Analysis of the smoke plume photos: the facts
This is the first post of a serie of blogposts on the two photos which show a white plume. This post will provide an overview of the known facts. It provide you a basis for the future posts on this subject.
The facts:
- the winddirection in Eastern Ukraine at the time of the crash was East
- the horizontal distance between alleged launch location and main crashsite near Hrabove is 20 km.
- the photographer made photos from his apartment in Torez. 48.048264° 38.638962°
- the name of the photographer who made two photos of a white vertical smoke plume is Pavel Aleynikov
- MH17 was flying at flightlevel 330 when the aircraft was hit by a missile. (10.000 meters)
- According to DSB the last FDR recording of MH17 was at position “N48.123 E38.522”
- Distance between alleged launch location and last location recorded by FDR is 24,250 meters horizontally
- Trajectory length of missile when it flew a straight line from alleged launch location to last FDR position is 26,184 meters.
- the missile endspeed was estimated by DSB at approximately 700 meters/second. The lowest endspeed was estimated at 600 m/s.
- the maximum speed of the missile is 800 meter/sec (source)
- Flighttime of missile when launched from alleged launch location is approximately minimal 35 seconds.
- Pavel Aleynikov took two photos from the balcony on the southside of the building
- One of the photo showed a cable
- The other photo was zoomed in
- Pavel Aleynikov used a telelens
- After taking the two photos, he took steps to the roof of the apartment
- He went to the westside of the roof and took 7 photos of the MH17 crash site
- The time set on the camera was incorrect.
- The first photo of the white plume was made at 07/17/2014 16: 25: 41.50
- The second photo of the white plume was made at 07/17/2014 16: 25: 48.30
- The minimum time for the main fuselage from separation at 16:20:03 until impact at the ground is 45 seconds. 45 seconds is minimum time for a freefall from 10.0000 meters with no drag from air.
- The main fuselage travelled 6 km in horizontal direction between missile hit and impact.
- That combined with drag of the wings makes fall time closer to 90 seconds than 60 seconds
- DSB estimates the time the main fuselage impacted was between 60 and 90 seconds.
- In dry air at 20 °C (68 °F), the speed of sound is 343.2 metres per second
- At 10.000 km speed of sound is around 300 meters per second. (source)
- The main fuselage impacted near Hrabove at around 16:21:30
- People living near Torez reported hearing a loud explosion around 16:22 to 16:23
Assumptions
We also have to do a couple of estimations or assumptions
- If windspeed at the crashsite (windspeed 1) is approximately the same as windspeed calculated for the white smoke trail (windspeed 2), it is extremely likely the windspeed between moment of launch and photo 1 is equal to windspeed 1 and windspeed 2
- DSB used weather data obtained from meteo office in Rostov on Don to calculate the trajectory of MH17 debris. So it is safe to assume windspeed in the region is about the same. (source)
- We assume the windspeed near Hrabove where the main fuselage impacted, is about the same as the windspeed at the launchsite.
- The angle of the missile at launch related to the ground is approximately 45 degrees based on videos showing BUK missile lauches.
by
> the missile endspeed was estimated by DSB at approximately 700
AA said 600 m/s for S-launch and 730 m/s of Z-launch. I’d rather trust them, not the DSB.
> meters/second. The lowest endspeed was estimated at 600 m/s.
the maximum speed of the missile is 800 meter/sec (source)
That is the target’s max speed, not missile’s.
25. People living near Torez reported hearing a loud explosion around 16:22 to 16:23.
You are wrong.
Here are more info about torez vk page commments (get time by vk-api). First boom comment was wrote at 13:20:44 (I suggest what he was near PC and spent some time to seat down). Second boom comment was wrote at 13:20:58 – the man was at PC and writing as “online chat”.
Russia text with timestamps (source: https://vk.com/wall-70279965_83850?reply=83895 ):
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:10:00 GMT: Ну как говорится “на вкус и цвет…”
*first book* Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:20:44 GMT: Ого бахнуло
*second boom* Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:20:58 GMT: еще
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:21:48 GMT: Что это бахнуло?
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:21:48 GMT: Что это было?
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:22:00 GMT: ебануться что это такое?
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:22:04 GMT: а где это?
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:22:04 GMT: началось
There were several possible explosions/loud booms heard around the shot down of MH17.
The first sound was the explosion of the warhead. Although I doubt this could be heard
The second was probably one of the engines stalling because it sucked up debris from the fuselage
The third was the separation of the cockpit
The fourth the separatation of the tail
The last and by far the most loudest was the impact of the main fuselage near Hrabove.
