Malaysian Airlines MH17 - plane crash, near Donetsk, Ukraine.

Politics, why's and how's aside...I just feel really heartbroken for the people who loved those on board the flight, and for those who have to go over there to investigate and recover the bits and pieces of the adults and children who were in it! I just hope whatever happened, that the suffering was over as quick as possible....I dread to think how terrified people were if they were even concious for a second when it all happened. So so sad :arghh::(
 
SalsaFaye1983 said:
Politics, why's and how's aside...I just feel really heartbroken for the people who loved those on board the flight, and for those who have to go over there to investigate and recover the bits and pieces of the adults and children who were in it! I just hope whatever happened, that the suffering was over as quick as possible....I dread to think how terrified people were if they were even concious for a second when it all happened. So so sad :arghh::(
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You would lose consciousness very quickly at 33,000 feet due to the incredibly low partial pressure of oxygen. So probably not many were conscious for long after the fuselage was destroyed.
They may have regained consciousness as they fell to lower altitudes, however.
 
Unlikely that anyone would have been conscious after the aircraft broke up. There's not enough oxygen at 30,000 to sustain life so everyone would be out like a light pretty instantly. A few might have started to come round on the way down, but probably wouldn't have been sufficiently with it to work out what was happening.
 
Bernie174 said:
Unlikely that anyone would have been conscious after the aircraft broke up. There's not enough oxygen at 30,000 to sustain life so everyone would be out like a light pretty instantly. A few might have started to come round on the way down, but probably wouldn't have been sufficiently with it to work out what was happening.
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There isn't enough oxygen @ 30,000ft to sustain human life for very long it's true. But "useful" consciousness, in test conditions, of around 2 minutes is common; and continued consciousness but with loss of cognitive functions of around 6 minutes is also common.
I would think though, that possible injury, or even sheer panic would result in very swift uncosciousness at that sort of altitude. Poor sods. :(
 
There isn't enough oxygen @ 30,000ft to sustain human life for very long it's true. But "useful" consciousness, in test conditions, of around 2 minutes is common; and continued consciousness but with loss of cognitive functions of around 6 minutes is also common.
I would think though, that possible injury, or even sheer panic would result in very swift uncosciousness at that sort of altitude. Poor sods
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The time is between 1 minute and 30 seconds assuming you are at rest. BUT, it's reduced by 50% if a rapid decompression and reduced again if doing any form of exercise. While the pax were sat and theoretically at rest, the heart rate would go sky high as a break up happened, so equivalent to very hard exercise, meaning your heart wants much more oxygen that your lungs can deliver. At that point the brain goes to screensave. You'd be unlucky if that process was more than one or 2 seconds.
My source? One of the Pathologists after Lockabie.

Some people might start to come round on the way down, as they get to more oxygen rich air. But at terminal velocity, by the time the brain goes though start up, it would be that final 1/2 inch time, ie the bit that causes the damage.

Obviously a number of people would die instantly, if it was a SAM, they don't at many think, strike the aircraft, they explode nearby and 'pepper' the aircraft with shrapnel.
 
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viv1969 said:
There isn't enough oxygen @ 30,000ft to sustain human life for very long it's true. But "useful" consciousness, in test conditions, of around 2 minutes is common; and continued consciousness but with loss of cognitive functions of around 6 minutes is also common.
I would think though, that possible injury, or even sheer panic would result in very swift uncosciousness at that sort of altitude. Poor sods. :(
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An extremely rapid drop in oxygen partial pressure can knock someone out in seconds. Especially if it is preceded by or concomitant with rapid hyperventilation or increased heart rate.
Kids do something similar with that playground fainting game (although the mechanism is different in a number of ways it demonstrates how quickly someone can lose consciousness under the correct conditions).
 
Bernie174 said:
The time is between 1 minute and 30 seconds assuming you are at rest. BUT, it's reduced by 50% if a rapid decompression and reduced again if doing any form of exercise. While the pax were sat and theoretically at rest, the heart rate would go sky high as a break up happened, so equivalent to very hard exercise, meaning your heart wants much more oxygen that your lungs can deliver. At that point the brain goes to screensave. You'd be unlucky if that process was more than one or 2 seconds.
My source? One of the Pathologists after Lockabie.

Some people might start to come round on the way down, as they get to more oxygen rich air. But at terminal velocity, by the time the brain goes though start up, it would be that final 1/2 inch time, ie the bit that causes the damage.

