
MH17 Report - nns
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-34514727
======
nns
Video Reconstruction:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDiLEyT9spI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDiLEyT9spI)

At the 10.30 mark you can see the missile impact on the plane.

~~~
panarky
News article reconstruction:
[https://archive.is/pmMY2](https://archive.is/pmMY2)

Large portions of the NYT article were rewritten after first publication this
morning.

------
danielvf
Here's the full report. (It's in English)

[http://cdn.onderzoeksraad.nl/documents/report-mh17-crash-
en....](http://cdn.onderzoeksraad.nl/documents/report-mh17-crash-en.pdf)

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rogeryu
It's incredible that 61 airlines flew over that area during those days. That
day alone, 160 airplanes flew over East Ukraine before MH17 was hit. Even if
it's safe to fly at 10k height, what happens if you have problems with your
plane, like a failing engine? Next time I fly I'm going to check over which
countries we fly.

~~~
Shivetya
the take away is, do not fly over areas of conflict. why the international
community allowed it, let alone individual airlines did not take their own
action, is beyond me.

On second thought, I wonder if an airline can elect to not fly on certain
corridors because they declare a risk?

~~~
tomlongson
Why not put responsibility with the group that fired the missile? This is
victim blaming.

~~~
freehunter
Just because you put some blame on the victim does not mean you are victim
blaming. Victims are not always 100% responsibility free.

Bank tellers are often instructed to comply with the demands of a robber. If
the teller instead sets off the alarm, locks the doors, and tries to fight the
robber and the teller gets shot, sure, the teller is the victim and the robber
should not have shot the teller. But the teller was also taking an unnecessary
risk by trying to fight the robbery. If the teller had handed over the money,
chances are the robber would have taken it and left without anyone getting
hurt.

That is not victim blaming, that is stating the facts. People can take steps
to minimize their risk of becoming a victim. If they do not take those steps
and as a result are injured in some way, it's prudent to explain how they
could have avoided the negative outcome.

Don't shoot down passenger planes flying over your war. But also, don't fly
passenger planes over an active warzone.

------
bonkabonka
The Aviation Herald has a very good writeup:
[http://avherald.com/h?article=47770f9d/010&opt=0](http://avherald.com/h?article=47770f9d/010&opt=0)

------
escapologybb
Can anyone break down how they knew that the missile exploded within a one
square metre volume of air, just above and to the front of the plane please?

Do they do it just from the pattern of debris, or do they use other methods as
well. I think I got that they can use the microphones in the cockpit to work
out the direction the missile fragments came from, but not quite sure on the
details.

Thanks in advance!

~~~
lennartkoopmann
They triangulated it using the three microphones I guess. Also I guess you can
figure that out by looking at the debris pattern because they seem to have a
lot of knowledge about the used rocket.

~~~
aaren
There were actually four microphones - captain, first officer, cockpit and
observer (see page 46, Figure 9). Four receivers is sufficient to determine
the sound origin at a point in space, with an associated error volume (three
receivers only allows you to determine a curve in space).

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration)

~~~
aaren
The problem is complicated if we consider that the missile is moving at
supersonic speeds (~mach 3 + aircraft speed).

I don't know much about supersonic fluids. For anyone interested in following
this up, here is a paper on "Reproduction of Virtual Sound Sources Moving at
Supersonic Speeds in Wave Field Synthesis":

[http://www.researchgate.net/publication/230702229](http://www.researchgate.net/publication/230702229)

------
benbojangles
Maskirovka:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050674y](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050674y)

------
kushti
Interestingly, it seems everyone has forgotten CNN top news from mid-July:
[http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/15/politics/mh17-pro-
russian-...](http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/15/politics/mh17-pro-russian-
missile-crash-ukraine/) . CNN did spread an outrageous lie, but nobody cares.

~~~
kafkaesq
_CNN did spread an outrageous lie,_

Which was?

~~~
kushti
"Dutch accident investigators say that evidence points to pro-Russian rebels
as being responsible for shooting down MH-17, according to a source who has
seen the report.

According to the source, the report says it was a Buk missile -- a Russian
surface-to-air missile -- that was used, launched from a village in Russian
rebel controlled territory. "

~~~
tptacek
I'm not following. Everything in that CNN story seems to line up with the
Dutch report, down to the type of missile system used.

~~~
kushti
Please point to the village name in the report then.