I estimate the impact was around 16:21:30 or so.
admin:
The “ballistic trajectory analysis” (from page 157 in the DSB report) relating to the breakup of MH17 states that the cockpit section separated “in the first few seconds after the impact of the high-energy objects” and that certainly does seem highly probable. So if a SAM missile had detonated in very close proximity to the aircraft and if the sound of both detonation and the separation of the cockpit section could be heard from a location on the ground then two distinct sounds would be heard up to a few seconds apart. A sound created by a damaged engine would probably follow those other two sounds if caused by fuselage debris since the initial breakup began with the cockpit separating – however shrapnel damaging an engine could cause the engine to create a sound moments before or simultaneously with the sound of the cockpit section separating.
Also in the DSB “ballistic trajectory analysis” a time of 60 to 90 seconds is given for the time between the FDR stopping and the center fuselage/wings/engines impacting the ground. Since no exact time for the impact could be established from eye witnesses the duration of the fall had to be estimated and I tend to agree with your estimation of a minimum of 90 seconds rather than than shorter period of between 60 and 90 seconds. The curving flight track and the change in center of gravity of the remains of the aircraft plus drag would probably make a slower rate of descent a more realistic possibility.
That person who heard the first boom also lives near city centre (based on one of his photos that seem to have address on it, and a rough geolocation) 550 meters from Aleynikov.
13:20:44 UTC is only 41 seconds after 13:20:03, when MH17’s flight data recorder stopped suddenly without any indication of any problems.
It took about 31 seconds for the sound of the explosion of the warhead and the ripping apart of the 777 to reach the ground 10 km directly below it.
So even if the person who first reported the boom on Vk was living directly below the detonation, they would had to to have typed in their message instantly and sent it within about ten seconds.
Someone living near Pavel about 12 km away would have been at a straight-line distance of (12^2 + 10^2)= 16 km from the detonation. The sound of the detonation would have taken about 45 seconds to reach them. So it would have been physically impossible for them to report the boom of the missile strike, no matter how fast they can type.
What they heard must therefore have come from something other than the location of the aircraft. The only realistic explanation is a sonic boom.
It is often mistakenly believed that a sonic boom only happens when an object breaks the sound barrier, ie. at the speed of sound, or Mach 1. In fact the boom is generated at all speeds above Mach 1.
The textbook example below deals with a typical case of a supersonic airplane creating a sonic boom. It shows that the boom is heard after the airplane has flown past its nearest location to the observer on the ground. It is heard when the sound from that location reaches him at the speed of sound.
https://books.google.de/books?id=bggrDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA490&lpg=PA490&dq=kl+kumar+%22sonic+boom%22&source=bl&ots=ogcmI-SmvQ&sig=Ro4_rWxE5JYbtAvmkbCAnetfarY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjA5-3xw9zNAhWLiSwKHVF4AUMQ6AEIFDAA
Or recorder’s data was deleted after 13:20:03.
I’m read good version about BUK’s missile to Ukraine aircraft (many witnesses saw aircraft and heard it too on that day). That buk’s trace was taken by Aleynikov. And that ukraine aircraft fired up air-to-air “Р-27Р1” missile on mh17.
Also I’m read version about pilots whose saw rocket and started to screaming and sending mayday-signals (some radio-man heard it).
Great find, Brendan! Now we’ll need to retire for some time to ponder about this find. Btw, Brendon’s typos did not affect his calculations.
For those readers who did not get it: the FDR has stopped at the moment the missile exploded, but people on the group posted about heard boom before the sound could physically reach them.
> The sound of the detonation would have taken about 45 seconds to reach them.
The right time is probably around 3 seconds longer (48 s), because, as Marcel has recently reported, the sound speed at 10 km is around 300 m/s.
At the MAS17.webform.ru people state that around the time of the crash an Ukraine airforce jet caused a sonicboom.
http://mas17.webtalk.ru/viewtopic.php?id=174&p=2
You don’t even need to go that far as on your own website the user Eugene has already suggested that a couple of times.
Btw, my geolocation attempt of the posters also speaks in favor of this theory, so far. I honestly started doing it trying to disprove the sonic boom idea (as, as you have seen, I could not believe that an airliner falling 10 km away would make “everything inside someone’s home” shake, but I am not an expert on audibility of such events, including sonic booms).
I hope no-one will rush questioning those people from the group just yet (though it has likely been done already). The investigation should initially proceed in a passive mode.
If what those people in Torez heard was a sonic boom, it means that a missile passed within a certain distance of them on its way towards the 777. That would confirm that it was launched from somewhere to the south or east of them. What cannot be said is what that distance is, at least until more information is presented. The sonic boom from Concorde was often heard tens of kilometers away, near the south coast of Ireland and southwest England.