Obviously a number of people would die instantly, if it was a SAM, they don't at many think, strike the aircraft, they explode nearby and 'pepper' the aircraft with shrapnel.
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Don't get bent out of shape Bernie, I'm merely quoting information provided by someone who carries out altitude testing for a living, in test conditions as previously pointed out.
 
viv1969 said:
There isn't enough oxygen @ 30,000ft to sustain human life for very long it's true. But "useful" consciousness, in test conditions, of around 2 minutes is common; and continued consciousness but with loss of cognitive functions of around 6 minutes is also common.
I would think though, that possible injury, or even sheer panic would result in very swift uncosciousness at that sort of altitude. Poor sods. :(
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Hope so, I'd like to think shock/heart attack would kick in so they would be unaware of what happened. A horrible incident
 
Alleged audio recording of communication between Russian Military Officers & Pro-Russian Separatists talking after they realized they shot down a civilian plane.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-28362872

I don't speak Russian but they don't sound very remorseful upon realising it's a plane full of civilians - the suggestion that it was a plane full of spies would be laughable if the consequences weren't so tragic.
 
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MWHCVT said:
Tragic really, however I was reading a story of someone who missed being on both flights, the world is full of weird coincidences...
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Indeed. I imagine the person from your story is looking at life from a new perspective.
 
ACW said:
Indeed. I imagine the person from your story is looking at life from a new perspective.
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Indeed, though I don't think I'd stay on any flight he misses :lol: it's really just terribly tragic :(
 
One victim from Bristol (home city), on his way to a year's study in Australia - very sad, as it is for everyone who died :(

and now saying 80 children amongst the dead ... really terrible :(
 
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Appalling loss of life and the augueing just cheapens the loss so much more.

Putins licenced dogs but he cares not he is moving towards a stalin idealism.
 
Lifted by a friend from FB tonight

10455333_877349332293076_7078999944164258225_n.jpg


my understanding is that it roughly says it's outside the Embassies of the Netherlands in Kyiv and Moscow giving the numbers of deaths and a commentary on deducing who lives in a civilised world.
 
daugirdas said:
Tragic news. What else can you expect while Putin is in power? I fear there is a lot worse to come
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i agree its very much moving towards a dictatorship.
 
Phone video footage emerging this morning of a missile truck being spirited out of the area into Russia on the back of a transporter.

Black boxes reported to have been found and sent to Moscow.
The rebel fighters are restricting access to the area and shot over the head of investigators yesterday.
Putin is accusing the Ukrainian army.

I now doubt the truth will ever come out. The evidence has already gone.
 
Wouldn't be so sure about that Byker.

The launcher may well have gone, but it's not difficult to work out where it was fired from.
The aircraft position can be worked out. The destruction sequence is easy enough to establish, and so working out the angle and direction of the missile can be established. Once you have that, you have a rough idea of where it was fired from and you'll be able to establish a firing point. If its in rebel held ground, it's clear cut who. The part of the missile can then be looked at, and what type it was established. None of this is new it's straight forward investigation. You'd be surprised what can be worked out from piles of bits.
 
camerassassin said:
Lifted by a friend from FB tonight

10455333_877349332293076_7078999944164258225_n.jpg


my understanding is that it roughly says it's outside the Embassies of the Netherlands in Kyiv and Moscow giving the numbers of deaths and a commentary on deducing who lives in a civilised world.
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Have to say I find that to be a nonsense.
Should there be useless piles of flowers outside all Netherland embassies because of this?
It's ineffectual nonsense which just serves to make people feel a part of something they are not a part of.
 
It's ineffectual nonsense which just serves to make people feel a part of something they are not a part of.
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I agree! Also like people who have nothing to do with it saying RIP constantly. It's as if they need the world to think they are something to do with it!
 
MWHCVT said:
Tragic really, however I was reading a story of someone who missed being on both flights, the world is full of weird coincidences...
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On the other hand cynical me loves the story on QI of the Japanese man who was traumatised by the nuclear explosion in Hiroshima so he went to recover in Nagaski!

Life is the 'Appointment in Samarra'!

More relevantly, with all the hand wringing over Thurday's diabolical murders, and all the political posturing, we know exactly where the USS Vincennes fired exactly which missile to murder the passengers on Iran Air 655!
 
Yves Geza said:
More relevantly, with all the hand wringing over Thurday's diabolical murders, and all the political posturing, we know exactly where the USS Vincennes fired exactly which missile to murder the passengers on Iran Air 655!
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Which ultimately lead to Lockerbie, but I don't get your point.

