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Ukraine airline crash Tehran 16

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Not sure I follow that line of reasoning; I think Iran's physical territory hasn't been in an air war since the elder Bush's administration. There have been air incursions by US spy planes, but that's pretty much it. I think the Iranians pretty much know what a B2 might, or might not, look like on radar by now, and a 737 isn't even a remotely close match, particularly if its transponders were working correctly, which the Iranians haven't used as an excuse.

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I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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The plane was hit within 2 minutes of leaving the Tehran Imam Khomeini airport. Flights had been departing regularly from the airport since 1:30 AM. Flight 752 was the 10th flight to depart that morning, and did so at 6:12:47 AM, only 20 later than the previous plane that morning. It only reached 4,620 ft ground altitude before ADS-B transmissions stopped.


Why did the missile battery just make a mistake with that one plane?

Given that the plane was in the air about 2 minutes (by ADS-B data), it had to clear local radar clutter to be detected (a few seconds). A possible 'target' had to be identified by the missile crew friend/foe identification procedures needed to be 'incorrectly' followed (several seconds), the missile had to radar-lock and be fired (probably a couple seconds) and the missile had to accelerate, close the distance, and explode (several seconds to a minute).

How did the missile battery manage to launch and hit the plane in the available time?

It seems to me that the missile crew was lock/loaded/ready, and was only waiting for the plane to clear ground radar clutter.

After 1-1/2 hours, planes began departing Tehran Imam Khomeini airport again. A total of 19 would depart that day.

Now, I know nothing on the acceleration of Russian made Tor missiles. I'm not sure of the typical climbing speed of 737-800 planes fully loaded (info indicates pilots delayed takeoff to offload luggage to get within weight limits). I'm not sure of the exact distance from the end of the runway to the missile battery location (some news article indicate 12 km). But this sure sounds like a college engineering question of "If a train leaves the station at x speed, and a second train departs later at y speed, when will they meet".
 
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The events of the investigation have moved quickly in the past few days, but we must be prepared for the pace to slow down drastically, soon.
The Ukrainian investigators were on the site only a day later and examining the wreckage. They were well prepared for what they would see given their recent experience with MH17. The lead investigator says they kept their opinions close to their chest for another day or so. No sense in giving the Iranians any opportunity to seize the evidence and quash the investigators' statements. They used the time to get their photographs and notes out of Iran and into the hands of Ukrainian investigators in Kyiv, where they could collect and corroborate the information. Then this was quickly shared with the other involved countries (USA, Canada, UK).

Given the very tense situation, and what could be at stake if one person says or does the wrong thing, I admire what the Ukrainian investigators have done already.

Here is a CBC article based on an interview with Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council.

A photo taken of a piece of skin below. The location on the plane wasn't specified. It looks flat-ish with only a few rivets which only rules out parts like the wing leading edges, nose, windshield framework or door frames. It could be from any other place on the plane. The holes on the left are open rivet holes, which may have been drilled out to disassemble the part for examination, or they were torn apart in the crash and the remains of the rivets have fallen out. The rivet holes are slightly out of round but that could be either a drill-out or tear-out that did it. On the right obviously those holes were made by debris that punctured the skin, possibly traveling at an oblique angle, too. Other evidence makes is pretty obvious that this component came in contact with the ground (scraping, dirt) so I would expect a diligent investigator would check that the puncture holes could not have been caused by something it struck on the ground.

But then, the debris was moved by the Iranians. This is the perfect example of why debris must be left in place until it can be examined. This kind of evidence is obscured when the debris is moved: damaged caused by the accident VS. damaged caused by impact with the ground. Today, there's no question it was caused by explosive debris, but now only because the Iranians admitted to it. Imagine how hard it would be to convince an Iranian authority (if the admission had not been made) and they claimed that the debris had landed on sharp objects on the ground?

crash_photo_wireuc.png


 
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hokie your quiet correct my only excuse was a 11 hour shift of four sectors with a "fresh meat" 400 hour first officer.

It was of course Malaysian Airlines.

The first missile blast was focused under the cockpit which would have taken out all the Avionics bay and batteries and power relays. As such the aircraft would have continued on it flight path uncontrolled. The second missile took the fuel tanks out and caused the explosion.

Its normal for 2 missiles to be fired at every target.