There are also factors, such as the missile’s trajectory path and its acceleration/deceleration, that could cause a boom to be more intense in some places than in others. That’s because a sonic boom is actually the sum of the sounds that the supersonic aircraft or missile makes at different locations in its flight path, and which all arrive at the obsever around the same time. That can sometimes cause a large amount of sound energy that was created over several seconds to add together at one location on the ground within a fraction of a second.
If it was a sonic boom it would not be from a missile. Most likely from a Su-27 going at a low altitude. A Buk missile is just not loud enough, plus it acc/decelerating, which reduces sonic boom intensity. Plus one needs to verify that a sonic boom from a Buk would be able to reach the ground BEFORE the detonation. After all a Buk goes at 2-3M.
Plus the 4 people who we know described the boom as very loud (including Aleynikov) can all be placed within a circle of of 1100 meter diameter.
Could also be a low flying SU-27. But a missile would still be burning fuel and its motor would be running, and at Mach 2 the air turbulence it creates would cause noise.
A supersonic object moving at constant velocity would cause a sonic boom over a wide area (that its cone sweeps past) but one whose speed and direction are changing would cause more localised sonic booms.
My rough estimate is that if the boom really was from a missile from the alleged launch site, it would have been at an angle of about 30 degrees at 6 km altitude and therefore 7 km at its shortest straight line distance from Pavel’s flat. By my calculations, such a missile would reach the 777 at almost the same time that its boom would reach Pavel in Torez, about 21 seconds after that shortest distance to him. The noise of the detonation would reach him about 45 seconds after that.
Brendan,
> My rough estimate is that if the boom really was from a missile from the alleged launch site, it would have been at an angle of about 30 degrees at 6 km altitude and therefore 7 km at its shortest straight line distance from Pavel’s flat.
Michaels Kobs’s rough picture
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CleQqLyWYAANbUg.jpg:large
tells that it’s about 8 km.
There are ways for estimating the volume of the sonic boom of a Buk missile if it flew over that path. If we knew the exact properties of the flight profile, with a bit of maths (or code) I could derive the sound volume profile compared to that of a stationary missile. But there is a simpler conservative estimation for it too based on energy consideration. Not sure if it is appropriate to fully present it here as some physics understanding is required. But if physicists out there want I’ll elaborate. The snapshot is that the maximum loudness of a sonic boom from a Buk flying over that trajectory would be two-three times the volume of a Buk explosion heard at the 1m14s mark in this video (that explosion occurred at ~8.2 km away). And that is if one is lucky. Such a boom will probably not be audible indoors.
Eugene: “If we knew the exact properties of the flight profile, with a bit of maths (or code) I could derive the sound volume profile compared to that of a stationary missile.”
The problem is that we don’t know the exact properties. The graph you show looks like Almaz-Antey’s trajectory for a Buk from south of Snizhne. But its final elevation angle approaching the target in that graph contradicts the values calculated by both A-A and the DSB.
A-A gave a result of about +20 degrees, and the DSB’s “best match” was +10 deg. (although the DSB seemed to more invent their results than calculate them). So we have to reject either the final angle of approach or the trajectory graph from A-A.
Nevertheless, having looked at my estimates again, I would modify the trajectory shape, making it steeper, adding 1 or 2 km to the minimum distance of the missile from Pavel, increasing it to 8 or 9 km.
That would make the boom from the missile quieter, but not by a huge amount.
It would also add roughly five seconds to the time for the missile’s sonic boom to reach Pavel. That would mean that he would probably have heard the boom *after* the missile flew on and reached the 777. More significant, though, is that he still would have heard the sonic boom a long time (roughly 40 seconds) before he heard the explosion of the missile’s warhead.
Brendan,
> A-A gave a result of about +20 degrees, and the DSB’s “best match” was +10 deg.
I thought A-A said that for the S-launch the missile would be on a downward slope while for Z-launch on an upward one. That was part of their argument.
> That would mean that he would probably have heard the boom *after* the missile flew on and reached the 777. More significant, though, is that he still would have heard the sonic boom a long time (roughly 40 seconds) before he heard the explosion of the missile’s warhead.
Good point again! The first poster on the group was quite ahead of everyone (followed by two other people posting at the same time 64 s after), so he probably was at his computer and had a good reaction. As he posted “one more[boom]” 14 seconds after the very first post it means that the distance between the two booms was probably well smaller than 40 seconds. And this speaks against the very first boom being a sonic boom of a missile, like you say.
