Alleged Satellite Photo Says Ukraine Shootdown of MH17

theshowmecanuck (703852) writes A group calling itself the Russian Union of Engineers has published a photograph, picked up by many news organizations (just picked one, Google it yourself to find more), claiming to show that MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter plane. The interesting thing is the very quick ad hoc crowd sourced debunking of the photograph using tools from Google maps, online photos/data, to their own domain knowledge backed up with the previous information. It would be interesting to understand who the "Russian Union of Engineers" are and why they in particular were chosen to release this information.

Comments

uh, no?

[X0563511]

If this is real, that has got to be the worst pilot I've ever seen.

You don't fire at such a square angle. You want to be behind or in front. You also don't fire missiles when you're so damn close.

Re:uh, no?

[Luckyo]

I've watched the Russian original, and it's very weird. Their claim is that pilot first strafed the cockpit with guns which resulted in cockpit detaching from the aircraft, which they claim Dutch investigators have confirmed. The goal was apparently to silence the crew and prevent calls for help. Then the aircraft fired a heat seeker into the engines causing aircraft to spin out of control and crash.

Their other point on the other hand sounded much more reasonable. They note that BUK missile makes a very brightly visible plume and persistent smoke trail as it goes through its trajectory, and there were apparently no confirmed instances of footage of this in relation to the plane. Considering just how obviously exceptional it would look in the sky and how many photos there are of pretty much anything weird happening in the warring region, it does sound odd that no one got any footage of the missile. It should be visible for tens of kilometers in all directions.

Overall, the case is getting stranger with every relevation.

Re:uh, no?

[X0563511]

Why would they bother with the missile if they had disabled the flight deck?

Re:uh, no?

[pushing-robot]

It is a fake. A very bad, undeniable, fake.

Say the satellite is orbiting at 200km. The planes are flying at 10km. (I'm being generous on both these figures.) The planes are only 5% closer to the satellite than the ground, so perspective would only make the aircraft look 5% larger (barely enough to notice) than they would on the ground.

Now look at the satellite photo again. Compare the fighter to the roads and farm plots it's flying over, and compare the 777 to the terrain features and especially the airport (I think) on the left side of the photo.

(If you're curious, the fighter in real life has a 15m wingspan, the Boeing a 60m wingspan.)

Re:uh, no?

[Maury Markowitz]

> modern aircraft stay airborne for a long time even without any active controls because of fly-by-wire

Perhaps, but they don't stay airborne at all when the front of the aircraft is missing. And since the controls are on or around the flight deck, losing that would take the FBW offline anyway.

> The goal was apparently to silence the crew and prevent calls for help

Pffft. Nothing silences a crew like blowing them up with a missile. Just ask KAL 007.

> They note that BUK missile makes a very brightly visible plume

No it doesn't. The booster is very smoky but the upper stage is pretty clean firing. Here's what a missile actually looks like:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F-105_dodging_SA-2_over_Vietnam.jpg

Note that even though the engine is still firing in this case, there is no visible trail. That's not always the case, but just like any aircraft, the trail is caused mostly by physical effects on the atmosphere and thus highly dependant on the state of the weather.

> does sound odd that no one got any footage of the missile

Oh come on. Next time you're walking around, see how many people are looking up at planes. And how many of them are taking pictures?

> Overall, the case is getting stranger with every relevation

Sure, if you know nothing about aircraft, missiles, photography and are prone to believing conspiracy theories.

Re:uh, no?

[Maury Markowitz]

> that the airplane was hit by a continuous rod warhead

It absolutely was not. The images of the fragments *clearly* show shrapnel, and there isn't any evidence of anything hitting the plane that's longer than maybe an inch.

Re:uh, no?

[citizenr]

Their other point on the other hand sounded much more reasonable. They note that BUK missile makes a very brightly visible plume and persistent smoke trail as it goes through its trajectory, and there were apparently no confirmed instances of footage of this in relation to the plane. Considering just how obviously exceptional it would look in the sky and how many photos there are of pretty much anything weird happening in the warring region, it does sound odd that no one got any footage of the missile. It should be visible for tens of kilometers in all directions.

Overall, the case is getting stranger with every relevation.

Pro russian/rusian forces used BUKs to shot down three other Ukrainian planes days before the MH17, got any pictures from those? No? see, not so weird.

Re: uh, no?

[Dzimas]

It doesn't matter that it's obviously fake. These images were all over Russian media to cause a flurry of indignant response in favor of the Russian military and political position. Tomorrow's papers and newscasts won't bother to dissect the glaring errors -- all that matters is that millions of people saw "proof" that it was the evil Ukrainians all along. Sadly, many will believe the smear campaign.

After all, 10 or 20 million people honestly believe that your president was actually born in Kenya, simply because someone made up a preposterous tale that they desperately wanted to believe.