That phase of flight the plane would have been doing about 210 knts and climbing at 2500ft -> 3500 ft /min.

These missiles are 15kg warhead and travel at Mach 2.8 max and pull 30g. Targets max speed mach 2. So a heavy 737 climbing out low level is a sitting duck taken out with a claymore.
 
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Obviously, some Iranians weren't looking to preserve the truth, particularly since they likely suspected, or knew, that their own missile shot down the plane, probably as early as last Thursday, even as their government was denying the facts. It was probably the video from last Thursday that made it impossible to continue the deception, since the video clearly showed an apparent missile strike in the right area of Iran at the right time.

The holes don't look like conventional low-speed punctures, since there would be bent edges on the holes; they look more like impact holes from molten metal or extremely high velocity fragments. The Tor missile that took down the plane flies well over Mach 2, but it's unclear whether the warhead was set for contact or proximity. If the latter, the shrapnel from the explosion would have been going even faster.

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I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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Its extremely rare that AA is contact fused. Most of them are a lump of explosive surrounded by a formed hard metal which is designed to fragment into shrapnel.

So it explodes and a shotgun blast of shrapnel does the damage. The Explosions you see are when the fuel tanks get shredded and the fuel leaks out and then ignites. Which is why the aircraft only exploded when the second missile hit.

About the only aircraft that might have survived 2 hits by a TOR is the A10 warthog with its titanium bath round the pilot and it multiple redundancy control runs and systems. A civi airliner has zero chance of surviving.

 
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The guff they came up with about it being off course and looked like a drone or a missile or the operator only having 10 seconds to decide is laughable if it hadn't killed so many innocent people.

The plane barely moved off the runway orientation before they pulled the trigger.

Something went very seriously wrong but now everyone is in serious BYA mode so I doubt we will ever find out.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
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Alistair Heaton said:
Its extremely rare that AA is contact fused. Most of them are a lump of explosive surrounded by a formed hard metal which is designed to fragment into shrapnel.

So it explodes and a shotgun blast of shrapnel does the damage. The Explosions you see are when the fuel tanks get shredded and the fuel leaks out and then ignites. Which is why the aircraft only exploded when the second missile hit.
Click to expand...

I remember reading about the MH17 downing when the report came out. Something that always stuck in my head was that the warhead in that missile had bow-tie or hourglass shaped shrapnel tightly packed into the warhead.

Just looked it up - 9N314M warhead.
 
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This one is due for an update.

With the virus taking hold around the world, and Iran being hit worse than most countries, the investigation has been on hold for over a month. International investigators (Ukrainian or others) have not been in Iran for quite some time. The black boxes have not yet left Iran (AFAIK) although arrangements were slowly being made for them to be examined in Ukraine. The Iranian government is still trying to control the investigation.


There is confirmation that two missiles were launched, by both Iranian admission and witness videos.

This is probably cold comfort to the bereaved families.

 
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Now we know more about the circumstances that led to commercial traffic still flying while the Iranian military were operating in shoot-to-kill mode:

Hassan Rezaeifar said:
CBC: From a recording of a conversation that took place March 7 between a victim's family member in Canada and Hassan Rezaeifar

In the recording, Rezaeifar said closing the airspace over Tehran could have exposed Iran's pending ballistic missile attack on U.S. air bases in Iraq in advance. That attack was retaliation for the United States' killing of Iran's top military leader, Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
"Some say we should have cleared the airspace," Rezaeifar said in Farsi on the recording. "The National Security Council is in charge.
"But let's say we had cleared the airspace. Wouldn't [it] give away our imminent attack?"
Rezaeifar added that closing the airspace could have meant cancelling flights. Iran earns hundreds of thousands of dollars daily in fees for allowing flights in its airspace.
"Ok, let's assume we had delayed the Ukrainian flight for ten hours. Wouldn't it have cancelled all other flights after?" said Rezaeifar on the call.
Click to expand...

He has now been removed form the investigation and replaced with another investigator. What in the world possessed that investigator to phone up a victim and tell them this? There's a lot more to the recording (1.5 hour long) with threats and disrespect throughout. It was very wise and resourceful of the recipient to make a recording.


This disruption will likely delay the delivery of the FDR/CVR to French authorities.

 
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