Ruzzo 59 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 A Malaysian airliner with 295 people on board has crashed in Ukraine near the border with Russia, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, reports say. Suspected to be 9M-MRD. Was it shot down? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28354856 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhUkqs9CQ0w Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 oh sh-t this is not good Link to post Share on other sites
MyPC8MyBrain 273 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me Link to post Share on other sites
Ruzzo 59 Posted July 17, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 Daniel Sandford, BBC's Moscow correspondent was on the BBC News channel just now and said "The Ukrainian Rebels had claimed to have shot down a plane today." This is of course, unconfirmed. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 Do the Ukranian rebels have SAMs? If it was in fact a shoot-down, this was not a Stinger or Grail type shoulder fired weapon. Those lack the range to reach an AC at 10,000 m. If not a SAM it could have been an A-A missile from a warplane. If this was an accidental shoot-down by Russian or pro-Russian Ukranians, and it becomes publicly known and accepted as fact, this might tend to put the brakes on Putin's adventurism a little. He wants territory, but also wants to retain "respectability". If his minions did this, that's not going to be good news for him. John Link to post Share on other sites
Ruzzo 59 Posted July 17, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 John, It's claimed that the plane was shot down by a BUK surface-to-air missile. Link to post Share on other sites
MyPC8MyBrain 273 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 don’t they have decoy flares?i know for a fact a heavy airliner that all their fleet has flare decoy systems in themsad, they probably didnt even see this comming Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,497 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 Shocking news, only just heard, Malaysia must be wondering why us? Again? Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 Malaysian airlines are really taking some hits at the moment! Prayers go out to all those affected. If it turns out that this aircraft was shot down then the public and worldwide outcry will jump all over the perpetrators. Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,497 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 Apparently the US will have access to satellite imagery that should be able to identify ultra-violet plumes if a long-range surface-to-air missile was fired. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 This is going to cause a very big world wide reaction if it was indeed shot down. If on the other hand it was a malfunction then Boeing will have some questions to awnser. Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 holiday flights are already down by 32% this summer and forward bookings are even worse due to a number of things, however the latest security measures ie mobile phones and this latest shootdown are also going to have an effect on air travel. the world as we knew it, is changing faster than we can imagine Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 I bet its sent shockwaves through the crowd at Farnborough this week! Link to post Share on other sites
flybytes 34 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 This was another Malaysian (Joe, why am I recently struggling to paste words into this forum?) Boeing 777, so soon after their airline loss recently. The escalation of events in the Ukraine are very worrying, Russia's Putin is currently probably the World's most dangerous leader, ahead of those in N. Korea & some of the Middle East countries. Ray. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 The Ukraine military and, of course the Russian military, have BUK systems. It's unknown whether the Ukranian rebels have control of any of these systems (or something similar) or not, however, to the extent that the pro-Russian Ukranian rebels are supplied or augmented by Russia and possibly even by Russian Spetznaz commandos pretending to be Urkanians, the probability increases. Flares would not work as a deterrent in this case. Long range SAMs are radar guided. Flares are intended to provide protection from IR-seekers, i.e. typical shoulder-fired, short range MANPADs like the US Stinger or the Russian Grail systems. Those short range shoulder-fired weapons are considered to be likely terrorist weapons and AC are vulnerable to them on approach and departure, i.e. when low and slow. A triple-7 at 33,000' is only vulnerable to the larger systems, but they could also be brought down by A-A weapons from a warplane. Some air-air missiles (e.g. Sidewinder) are IR-seekers and can sometimes be spoofed by flares though most have much more sophisticated guidance than the MANPADs and are less likely to be fooled. IR A-A missiles are generally short range dogfighting missiles. Longer range air-air weapons tend to be radar guided. John 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Ruzzo 59 Posted July 17, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 One report says bodies or body parts found over a seven mile area. John Link to post Share on other sites