Interesting that someone posted that 14 seconds after the first boom/explosion a second could be heared.
That is what Pavel said as well.
>>As he posted “one more[boom]” 14 seconds after the very first post it means that the distance between the two booms was probably well smaller than >>40 seconds. And this speaks against the very first boom being a sonic boom of a missile, like you say.
I do not understand what this means. Can you explain Brendan?
Eugene: “I thought A-A said that for the S-launch the missile would be on a downward slope while for Z-launch on an upward one. That was part of their argument.”
A-A also said that that the actual damage to the aircraft matched an upward slope of +22 degrees. That’s part of the reason they calculated a launch from Z (or east of Z in their updated presentation). They said that a Buk S-launch was not possible because it could not end in their calculated upward slope of +22 deg . So there is no real trajectory model of an S-launch, at least not from A-A, that can be used for calculations. That’s the point I was trying to make.
Brendan calculated that if the missile flew with Micha’s rough profile then the sonic boom from it would reach Aleynikov and those other three posters at around the same time as the missile hit the plane. I am confirming this calculation roughly (I think it’d take even longer). The sound of the missile explosion would reach those same people 48-49 seconds later. Because the first poster was quickest of all his reaction was probably better than 48-14=35 seconds. Therefore the gap between the two booms was shorter than 48 seconds. This speak against the “sonic boom followed by explosion boom” idea, and, in turn, speaks against the sonic boom idea in general.
As a side note, I tried to geolocate more people but failed. I concentrate on those describing the boom as very loud. Remarkably, the first poster and the lady (whose house was shaking), which I managed to locate, both said they could not believe the explosion was that far away when people starting talking about Grabovo and the 9th Mine (even closer).
Brendan, thanks. It’s clear. I also think that those graphs we use are not accurate.
Admin:”Interesting that someone posted that 14 seconds after the first boom/explosion a second could be heared.
That is what Pavel said as well.”
Eugene, did you mean the Vk poster or Aleynikov, when you said he reported one more boom 14 seconds after the first?
> Eugene, did you mean the Vk poster or Aleynikov
The VK poster
Eugene:
“> Eugene, did you mean the Vk poster or Aleynikov
The VK poster”
I thought that the second message 14 seconds later was about the same boom. When JayDi wrote above “Second boom comment was wrote at 13:20:58”, I understood that to mean “The second comment about the (same) boom”. I also thought it was by someone else, not the original poster.
>> Brendan: I thought that the second message 14 seconds later was about the same boom.
No, is was two comments from one person about two different explosions:
1. Russian “ого бахнуло” like English “wow, that loud explosion”.
2. Russian “еще” like English “another one”.
The fact that the second post was from the same user allows us to quite precisely put the second boom on the time line (up to 14 seconds precision). Because if the boom arrived before he wrote his fist post, he’d reflect this in it, such as “two booms heard”
The messages grouped by user: http://pastebin.com/XUjHWnnX (then the users are sorted by the time of the first message)
The messages sorted by time: http://pastebin.com/BqmKNGLg
Confirmed the address of the first poster via an address database. So I am sure about his location and the location of the lady (leftmost). The third (bottom) witness was located based on the pictures with gps tags he took while while walking his dog, so must be close to his living place.
Here is the location of the people, with what they said.
http://savepic.ru/10389177.png
Managed to geolocate another witness. Whether she is talking about the Boeing of the fighter that made the sonic boom is not clear. Though it’s more likely it’s the Boeing 777 she is talking about, as she would need to be very quick to see a fighter. After being alerted by the sonic boom, she had enough time to look out and see the Boeing falling.
http://savepic.ru/10405568.png
Thanks, JayDi and Eugene. That confirms what Pavel A. said about two bangs about 15 seconds apart. It’s possible that he added the second bang to his story later, either subconsciosly or deliberately, after reading or hearing about it.
But the important thing is that it’s true that there were two bangs within a short time of one another, because someone reported them separately and in real time.
Pavel reported his windows shaking, just like the other witness, but I don’t think that he said that until months later, when he told RTL Nieuws on December 22nd 2014:
(translation from Max van der Werff/ kremlintroll.nl ): “It was 4:20 pm. We heard an explosion. Not a very loud one. Fifteen seconds later a loud bang followed and all the windows were shaking.”
If the loud bang was a sonic boom from the alleged launch site south of Snizhne, I don’t know how he could have heard another bang or explosion fifteen seconds earlier.
The sonic boom of the missile flying past should have been the first sound he should have heard. The sound of the launch, if audible at all, should have come soon after that, because its speed (the speed of sound) is much slower than that of the missile. The next sound after that should be the detonation about 45 seconds later.
