Screenshots of Russian radar released by Dutch prosecutor

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updates: added screenshot_2 thx Slozhny, added 1775 was AFL2074. (thx Lena)

 

Dutch Public Prosection Service released two high detailled screenshots of what seems to be a recording of Russian Utes-T primary radar taken from the antenna located in Ust-Donetsk.

So Dutch Prosecutor has been able to view the radar data supplied to the investigation team.

The screenshots show a couple of unknown targets  seen as green + signs. One of the targets with label ‘416’ is a Russian drone which was operating near the Ukraine border.

As there are many other green + signs, these could indicate thunderstorms or other weather related noise. However it is not sure if ahead of MH17 there was weather which could be shown on radar.

Russia stated in a pressrelease these + signs is weather related. If these are weather related, the question arises why a bit more toward the West no + signs are seen. MH17 deviated slightly from course due to weather.

Experts I consulted stated these green + signs showing on the radar screen could be rainshowers. It is known there were thunderstorms and rainshowers in the area.

These could be raw plots as well. However for raw plots it is not uncommon to show a sort of “after glow”. This mean that at the spot where a plussign was shown, at the next rotation of the radar a dot will be shown. After a couple of rotations you can see a line of dots, indicating a moving target. The after glow is missing in the radar recording shown by the Russian MoD in September 2016.

Another possiblity is that these plus signs are tracks. However there is trace (line). With three other planes in the northwest sector there are traces visible. There are blue, yellow and green tracks visible. Green tracks have an unknown sort of number at the upper line of the label. These green tracks are sourced from the primary radar and are targets without SSR.

This is the September 26 2016 press conference of the Russian MoD:

At 6:37 the presenter tells the green + signs is weather related

At 9:18 you can see some of the green + signs disappear

at 12:03 the presenter tells there were no other aircraft which could be responsible for the destruction of MH17 in the area.  However this could have been said to avoid the motive of a shotdown because the presence of fighterjets.

 

This image was taken from the final DSB report. MH17 was returning to the original route so it seems unlikely the three green + signs ahead are reason to deviate for weather.

We cannot rule out these + signs were added by Russia to fool the investigation team.

These could also be Ukraine operated drones. However three drones close to eachother is very unlikely.

US Air Force operates drones over Eastern Ukraine. However these are not reported to have been used before July 17 2014/

Air India flight

Then there is something strange about the Air India flight. It is near the Ukraine/Russia border.

At the the squawk ID of the Air India flight= 3416

However at the screenshot taken from the Dutch prosecutor site the squawk ID is shown as 1476.

This difference is likely to be caused by a change in the squawk ID. When the Air India flight was handed over by Rostov ATC to Ukraine ATC a new squawk was asigned.

 

This video shows that AI113 label changed to a code.

 

Another issue is the “Unknown FL340 365” shown on Flightradar24.

This aircraft is not seen on the screenshots published at the Dutch prosecutor site.

 

The target with label 416 is probably a Russian drone. User VAM make this picture (thx). It shows target 416 close to some building.

Target with ID 1476 is an Air India flight heading towards London. The id’s are known as Squawk ID. This is a unique code provide by Air Traffic Control to identify the aircraft and associate it with a flightplan.

Twitter account made this overlay showing the position of the 3 green + signs at time 13.17:54 . These are clearly in Ukraine controled airspace. Mind this is an error corrected image. The initial published overlay was wrong.

The locations of the screenshots are

Links to the images in the original size (1440×900):
https://www.mh17magazine.nl/binaries/content/gallery/magazines-mh17magazine/mh17magazine/screenshot_1.png
https://www.mh17magazine.nl/binaries/content/gallery/magazines-mh17magazine/mh17magazine/screenshot_2.png
https://www.mh17magazine.nl/binaries/content/gallery/magazines-mh17magazine/mh17magazine/screenshot_3.png
https://www.mh17magazine.nl/binaries/content/gallery/magazines-mh17magazine/mh17magazine/screenshot_4.png
There are other green + targets which *could* be aircraft flying in Ukraine airspace.

Each of the  solid circle shown indicates 100km distance to the radar antenna, and each dotted circle is 50/150/250km

The screenshots raises some questions. The distance to the radar is indicated on the screen as 206 km. However if the distance is checked it seems to be 218 km. (unconfirmed, needs to be verified) 

The photo below shows the same sort of radar screen presented during a pressconference at September 26 by the Russian Federation Ministry of Defence.

At the website of the Dutch prosecutor three large screenshots can be found. These are shown below. Maybe they can help citizen journalists a bit more.

The aircraft showing id ‘0143’ is MH17. The numbers shown are.

• Line 1 = ID no. (asquawk)
• Line 2 = Altitude in meters
• Altitude Line 3 = Speed in km/h
• Line 4 = Azimuth & Distance from radar in Km

The times shown at the screenshots are:

1. 13:12:47 (about 8 minutes before the shotdown)
2. 13:17:54 (two minutes, 9 seconds before shotdown)4722 was SQ351 a Singapore Air 777
   0143 was MH17
   1775 was AFL2074.
   1447 was BR88 ad EVA Air 777
   1466 was J274 an Azerbaijan A320
   1343 was 9W118 a Jet Airways 777 (it’s overlapped on the left)
   1476 or 3416 was AI143 an Air India 787
   2446 was S71024 an S7 A320
   AFL1124 near the middle on top of AFL1104 A330/737
   MOV355 A VIM A3195154 was LH762 a Lufthansa A340

text continues belows the screenshots!

 

 

 

 

There is another screenshot of a Russian ATC system. Picture below was taken from Russian ATFM computer, taken 17 Jul 2014 at 13:20Z. This is the screenshot of the civil radar and it shows only the civil acft. But in case of military acft equipped with SQUAWK it will be shown on the screen of the civil radar. (source Reddit)

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