There's been other flights shot down before, the soviets shot down a Korean airplane in 1983, Israel shot down a plane in 1973 that ignored warning shots and signs to land, but I think where Putin is placing doubt is someones remembered that Ukraine shot down a siberian flight during exercises shooting at drones in 2001
 
It seems to me that no one is thinking this through.
Jonathan's analogy is correct, the circumstances are almost exactly the same, in Vincennes, the Airliner was misidentified as a military aircraft, the incident was human error. Now that shouldn't have happened, it was a Professional crew (as professional as the US can be!), with every aid to identify known to man, except an up to date time table of airlines.
Who supplied the SAM Battery in the Malaysian incident really doesn't matter much, it was the finger on the button that shot down the aircraft. It's perhaps a little less surprising given it was a rebel missile crew, with a system that may well have the safe guards, but requires a great deal of skill to use those fail safes. While it can be a 'safe' system, remember it was designed for use in a European war, where anything in that bit of sky going that was is hostile and fair game.
Whatever way you look at it, they clearly didn't know it was a civil airliner, with nothing to do with the regions troubles, any more than the Vincennes crew did. In both incidents, the mind set at the point of firing was the aircraft were military.
Ok, poo shouldn't happen, but it does. More so in 'indistinct' warfare, where the days of 2 lines of trenches and an easily defined threat existed no longer exist.
 
The Ukraine forces in the area are a little cut off so they've been using transport planes to resupply the troops. Thus the need for the rebels to have anti air. One rebel leader did broadcast that they'd captured a launcher, complete with serial numbers.

However, they aren't simple units to use and need skilled troops. It's well known that Russian special forces are assisting the rebels, it wouldn't surprise me if these have had minimal training in the use to provide assistance in its operation.

Slight difference in that the Vincennes issued several radio challenges and fired after that, however was in Iranian waters. Unlike the rebels, these were supposed to be highly trained operators with top equipment however thee were several errors made, attributed to inexperienced crew,

There is video footage around of a buk missile system being quickly moved out of the area
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-shows-buk-missile-system-en-route-to-russia/
 
My info [ from people/friends in Ukraine ] is that the Buk is just one 'vehicle' and to make it operational [ badly explained] another two units are also needed - and the three parts are operated by a trained crew of between 12 and 15 operators.
 
Byker28i said:
The Ukraine forces in the area are a little cut off so they've been using transport planes to resupply the troops. Thus the need for the rebels to have anti air. One rebel leader did broadcast that they'd captured a launcher, complete with serial numbers.

However, they aren't simple units to use and need skilled troops. It's well known that Russian special forces are assisting the rebels, it wouldn't surprise me if these have had minimal training in the use to provide assistance in its operation.

Slight difference in that the Vincennes issued several radio challenges and fired after that, however was in Iranian waters. Unlike the rebels, these were supposed to be highly trained operators with top equipment however thee were several errors made, attributed to inexperienced crew,

There is video footage around of a buk missile system being quickly moved out of the area
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-shows-buk-missile-system-en-route-to-russia/
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Now that was interesting...thanks.
 
camerassassin said:
My info [ from people/friends in Ukraine ] is that the Buk is just one 'vehicle' and to make it operational [ badly explained] another two units are also needed - and the three parts are operated by a trained crew of between 12 and 15 operators.
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Nope they are usually part of a system but they are a self contained unit and can be used on their own, however they won't have the sophisticated identification and control system,this is easily where the mistaken identification came from. The rebels used the gadfly to shoot down a Ukraine Antonio on Monday.

Add that to what strelkov was saying
http://www.businessinsider.com/igor-strelkov-comments-on-malaysia-mh17-2014-7
 
From what I understand of the system is that the basic operation is reasonably simple. Lock target, press fire. It could be therefore used by a 'rebel' crew. The other thing to remember is that this is a standard Soviet era bit of kit. All Males in the former Soviet Union had to do military Service, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the rebels had people who could use it in basic operation.
The complex bit, again, from what I understand is the Radar and it's IFF (Identification Friend or Foe, or whatever that is in Russian!), and its ability to interrogate Airline Squawk codes. The fact that this apparently wasn't used kind of weakens the case that Russian Special Forces were involved.
Of course that all goes for a ball of chalk if it was used in Infra red mode, which looks like a possibility as one video shows the aircraft coming down what looks like mostly in one bit by an engine burning very badly. Again though, it's IR mode is apparently easy to use, more so if you have someone who was trained in previous years.
 
How do you know this Bernie?
 
OK let's correct statements with the facts


When fielded, a Buk firing battery consists of:

  • the 9S18M1Target Acquisition Radar used to acquire potential aerial targets, and transmit their position and tracks to:
  • the 9S470M1 Command Post (CP) vehicle (contains the missile battery's data display and control system; digital fire-control computer, which assigns targets to individual launchers, and computes the engagement)
  • one or more 9A310M1S launchers each armed with four radar-guided missiles.
All three of these systems are vehicle-mounted.