He could have just imagined it afterwards because it fitted the sequence of events as he saw them. Another possibility is that a missile was launched from a completely different location from the alleged launch site, resulting in different timing of the bangs.
The person posting at 13:22:04 (“началось”), 20 seconds after the first post, also lives not far from Aleynikov – 960m, thanks to the gps exif info automatically gathered by VK/Yandex.
That is, out of that group of people posting about the heard boom, I managed to geolocate three people, all of them living within a kilometer radius from Aleynikov home (it’s interesting that to geolocate one of them I used a Panoramio photo by Aleynikov himself).
Could not figure out how to get message time with vk-api. Is there an addon for Firefox? To get the message time up to a minute one can use an archived copy of the page with old VK interface: https://archive.is/7gYZB
VK API for comments: https://new.vk.com/dev/wall.getComments
You can find owner_id and post_id from url (owner_id: -70279965, post_id: 83850). Set count to 10 or more and press execute button. You get json-data with time in unix format (you can convert unix to datetime in any online converter).
Thanks. Saved entire chat in json format. An epoch converter required to decrypt the date/time can be found here http://www.epochconverter.com.
Screenshot example: http://i68.tinypic.com/wb8ebs.png
Where have you found this form for VK API requests? Could you share the html code if you created it yourself?
Goto vk api documentation: https://new.vk.com/dev/wall.getComments
Form at the bottom of the page.
Hmm… Maybe you need to auth on vk to see it. Or maybe you need to create your first vk app ( https://new.vk.com/dev/main – it’s free) and then try that page.
Try to create your own app: https://new.vk.com/editapp?act=create and then look at api doc’s page.
I construct url for you: https://api.vk.com/method/wall.getComments?owner_id=-70279965&post_id=83850&offset=3&count=10
If you open it in web-browser — you get json data. Use any json-editor to see formated code like that: http://jsoneditoronline.org/
Oh, thank you! A form is not needed then.
For those wanting to save entire chat, use the two urls:
https://api.vk.com/method/wall.getComments?owner_id=-70279965&post_id=83850&offset=7&count=100
https://api.vk.com/method/wall.getComments?owner_id=-70279965&post_id=83850&offset=107&count=100
If you want the chat in a handy format, sorted by user and then by the post time (offset time is there for convenience too), here it is
http://pastebin.com/gtaRKTLd
Sorry, the above log is missing two first messages. Here is a corrected one
http://pastebin.com/XUjHWnnX
In the same group “Eavesdropped in Torez” someone posted a message in the morning of 17th July (08:26:56):
“Just now a fighter flew by” (“Только что пролетел истребитель”)
https://vk.com/wall-70279965?day=17072014&w=wall-70279965_82997
Boom at Torez at 13:20:44 or 13:20:58 can not be MH17 explosion.
BUK launch sound, sonic boom or warhead detonation are IMO the only possibilities if the sound was MH17 related.
Should be sqrt(12^2 + 10^2)
A hypothetical missile launch site that fits all known data and evidences:
47.95224°N 38.8071°E
http://i.imgur.com/Ix2SBku.jpg
Please check.
Why this site is preferable to http://wikimapia.org/#lang=ru&lat=47.973964&lon=38.764095&z=14&m=b ?
1. Positioning of TELAR behind a forest belt is a nonsense. Centimetric waves radars can’t work through trees.
2. Eyewitnesses point to the South of Pervomayskiy (towards Stepanivka).
3. The site fits well the wind speed (including the drift of plume in line with Pavel’s photo_1 and photo_2) and timeline of events, based on Exif intervals of times between Pavel’s photos.
4. New wide gauge caterpillar tracks appeared within July 16-21 with trajectories senseless for farming machines, and a new distinct spot 6 m over.
5. The position is on a waste land, and better hidden from strangers and locals.
6. The launch site is deep below horizon from Pavel’s point of view, so no dirt plume is visible in the photos.
These are the most obvious reasons only.
Max speed of 9M38M1 Buk missile is 1200 m/s. Flight time 33.5 s:
http://i.imgur.com/ItwnHeC.jpg
At the crash site witnesses saw pieces of Malaysian Boeing falling in different directions, Singaporean Boeing flying eastwards and Indian Boeing flying westwards, some witnesses mistook them for Ukrainian military planes. Clouds partially obscured view. Professionals don’t try to determine distance and size by sight, random witnesses try and err.
Graph source: http://lektsiopedia.org/lek-35488.html
BIG thanks for the source!!!