flybytes 34 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 It does appear that Russia is waging a war on the Ukraine by proxy, arming amateur rebel groups in Eastern Ukraine with modern weapons, guided by masked/anonymous Russian military experts apparently thinking that they are running the show is a recipe for disaster. Under these conditions, reasonable national safeguards or chains of command go out of the window. Hopefully, & sadly for all those on board the aircraft, this was an accident, but events seem to indicate otherwise. Have to take a slight issue with John/allardjd, for a short time I was involved with anti-aircraft missile systems about 15-years ago, during which time I was under the 'UK Official Secrets Act'; whilst single to 3 man/portable missile systems at the time would be lucky to shoot down an aircraft at 30 to 40 thousand feet. it was not impossible. 15-years later, technology has moved on & I will be surprised If either the US, UK, China or even Russia does not have the capability to shoot down a high altitude civilian aircraft with a lightweight, portable missile system. Ray. Link to post Share on other sites
hurricanemk1c 195 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/slideshow?articleId=USRTR3Z2GM#a=1 Looks like it did indeed impact in Ukraine. i wasn't sure to begin with from those photos - nothing to show a 777, only a large aircraft. There were reports of an IL-76 being shot down around Ukraine today as well Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 I don't have any access to "official" information, secret or otherwise, so am dependent upon what's in the public domain... Wiki says, about MANPADS, "Shoulder-fired SAMs generally have a target detection range of about 6 miles (10 km) and an engagement range of about 4 miles (6 km), so aircraft flying at 20,000 feet (6,100 m) (3.8 miles) or higher are relatively safe." A 4 mile engagement range gets it to around 20,000 feet, going straight up, which is going to be a tough shot. Even if the light missiles have the capability to reach the 33,000 ft. engagement height in this event, the concept of "lead time", i.e. knowing where the target AC is approaching from and where to point the weapon leads to a very brief "window of opportunity" for a MANPAD at the surface to intercept a high-flying airliner. If there's an overcast it's worse. If, however, the MANPADS operator is supported by other intelligence, i.e. by radar data, his odds improve somewhat. I doubt an IR seeker of the type used in these weapons can see leading edge heat at 6+ miles and may well barely be able to see exhaust heat at that range. If the seeker is locked onto exhaust heat, it becomes a tail-chase engagement for the missile, and at that range, I just can't see a 40 lb missile winning that race. Another factor is the very small warhead that MANPADS missiles carry - something in the five pound range, if I remember correctly. Given that they are heat seekers, impact with an engine is most likely, so a hit by one on a 777 sized target might be survivable - or not. In the absence of any hard data about newer systems, my engineering sense leads me to stick with my opinion that the probablility of a MANPADS kill at that height is so vanishingly small, it's nigh unto impossible. It may be that this was an accident and not a shoot-down at all, but if it was a missile, my money is on a full-fledged SAM or possibly an A-A missile. John Link to post Share on other sites
flybytes 34 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 John, The missile system I was involved with combined all those aiming systems - IR/heat seeking, radar & ground optical control, but the war-head capability was yet another military secret to me. Ray. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 This suggests that the pro-Russian rebels are the culprit and engaged what they thought was a Ukranian military transport with a captured BUK system. It's plausible.... http://news.yahoo.com/rebel-suggests-insurgents-shot-down-malaysia-plane-mistake-174750060.html Link to post Share on other sites
flybytes 34 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 If this was a military action for loss of a civilian airliner, why was an airline flying over potentially/or surely hostile territory allowed to fly over this airspace? Ray. Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 The aircraft was at 33,000 + . The no fly zone was 31,000 after a Ukrainian transport was brought down. 2,000 ft is no distance for a missile. Reports so far saying 124 Dutch, 4 British, also French, Belgian , American and Malaysian nationals aboard. There was no MAYDAY call indicating that whatever happened was sudden and catastrophic. Witnesses say they heard several bangs and saw debris coming down. Worryingly this also seems to have been the case with MH370....also a B777! Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 News stations here are reporting 23 Americans. John Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now