~~~
kafkaesq
The key finding in the report was that the missile was fired from a
specifically calculated area -- shown in red, in figure 62 -- that lay
squarely within rebel-held territory. This by itself is quite damning for the
pro-Russian side.

Whether the missile happened to have been fired from one of the 3 villages
within that area, or from unincorporated territory is basically irrelevant to
the report's main conclusions. And whether some CNN reporter, or his editor,
may have fudged a bit on this basically irrelevant detail (shortening "fired
from an area near village X" to "fired from village X"), even more so.

------
pms
It was all known thanks to Bellingcat since at least 1 year.

~~~
rtkwe
Bellingcat's reporting takes for granted that a BUK was used based on a good
amount of evidence there there were BUKs in the area and there was a missile
fired from the ground. They didn't and couldn't prove that it was what hit and
downed MH17, they didn't have access to the physical evidence and flight
recorder.

They seem to have done a lot of good work trying to track the launcher down
and analysing the evidence that was available to them, though I haven't been
following their reporting. Without the physical evidence being analyzed the
link between the BUK and the plane was strong but not confirmed.

~~~
pms
I fully agree with that, yet they were right since over a year. They do a
decent job making the most out of the "open-source" evidence they have access
to.

------
ed_blackburn
I anticipate lot of bluster. The perpetrators perhaps being named but
ultimately nothing happening. A lot of nations do not recognise courts higher
than their own sovereignty so will not extradite. Especially if they deem the
charge to be politically motivated. Right or wrong. Russia will contest this
report, and any other.

Basically someone messed up with a borrowed bit of heavy kit and a tragedy
ensued. There will be no justice for them or their families. Poor bastards,
can only hope the report is accurate and any suffering was brief.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Keep in mind that around 6000 people (maybe outdated number) died from that
war so far. I doubt they're getting justice for them or their families either.
They might get a scapegoat in some time, however. Even a very guilty one.

~~~
ed_blackburn
Exactly my thoughts too.

------
SuddsMcDuff
I find it really fascinating that they've gone to such lengths to literally
recreate a large portion of the plane from the wreckage in order to better
understand what happened.

I can't help but think though, why weren't similar measures taken with Flight
93 (Pennsylvania, 2001-09-11) or Flight 77 (Pentagon, 2001-09-11)? I don't
wish to allude to any of the many conspiracy theories, but I do find it
interesting to see how a "real" crash investigation is done, as opposed to
what we've been told about 9-11.

~~~
stvswn
I see you're interested in the history of the 9/11 attacks!

Here's a 600 page report with over 100 pages of footnotes. The first chapter
deals with the hijackings. You can start your research there!
[http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf](http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf)

In later chapters, there's a lot of discussion about the terrorist group that
planned the hijackings, and not much discussion on missile ballistics. That's
because the former happened as a matter of fact, the latter is pure fantasy.

~~~
SuddsMcDuff
Thanks, I've read much of the report of course. What you notice about the
report is that there's a tremendous focus on the build up to the attacks, the
context and the aftermath, but it's very light on the technical analysis of
the actual event that you would normally see in an air crash investigation -
such as what we're now seeing with MH17. Admittedly the two events are hardly
comparable, but I stand by my observation that there's a distinct disparity
between the amount & quality of information that's being disseminated. There
may be perfectly good reasons for that.

~~~
stvswn
In other air crash investigations, the technical analysis is the most
important part -- because a technical component failed, or because the type of
missile needs to be deduced, etc. In the 9/11 attacks, people intentionally
flew the planes into buildings. There is not much to talk about, technically
-- the control systems worked as intended, and the technology used by the
attackers only got as sophisticated as box cutters.

So what would you like to see? A detailed analysis of all of the ways the
plane did exactly what you'd expect? Do you think the onus is on the
investigators to disprove conspiracy theories? It's like you want a report
called "Why it wasn't a missile: a detailed report on how Flight 93 looks like
what you'd expect if terrorists hijacked a plane and crashed it into the
ground."

You're asking others to disprove your hypothesis, for which there's no
evidence in the positive, while ignoring competing evidence. This is the
hallmark of bad conspiracy theories.