You are wrong. They can’t be confused by other Boeing aircrafts (Singaporean and Indian ) — it was too far from witnesses. And it definitely can’t be heard.
Ups… It was comment to Lena’s post.
Singaporean and Indian Boeings (speeds 15 km/min) were there when Malaysian Boeing’s large and small pieces fell down (small pieces fell slower). The sounds heard by witnesses could be turbulence from Buk missile’s supersonic flight and from (partly damaged) MH17 engines falling down. Sounds were much delayed by speed of sound, that confuses random witnesses.
Nonsense Lena. I am convinced there were one or two Ukraine fighterjets in the area when MH17 was shot down.
1. The fact that Ukraine said radar was switched off in the middle of a war is highly suspicious
2. The fact that Pro-Kiev people deny there were planes gives an indication what truth is
3. The number of eyewitness who claimed to have seen fighterjets at LOW level is an indication for presence
4. The fact that DSB report did not mention that Rostov radar has a limit and aircraft can be under radar is suspicious
5. The fact that DSB did not interview eyewitness on the ground despite the recommendation to do so is strange.
6. The fact that on previous days there were many sorties is a clue on July 17 there were sorties as well
Here an oveview of eyewitness.
https://whathappenedtoflightmh17.com/overview-of-eyewitness-reporting-seeing-military-aircraft/
Yet more likely that there was at least one Russian military jet:
At least Ukraine was believing that till at least July 17th 2014, see
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28345039
To me this report was always the reason I didn’t understand why not more effort was undertaken to exclude Ukrainian air defenses or units from the suspect list, since surely they were hair trigger that day, considering Russian jets were indeed expected any minute to come (again).
At least Ukraine was believing that till at least July 17th 2014, see
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28345039
To me this report was always the reason I didn’t understand why not more effort was undertaken to exclude Ukrainian air defenses or units from the suspect list, since surely they were hair trigger that day, considering Russian jets were indeed expected any minute to come (again).
Maybe because no single Ukrainian air defence unit was revealed near that area? So what efforts do you want from Ukraine to be undertaken? Disproving the clownish claims of Russian MoD which “detected” 9 operating Ukrainians “Kupols” near/in the ATO zone? Let’s better demand from Russian MoD to disprove that a Russian fighter flew near MH17. I can’t understand why no party pays any attention to the real indications it was in Ukrainian airspace at that exact time. These may appear wrong, but at least they are worth checking. Evidently the jet didn’t shot down MH17, but those numerous pro-Russian conspiracists as well as eyewitnesses of flying military jets could calm down at last.
“Maybe because no single Ukrainian air defence unit was revealed near that area? ”
Differing analysis of pictures aside, it wouldn’t make sense to “defend the air” in all the places where there was NO battle and keep away this powerful defense from areas where Russian threats were being detected and even admitted to publicly, drawn attention to it. This is why it’s important to verify Ukrainian military flights that day: it would imply near guaranteed radar coverage and active air cover. Although artillery would need some cover too. Any supportive enemy air raid would be decisive and a possible turning point in the conflict.
I’m still impressed with Andrew’s analysis here:
https://whathappenedtoflightmh17.com/very-detailled-study-on-ukraine-army-positions-near/
Just because it makes more sense, logically, militarily and provides a wider context all other “solutions” are still missing badly . So it needs further scrutiny, is all I’m saying, despite all social media craze over the movement of one or more Russian Buks, which is hard to dispute as well. My sense is that both sides did some very irresponsible things, hence they all keep quiet as not to receive even partial blame of the events as they transpired.
Also I would expect UA to have air defense units in standby at south from Donetsk on Jul 17. (unless they claim of 16Jul RU MIG was propaganda)
But:
-would they dare to launch against RU f.jet? I think not, RU would then wipe out Ukraine overnight.
-medium range systems like BUK need to be kept far from front line to keep them away from anti-armour fire. So they would not be in range for MH17 mistake.
(+if they drove BUK briefly to the frontline to shoot at airliner deliberately, we would have eyewitness records of it)
sotilaspassi,
They has BUK systems near Donetsk city on July 15 (two days before mh17). Geolocated: http://imgur.com/a/yapZ7
at JayDi
Yep. So far all UA BUK units are seen north from the war zone and near Mariupol. None near suitable launch position vs MH17 damage.
“Singaporean and Indian Boeings … were there when…”
Yep. When center section disappeared from PSR view, IMO, those two airliners were in ~2km range from crash site.
Some say BUK missile sound is like F18 with afterburners on, someone might mistake BUK sound as f.jet.
You are convinced. That’s it.
