It will take a long time for the official investigation results to be published. And in the end: Do we know whether Kazakhstan will stand up to Russia and its cover story of "a flock of geese" ? Geese don't cause shrapnel/bullet hole type damage. The picture quite speaks for itself.
Sorry for the slow reply, Peter -- I agree, the overall picture of what happened seems quite clear now (though the details are hazy in some cases) and we don't really know how independently Kazakhstan will behave in investigating the crash. But it is encouraging that they've sent the black box to Brazil.
@jeffwise : Do you have any idea how an anti-aircraft missile could have gotten close enough to punch all these shrapnel holes, but -- at the same time -- exploded far enough that the airliner remained in 1 piece and kept on flying ?
I find it a little surprising too. No expert in antiaircraft missile systems, so here's a guess: maybe the missile designers want to make a warhead that's big enough to destroy a plane but no bigger, so that you can field more missiles at a lower cost.
A shot from behind, with a proximity fuse that detonates close the tail, might well be inherently less deadly than a head-on shot (like MH17) which detonates into the cockpit.
@jeffwise : What I was trying to get at: The missile is designed to explode when impacting its target, right (especially if it's a heat-seeking missile) ? A civil airliner doesn't have anti-missile decoy flares:
So how come the missile neither hit the aircraft and neither missed it, but exploded close enough to cause the shrapnel holes, but not close enough to rip the aircraft apart? Apparently it exploded at just the right distance to damage the plane but not to cause structural damage or outright rip it apart ? It's a very weird scenario in my opinion.
"causing enough damage to the tail area that the pilots really struggled to maintain control."
The damage seen in the picture (holes) doesn't result in pilots struggling to maintain control. But maybe the hydraulic system was damaged. This might explain the struggle.
I think you're right -- most likely it's not that the blast damaged the control surfaces but that they destroyed the hydraulics. Either way, it led to near total (but not quite) loss of the pilot's ability to control the plane.
Thanks for point that out, Peter. I've changed the language in the post to reflect the fact that it now appears near-certain that the holes were caused by shrapnel, not bullets.
@jeffwise : I'm surprised that you haven't mentioned yet the obvious link to MH17. (I guess there is an upcoming episode on its way ... ;)
I guess I thought it went without saying! But yes, I suppose I should delve into this more once the full picture emerges.
It will take a long time for the official investigation results to be published. And in the end: Do we know whether Kazakhstan will stand up to Russia and its cover story of "a flock of geese" ? Geese don't cause shrapnel/bullet hole type damage. The picture quite speaks for itself.
Sorry for the slow reply, Peter -- I agree, the overall picture of what happened seems quite clear now (though the details are hazy in some cases) and we don't really know how independently Kazakhstan will behave in investigating the crash. But it is encouraging that they've sent the black box to Brazil.
@jeffwise : Do you have any idea how an anti-aircraft missile could have gotten close enough to punch all these shrapnel holes, but -- at the same time -- exploded far enough that the airliner remained in 1 piece and kept on flying ?
I find it a little surprising too. No expert in antiaircraft missile systems, so here's a guess: maybe the missile designers want to make a warhead that's big enough to destroy a plane but no bigger, so that you can field more missiles at a lower cost.
A shot from behind, with a proximity fuse that detonates close the tail, might well be inherently less deadly than a head-on shot (like MH17) which detonates into the cockpit.
@jeffwise : What I was trying to get at: The missile is designed to explode when impacting its target, right (especially if it's a heat-seeking missile) ? A civil airliner doesn't have anti-missile decoy flares:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flare_(countermeasure)
So how come the missile neither hit the aircraft and neither missed it, but exploded close enough to cause the shrapnel holes, but not close enough to rip the aircraft apart? Apparently it exploded at just the right distance to damage the plane but not to cause structural damage or outright rip it apart ? It's a very weird scenario in my opinion.
"causing enough damage to the tail area that the pilots really struggled to maintain control."
The damage seen in the picture (holes) doesn't result in pilots struggling to maintain control. But maybe the hydraulic system was damaged. This might explain the struggle.
I think you're right -- most likely it's not that the blast damaged the control surfaces but that they destroyed the hydraulics. Either way, it led to near total (but not quite) loss of the pilot's ability to control the plane.
@jeffwise : How do "overeager antiaircraft missile operators" cause "bullet holes in the tail area" ?
Thanks for point that out, Peter. I've changed the language in the post to reflect the fact that it now appears near-certain that the holes were caused by shrapnel, not bullets.