as how many of the dumb bombs that were dropped didn't have the altitude to properly fuze, and hit with either no detonation, or possibly only low-order detonation. Granted a kill is a kill, and a ship sunk by a bomb that does secondary damage just from the mass of it going through vital parts of the ship, explosion or not, is dead all the same. But the losses the A-4 units took just to make those happen, were losses they could not sustain had the conflict gone longer than it did.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

I really wonder if the 4-6 man team that actually shot down the plane is still alive? Somehow I think the Putin regime put these people 6 feet under already.

 

[MikeD]

The problem is, the A-4 tactics of SAM avoidance.......whether by luck or by planning.......of going in low, unfortunately wasn't apparently balanced out by proper weaponeering and attack planning to ensure same, seeing as how many of the dumb bombs that were dropped didn't have the altitude to properly fuze, and hit with either no detonation, or possibly only low-order detonation. Granted a kill is a kill, and a ship sunk by a bomb that does secondary damage just from the mass of it going through vital parts of the ship, explosion or not, is dead all the same. But the losses the A-4 units took just to make those happen, were losses they could not sustain had the conflict gone longer than it did.

And just to clarify, my commentary above is only in regard to the tactics as seen by a fellow Attack pilot, it in no way is criticism of the guts of steel the A-4 units showed in pressing attacks against targets protected by a SAM/AAA environment, in daytime, and with no countermeasures.

Here is a picture taken during the attack on the HMS Coventry, of two A-4 Skyhawks head-on coming in low over the water under a hail of ship-fired AAA (seen hitting the water all around them) as they press in on a manual laydown delivery of unguided GP bombs.

 

[BEEF SUPREME]

And just to clarify, my commentary above is only in regard to the tactics as seen by a fellow Attack pilot, it in no way is criticism of the guts of steel the A-4 units showed is pressing attacks against targets protected by a SAM/AAA environment, in daytime, and with no countermeasures.

Here is a picture taken during the attack on the HMS Coventry, of two A-4 Skyhawks head-on coming in low over the water under a hail of ship-fired AAA (seen hitting the water all around them) as they press in on a manual laydown delivery of unguided GP bombs.

View attachment 33136

Damn that looks like something out of WW2

 

[BigZ]

The supposed pro-Russian separatists got their training, support, supplies, direction, funding, equipment and arms from Russia, which is also the origin of all the lies and massive propaganda about the Ukraine since day one.

"Lies and propaganda"... I take it separatists were shelling their own cities while under siege by the ukie forces, people in Odessa set themselves on fire to cast a shadow on the "politically active" movements and so forth.
Help from Russia - yeah, and that's a bad thing because...? Just to clarify, I'm from there and have zero love or respect for the present ukie government.

Russian Military advisers and troops have been in Ukraine ever since things got out of Putin's control and became a thorn in his side. They are are the ones who were photographed hauling the the damn missiles and launcher into Torez, just hours before MH17 was downed and they were seen and photographed hauling them back over the border to Russia hours later. Russia.....er....... the "rebels" had complete physical control of the crash site/area and the wreckage and were seen and photographed hauling off debris and going through the belongings of the crew and pax.

Last president wasn't Putin's puppet, or none of this would have ever happened. The dude was trying to milk two cows - Russia and EU - and hence it worked out the way it worked out.
I suggest educating yourself on the bellingcat "investigation" (Google helps), marauders (Sharij posted a couple of vids last couple of days interviewing the locals - if you understand Russian. If not - point me to the mention of marauders and tampering with the evidence in the Dutch report) before making blatant statements.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk

Talks a lot and is not a credible source for anything.

 

[Boris Badenov]

Taking anything any government involved in an undeclared war at face value shows a, eh, certain lack of judgment. Taking an accident report from a respected, uninvolved nation thousands of miles away does not. Can you explain why we should take the word of Russia over the word of the Netherlands, purely politically?

 

[BigZ]

Purely technically - the Netherland report shows a map with three areas of possible firing position of the Buk
- large area as determined by the Dutch
- tiny area as determined by the ukrainians
- two areas as determined by the Buk missile maker, depending on whether one of the two modifications of the missile were used.
There's a caveat though - Buk OEM calculated the launch area based on the orientation of the missile as provided by the Dutch.
There's also a separate report with a IL front section being blown up to prove the point that the calculated orientation of the missile would not produce the shrapnel field as evidenced by the damage. Namely there would be no damage to the left engine or the stab and the copilot side windows would have also been desintegrated - while neither is the case with the MH17.
Hence the report (and the field test) suggest that the Buk was located much further west. Moreover the blown up IL displays multiple "butterfly" punctures to the skin of the cockpit (indication of the newer model warhead) - absent from the 777 wreckage, even though a small number of the shrapnel of that shape has been recorded present in the crew remains.
Point being - friggin' mystery as it sits right now.
There is documented equipment seps had at their disposal to bring down thing flying in high teens/low twenties (Osa), the only documented Buk seps had was the one comandeered from Ukies in Lugansk - but that one was declared disabled by Kiev.
Furthermore, standalone launch vehicle isn't really capable to track a target that far out, highly likely it would have to had been fed by the primary radar of the system which doesn't even appear in the fake photos etc etc etc.
I recommend reading the full report
It basically says
- MH17 shot down with a Buk missile
- everyone died
- Ukraine didn't close the airspace like it should have
- IATA and the operators didn't consider the reports of jets brought down days prior like they should have
That's about it really

 

[DrunkenWoodpecker]

Can you explain why we should take the word of Russia over the word of the Netherlands, purely politically?

I don't think you can simply believe or not believe one of them. They are not making a witness statement, but investigating the accident and can make mistakes. The Dutch used some kind of a specialized 3rd party software ("Split-X" as far as i remember) designed to simulate the ballistics of the explosion and fed it with several models of the warhead, and came up with the estimation of the missile position at the time of the detonation. Cool, I like that approach, but nobody knows how accurate it actually is. The makers claims they know better (I bet they do!) and the Dutch simulation is wrong. They carried out an actual (not simulated!) experiment to prove their point and showed that the a/c damage should have been different (nobody knows if they tampered with the results or not)... They pointed out to some other discrepancies, too. It all makes huge difference to who has really launched the missile. To me, that's a pretty good ground for a "reasonable doubt". I think, discrepancies should be explained if they want the report to stand in court. [Disclosure - i'm 3/4 Russian and only 1/4 Ukrainian]

 

[Lawman]

To the people doubting the investigation... Probably would have been better if the Separatist forces and their Russian masters had allowed investigators on site before they spent a month attempting to sterilize the evidence.

 

[mshunter]

And just to clarify, my commentary above is only in regard to the tactics as seen by a fellow Attack pilot, it in no way is criticism of the guts of steel the A-4 units showed in pressing attacks against targets protected by a SAM/AAA environment, in daytime, and with no countermeasures.

Here is a picture taken during the attack on the HMS Coventry, of two A-4 Skyhawks head-on coming in low over the water under a hail of ship-fired AAA (seen hitting the water all around them) as they press in on a manual laydown delivery of unguided GP bombs.

View attachment 33136

Dayum! Lots of stuff to run into.