Radars need periodic maintenance. Pre-war radars were redunant, the crash site was in range of 3 primary radars, so maintenance (say 1 day out of each 30) was no problem. Russian bandits destroyed TRLK-8 and Donetsk airport with its radar, so no redundancy now, but periodic maintenance still needs to be done. Unfortunately, maintenance of TRLK-7 coincided with July 17. The crash site was in range of secondary-only radar in Dnepropetrovsk airport. For civilian ATC secondary is enough.
On July 17 military flights weren’t scheduled because Ukrainian Su-25 with Soviet RSBN instrument landing system onboard equipment can’t land in cloudy weather in Dnepropetrovsk airport with incompatible Western ILS land equipment only. Ukrainian Su-25 were based in Dnepropetrovsk airport at the time instead of their native Nikolaev/Kulbakino airfield. So, possibly TRLK-7 maintenance on July 17 was not that much coincidence as an opportunity. Primary radars are more necessary for military ATC than for civilian ATC.
A saying in Russian of criminal investigators: “vret kak ochevidets” (“he lies like an eyewitness”). The saying implies not intentional lies, but biased perceptions and imperfect memory. Witness interrogation made sense on the day of the crash, not later.
I explained the rest, if you ignore my explanations – your problem
It’s not true. First days Ukraine SBU saying what he is not fly because of aircraft repair ( https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-NVPq3gSeO0I/VeCzzwIuTSI/AAAAAAAAO0A/Sl4dVZVvaVE/w681-h252-no/2.JPG ). But after that they talk about cloudy weather (but it was normal weather for su-25 to bomb on wartime’s country).
That screenshot is about single certain pilot (Voloshin) accused by Russians, not about all Ukrainian Su-25s. Voloshin’s interview: http://life.pravda.com.ua/person/2015/08/27/199147/
It’s about all Ukraine aircrafts too: it say what aircrafts not flying on July 17 because ATO’s plan (non any reasons like weather or etc).
and Ukraine had the radar data
ATO plan was because of weather.
It’s hard to believe that radar is turned off right the day after two Su-25 are shot down, one according to Ukraine by a Russian fighter jet. They must have expected bigger Russian air strikes any minute. It must have been red alert.
And then suggest it’s a good day to shut off all radar! It doesn’t make much sense. The reverse actually does: full radar and all SAM installations ready as close as possible to Stepanivka, 20 miles north of Torez, that would make more sense.
Good idea is to do maintenance of your ATC radar when your military is not flying.
(and keep your military radars on)
You’d better sort out yourself, did UA or didn’t they re-started flights!
http://www.depo.ua/rus/life/ukrainskaya-voennaya-aviatsiya-vozobnovila-polety-v-zone-ato-16072014134300
Could you share the source of information that is “Russian bandits destroyed TRLK-8”? Can European bandits? Admin, please tidy up propagandiskie political statements. Nor any official statements about TRLK-8, I have not seen. Lena, share the link to your website UkSATSE if you do not complicate.
As the weather in Dnepropetrovsk. Weather METAR in Kaidak airport. (ICAO code UKDD)
http://rp5.ua/%D0%90%D1%80%D1%85%D0%B8%D0%B2_%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%8B_%D0%B2_%D0%94%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B5,_%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%85_%28%D0%B0%D1%8D%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%82%29,_МЕТАР On 7/17/14
Horizontal visibility – more than 10 km
The lower edge of the cloud – 1 km
thunderstorm near but not at the airport.
Bad weather for military pilots?
And Ukrainian radars that day:
adviser to the head of the SBU statement Markiyan Lubkivsky from December 24, 2014
….. He also stressed
“Information about the absence in the area of disaster Ukrainian warplanes supporting materials of objective control system of radar data collection and processing center of Dnipropetrovsk radiodispetcherskogo enterprise” UkSATSE “for July 17th.”
In original
http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2014/12/24/7053177/
“Также он подчеркнул, что данные об отсутствии в районе катастрофы украинских боевых самолетов подтверждаются материалами объективного контроля системы сбора и обработки радиолокационной информации Днепропетровского радиодиспетчерского центра предприятия “Украэрорух” за 17 июля.”
So the data is there, and they confirm the absence of Ukrainian aircraft, or not? When we speak not the truth?
Any military aircraft has to take off somewhere. All Ukrainian airfields were under PSR coverage by UkSATSE. So the adviser of the head of SBU told about absence of Ukrainian military aircraft only. But Russian airfields were not under PSR coverage by UkSATSE…
More info about timestamps (see vk comments and json-data above):
Sound like MB-21:
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:21:48 GMT: Что это было? (What was that?)
