Malaysian Airlines Flight 17

[Ric Gillespie]

What I find to be the most credible hypothesis is that Russian separatists, with help from Russian technicians, were using a new (to them) missile system and, in their enthusiasm, mistook the Maylasian 777 for a Ukrainian military transport. 

[JNev]

What I find to be the most credible hypothesis is that Russian separatists, with help from Russian technicians, were using a new (to them) missile system and, in their enthusiasm, mistook the Maylasian 777 for a Ukrainian military transport.

Your hypothesis sounds reasonable to me as a starting point.

What folks need to understand is that the much-heralded 'black boxes' (orange, thanks...) are not going to yield anything except to some degree the tragic and sudden massive failure of systems and structure (no doubt wild excursions of g-load and systems in the nano-seconds leading up to the bitter end). 

To understand this 'accident' (NOT) we need to look into the black boxes that are the minds of the war-faring people involved: all wars are hell, but this little nest of hornets is completely unbridled for taking down a civilian airliner.  It is compounded by the lunacy of a civilian flight having been allowed anywhere near such conflict where any such weapons were in theatre (who knew).

Who is the big brother with the pockets to have made this fiendish toy available to a command structure it had cultivated that couldn't do better than this?  Look to the 'bear' would be my hypothesis (DUH).

[Ric Gillespie]

Let's remember that the U.S. Navy mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner.  The lesson is "steer clear of war zones."  Stopping flights to Tel Aviv is a smart move. 

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

MH17 crash: UK investigators at Farnborough to examine downed plane's black boxes

The Dutch government has asked for the UK's assistance in examining the "black box" flight recorders retrieved from the Malaysia Airlines flight shot down over eastern Ukraine last week.

Latest news is that they are in good condition and they haven't been tampered with. Whether they yield anything which might help with the investigation is another matter but, all avenues have to be explored. Whatever the result the impartiality of the analysis is at least assured.

[JNev]

MH17 crash: UK investigators at Farnborough to examine downed plane's black boxes

The Dutch government has asked for the UK's assistance in examining the "black box" flight recorders retrieved from the Malaysia Airlines flight shot down over eastern Ukraine last week.

Latest news is that they are in good condition and they haven't been tampered with. Whether they yield anything which might help with the investigation is another matter but, all avenues have to be explored. Whatever the result the impartiality of the analysis is at least assured.

Fascinating, but what's to be learned that isn't already evident?  I doubt we'll find any surprises to speak of -

"At such and such time, there was a series of abrubt engine/airframe vibrations (violent vector changes / g accelerations) a nearly simultaneous sudden cabin decompression, loss of normal and essential electrical power, flight controls and instrumentation disruptions followed by vertical and lateral accelerations consistent with loss of primary flight control and the compromise of structural integrity of major airframe components, followed by a departure from stable flight path and loss of altitude as stability and thrust were in decay, followed by... end of signal."

Normally we wouldn't speculate like that of course, but in "operational terms", we're not talking about an "accident" here so I've applied license. 

Think: we're looking at a flagrant combat event - 

- At best we'll get a snapshot of the order of business of the death of an airplane and its occupants as it was assassinated by a missile;
- At worst, the tape will roll on and tell us more about the suffering that may have been endured by anyone unlucky enough to have survived the initial attack long enough to be aware of any portion of the fatal ride to the ground.

How much do you want to know?

What will we glean from it?  "How to make transport airplanes systems and structures more resistent to enemy missile attack"? 

I think not.  I hope we will learn to better apply what Ric said so well above - avoid combat zones.  And we have to face that a combat zone, these days, can be quite portable - so we have to learn to guard against that too.  Maybe we'll see some form of missile avoidance applied commonly to transports in the future, I don't know.  But it is ridiculous to believe that we'll ever 'harden' a transport to withstand a direct missile attack, no matter what we learn of how this bird failed from such an event.

[Monty Fowler]

A lot of it comes down to money? What on this planet doesn't come down to money, in the end?

There are off-the-shelf anti-missile or missile decoy systems available right now. Air Force 1 certainly has them. El Al airline has a missile defense system on some of its overseas route jets. The question for penny-pinching airline execs is: How much safety can we afford? Is it possible to protect against EVERY conceivable threat? Do we even want to?

LTM, who prefers driving these days,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP

[Ric Gillespie]

There are off-the-shelf anti-missile or missile decoy systems available right now. Air Force 1 certainly has them. El Al airline has a missile defense system on some of its overseas route jets.

Ditto for FedEx.  It's a laser system produced by Northrop Grumman that locks onto and confuses the missile's homing device. It can handle multiple launches. Effective but expensive.

[Jeff Scott]

Those laser defensive systems are designed for shoulder-launched MANPADS.  I'm not sure they'd be very effective against something like an SA-11 or SA-20.

[Ric Gillespie]

Those laser defensive systems are designed for shoulder-launched MANPADS.  I'm not sure they'd be very effective against something like an SA-11 or SA-20.

Good point.