In a normal engagement, all three would operate as an integrated weapon system, and the crew of the Command Post vehicle are likely to have a good idea of the local air activity.

However, a Buk launcher can also operate in stand-alone mode. Its built-in radar is normally used to track the target being engaged, but can be operated in a target-detection mode, allowing it to autonomously engage targets that were present in the radar's forward field of view.

Although it has it own Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system, this is only able to establish whether the target being tracked is a friendly aircraft. It is the electronic equivalent of a sentry calling out "Who goes there?” If there is no reply, all you know is that it is not one of your own side's combat aircraft. It would not give you a warning that you were tracking an airliner.

Operating Buk hardware would require a trained crew - personnel who are currently trained operators, or who learned how to operate the hardware while serving as conscripts.

Source: Janes - http://press.ihs.com/press-release/...nalysis-capabilities-ukraines-missile-systems


The Gadfly also comprises a digital computer system, a TV optical sight, a laser range finder, navigation and communications equipment and the IFF interrogator. During the aquisition, the target is tracked by radar and attempts to identify with IFF and through the recognition system using the data in the computer system but at height, this may prove difficult. Once the missile is launched, the system will transmit flight corrections to it. Against an unarmed airliner, once launched it was certain of a hit. If it's the M1-2 version then the 9M38M1 missiles or new 9M317 missiles will go to 72,000 feet. Well within the capability of striking down an aircraft at 30,000 + feet.


All Males in the former Soviet Union had to do military Service, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the rebels had people who could use it in basic operation.
Whilst this is true, you need some pretty specific training to be able to use it. There's no doubting it's ability, as they've shot down helicopters and a transport in the region in the last two weeks. The question has to be asked why the airlines weren't actively avoiding the area (apart from cost)
 
As for russia supplying arms

On June 14, NATO published a report and images supposedly showing unmarked T-64s crossing from Russia into Ukraine (source: http://aco.nato.int/statement-on-russian-main-battle-tanks.aspx). Six days later, Twitter user @mstyslav9 posted a photo claimign it showed a T-64 belonging to the Donetsk People’s Republic separatist army. (source: https://BANNED/mstyslav9/status/479933743776686080/photo/1)

The Ukraine government captured one of the T64's and published the serial numbers from which Janes traced it to russia. )Source: http://www.janes.com/article/40139/ukraine-captures-russian-t-64-mbt-near-donetsk)

Now Russia probably thought it was being clever supplying similar models that the ukraine army had, but forgot about serial numbers. With the tank being heavily used in Russia and Ukraine, and being a fairly simple weapon, it's easy to assume the rebels would have had people who could use these. However they are vulnerable to attack from the air, hence the supply of shoulder anti air weapons and the possibly the why the Gadfly was sought. The rebels did boast last week of capturing one, but this was denied by Ukraine, so the source is still in doubt (Source: http://en.itar-tass.com/world/738262)
 
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Whilst this is true, you need some pretty specific training to be able to use it. There's no doubting it's ability, as they've shot down helicopters and a transport in the region in the last two weeks. The question has to be asked why the airlines weren't actively avoiding the area (apart from cost)
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And conscript training is pretty specific. The USSR's army was very large, and very heavy on Anti Aircraft Artillery, which is what this system is. It had to to defend a very long logistics trail, without which it's front couldn't continue to attack.
Given the numbers of people involved in conscription, it's very likely the rebels do have people qualified, at least in earlier versions. In which case, its not beyond the realms of possibility it was used in simplified mode.
But it really doesn't make any difference as to where they got it, they obviously did (do) have at least one.
As for using the IFF, what codes would they be looking for? None, the rebels don't have any aircraft, so it's an irrelevance using that system.

The nub of the matter is why airlines were using that route. Eurocontrol hadn't NOTAM'd it at the level the aircraft was at. Therefore the airlines had no reason to not use that airway. It's as simple as that.
Anticipating your next point, why hadn't Eurocontrol closed that route? I'd say one of 2 reasons.
Firstly no one who might have known thought about telling Eurocontrol. A very likely possibility. Or more likely, if no one knew in the West the rebels had that system, then there was no reason for Eurocontrol to act. If they were undere the impression it was a different system, with a lower Engagement envelope, they may have simply added a few thousand feet and kept open the airspace above that level.

It's not excusing what happened, but there's no evidence that anyone thought this was an airliner when they pushed the button, so I'm not sure what point you are trying to make?
 
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Thank you Byker for confirming [ in more detail ] what I had been told as regards the 3 parts needed for firing the Buk .
 
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