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:22:08 GMT: На Град похоже (like BM-21)
Impact time:
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:22:33 GMT: только что сбили его (it was shutdown)
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:22:47 GMT: упал в вилах (down to vilah)
and Ukraine had the radar data
Ukraine had secondary radar data for the crash site (handed to DSB) and primary radar data for many other areas (but not for the MH17 crash site).
Dnepropetrovsk airport has two radars: secondary-only 48°22’01″N 035°07’17″E with range 190 NM (MH17 crash site covered) and primary+secondary 48°21’45″N 035°06’44E with range 60 NM (crash site not covered, but can prove no military planes from Dnepropetrovsk airport).
Tsjoegoejev was in “maintenance”, military radar “switched off” and yet civilian airspace was kept wide open with eyes blind while Russian jet intrusion and invasion plans were assumed by Ukrainian command. This is hard to digest. Perhaps chaos rules.
https://whathappenedtoflightmh17.com/timeline-of-the-missing-primary-radar-recordings-of-ukraine/
Daniel, I think what likely happened was the following. Russian planes were not flying, that was simply a narrative taken by Ukraine. They’ve been talking a lot of BS, including such outlandish statements as a nuclear bomb was dropped. Now, they simply cannot back off from that statement, and have to invent reasons for why they switched off their radars while allegedly a Russian air assault was ongoing.
There are just too many indications Ukraine wants to hide the fact fighter jets were active on July 17.
I would like to refresh to myself.
Where does UA state their military radars were off 17Jul?
(+ does BUK radar unit record what it sees, to me it would seem pretty useless to have recording built in on (every) air defence HW)
sotilaspassi,
UA do not inform about any radar’s maintenance or military flights pause before mh17 crash. Moreover it was inform on July 16 about started flights after pause (on July 14 was AN-26 crash). And they actively talk about planning Russian invasion on July 15-16.
sotilaspassi: “Where does UA state their military radars were off 17Jul?”
The source I have is page 38 of the final DSB report, quoting Ukrainian MoD: “The Ukrainian civil primary radar stations in the area were not functioning at the time of the crash due to scheduled maintenance. The military primary radar stations were also not operational. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence stated that this system was not operational, because there were no Ukrainian military aircraft in the sector through which flight MH17 flew.”
https://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/uploads/phase-docs/1006/debcd724fe7breport-mh17-crash.pdf
So the official documented Ukrainian claims are: A. “they were all turned off” and B. “because we didn’t have military planes in the air that day”.
>So the official documented Ukrainian claims are: A. “they
>were all turned off” and B. “because we didn’t have
>military planes in the air that day”.
It’s also very telling how much pressure and time it took the Ukrainians to come up with this explanation. Only after a special envoy had been send to Ukraine 9 months after the crash, the Ukrainian side came up with this explication. One wonders how it could have taken them 9 months to realize the RADARs were switched off.
“In the meantime it had become apparent that also for the investigation into the flight route of flight MH17 supplemental information was needed from Ukraine.
At the end of March, a team of investigators from the Dutch Safety Board travelled to Ukraine together with the Dutch Safety Board’s special envoy for international affairs. The objective of this trip was to obtain primary radar data and documents from the Ukrainian military authorities related to the management of the airspace. …
During the visit, the Ukrainian authorities explained why the radar data were unavailable to the Dutch Safety Board.”
http://onderzoeksraad.nl/uploads/phase-docs/1006/42a34fdbd5b2report-mh17-abouttheinvestigation.pdf page 61
Thanks, Daniel.
Don´t forget that the S-200 has a search radar with a range of over 300km. The S-300 even more.
36D6-M1 Radar provides primary surveillance of air space with a range of up to 360 km.
The surveillance radar can be easily connected with any other radar system, for example Dnipro radar.
Distance between Dnepropetrovsk and Torez is 270 km.
Distance between Dnepropetrovsk and Kramatorsk is 190 km.
Distance between Kramatorsk and Torez is 113 km.
If you connect a S-200 or S-300 surveillance radar in Kramatorsk air force base with Dnipro radar the hole ATO area is covered.
Smoke plume’s gif with missile trace: http://uploads.ru/ZAC7p.gif
sotilispassi was good at spotting patterns in the clouds. May be we can ask him for an opinion.
>:(
😉
I skip it for the famous plume image, thanks.
(but the curves can be because of slight wind speed differences at differnet altitudes, BUK should fly straight line to the cloud in MH17 case. If curves are not made by wind, it’s another missile, IMO)
SAB-250-200 smoke: http://sa.uploads.ru/datvb.jpg