Jet Wreckage Bears Signs of Impact by Supersonic Missile, Analysis Shows

[MinneapolisMatt]

A piece of wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 that was shot down in eastern Ukraine last week bears telltale marks of small pieces of high-velocity shrapnel that apparently crippled the jet in flight. Riddled with these perforations and buffeted by a blast wave as it flew high above the conflict zone, the plane then most likely sheared apart.

The wreckage, photographed by two reporters for The New York Times in a field several miles from where the largest concentration of the Boeing’s debris settled, suggests that the destruction of the aircraft was caused by a supersonic missile that apparently exploded near the jet as it flew 33,000 feet above the ground, according to an analysis of the photographs by IHS Jane’s, the defense consultancy.

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Lots more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/world/europe/jet-wreckage-bears-signs-of-impact-by-supersonic-missile-analysis-shows.html

[Luminous Animal]

1. What is a supersonic missile?

[MinneapolisMatt]

2. From the article:

Rather than striking an aircraft directly, missiles in this class fly a course that is designed to intercept the targeted aircraft and explode beneath it, creating a cloud of shrapnel.

At the end of the missiles’ flight, they act “more like a shotgun than a rifle,” Mr. Foster said, adding: “one is attempting to put as many consistently sized, low-drag fragments into the airframe as possible.”

[itsrobert]

4. So did the passengers die instantly?

I would think I would prefer the direct hit (less suffering), than a bunch of smaller fragments tearing the plane apart.

[geek tragedy]

5. unlikely in either event--missiles are designed to be just powerful enough

to bring the plane down (lighter warhead means further range and faster velocity), not incinerate the entire plane.

[Amonester]

8. Maybe not all of them did instantly, but without enough oxygen, and atmospheric pressure...

and perhaps a lot of metallic debris being tossed around at high speeds, those who survived for a few seconds more must have suffered an awful lot.

Hard to imagine.

[geek tragedy]

3. key graph:

The damage, including the shrapnel holes and blistered paint on a panel of the destroyed plane’s exterior, is consistent with the effects of a fragmenting warhead carried by an SA-11 missile, known in Russian as a Buk, the type of missile that American officials have said was the probable culprit in the downing of the plane.

[Igel]

6. But there's still a problem.

It's consistent with any shrapnel warhead. Those apparently include the SA-11, other SA systems, as well as air-to-air missiles.

What's needed are pieces of the warhead, of the shrapnel. To narrow it down from just a Buk-compatible missile to some specific warhead that rules out some systems or requires a specific system.

A metallurgical analysis might also show age (since the formulation of the shrapnel or shell casing may have changed over time) or place of manufacture (there being no guarantee that all manufacturing sites used precisely the same steel).

[geek tragedy]

7. Pretty sure those fragments have all been removed by the gents on the ground

This is close enough, and the absence of fragments of the rocket will certainly support an adverse inference

[catnhatnh]

9. I don't know...

...it kind of looks like a spark ignited fuel vapors in the center fuel tank....

[Fawke Em]

10. Hate to be glib about such a tragedy, but

good one.



That said, my apologies to the victims' families and I am so sorry their loved ones had to face this awful tragedy.

[catnhatnh]

11. Yeah-I pushed the line a bit...

...my intention was more to ridicule the idea that a firm diagnosis could be made based on one photo of a small piece of the plane...



Edit to add-or that we should trust everything the government or newspapers say...