Re:uh, no?

[NicBenjamin]

Because the only thing they could do that would work is sending NATO troops into Ukraine, which would be mighty fucking risky. And not risky as in "we could lose a few thousand troops for no damn good reason and waste a $Trillion or three doing it," risky as in nuclear fucking war.

So they decided on sanctions. Apparently the sanctions are pretty effective, because there's no good economic news out of Russia.

Re:uh, no?

[schnell]

Overall, the case is getting stranger with every relevation.

No, no it is not. This is a pretty blatant forgery - for a step-by-step walkthrough of what's obviously faked about it (including screenshots of the months-old Google Maps images and others that were used) please visit here.

Giving this any credence by saying the case "gets stranger" is like reading some 9/11 truther's article and saying that it makes the truth behind the attacks "more puzzling." It doesn't. It just shows that some people are either disconnected from the truth or (in this case) willing to actively fabricate things to obscure it.

Re:uh, no?

[viperidaenz]

How do you know the Ukrainians don't have fighter jets the size of a farm?

Re:uh, no?

[cold fjord]

I'm not saying Russia is innocent or that Kiev is guilty....

Technically that's correct even if that's how you roll. The rest of your post pretty much ignores Russia and smears Ukraine.

I'm curious, how it is that given your hypersensitivity towards the US government and its actions that Russia doesn't merely get a pass from you, but you've been an apologist for its actions in Crimea? And Ukraine?

The whole situation in the Ukraine is a mess. Both sides (East and West) are being dishonest about everything. Who do you trust when everyone is a liar?

How about the people and countries not invading Ukraine with their armed forces (including tanks and artillery), or actively firing into it with artillery?

This isn't even close, and yet you seem befuddled by it? Really?

Re:uh, no?

[Cyberax]

Upper stage? What fucking upper stage? BUK missiles (like most of the modern surface-to-air missiles) are single stage solid propellant rockets. BUK rockets in particular produce VERY visible white plumes from aluminum in the fuel (which turns into aluminum oxide).

Re:uh, no?

[Savage-Rabbit]

I've watched the Russian original, and it's very weird. Their claim is that pilot first strafed the cockpit with guns which resulted in cockpit detaching from the aircraft, which they claim Dutch investigators have confirmed. The goal was apparently to silence the crew and prevent calls for help. Then the aircraft fired a heat seeker into the engines causing aircraft to spin out of control and crash.

Their other point on the other hand sounded much more reasonable. They note that BUK missile makes a very brightly visible plume and persistent smoke trail as it goes through its trajectory, and there were apparently no confirmed instances of footage of this in relation to the plane. Considering just how obviously exceptional it would look in the sky and how many photos there are of pretty much anything weird happening in the warring region, it does sound odd that no one got any footage of the missile. It should be visible for tens of kilometers in all directions.

Overall, the case is getting stranger with every revelation.

Why would they bother with the missile if they had disabled the flight deck?

Because this is is an really strange story that does not make sense on any level. I would have expected better fiction, even from a conspiracy theorist. The fighter in that picture looks like a MiG-29 or a Su-27 to me. The UkAF has both of these fighters and they can fire BVR missiles. BVR missiles are big fat 3.5-4 meter long monsters with a massive range and a large warhead intented for air to air use for anything up to bomber and large transport sized aircraft. The main BVR missile variants used by the RuAF and the UkAF are the R-27 (Nato code: AA-10) and the newer R-77 (Nato code: AA-12). The range of the AA-10 and AA-12 BVR missiles is something like 80-110 kilometers. I'm not sure if the Ukrainians have any AA-12s but they definitely have the older AA-10 whose seekers they have extensively upgraded to the point where they are still able to sell the AA-10 abroad for use on modernized MiG-29s and SU-27/30s with other air forces. So why the hell would a Ukrainian air force fighter have had to shut up the crew of MH17 with gunfire before downing the airliner with a WVR missile (presumably an AA-11, 7kg fragmenting warhead) when they could have picked MH17 off with a more powerful AA-10 radar guided missile (which has a 39 kg fragmenting warhead) that more closely mimics a BUK? I'm pretty sure that even if a UkAF fighter had fired a BVR missile from a 60 degree cone behind MH17 to make sure the crew did not see it coming (a more realistic scenario), they could still have fired it from about 25 km away and that missile would have come like a bat out of hell for the crew of MH17. They wouldn't have known what hit them, i.e. no need for gunfire and with a 39 kg warhead... you can imagine the rest.

Re:uh, no?

[NicBenjamin]

What else can we do?

Putin has apparently just accidentally killed several hundred civilians, most of whom are part of a nuclear-armed alliance. And he won't even say "oops."

The reason those countries are in that alliance is that they expect us to have their backs when somebody does that kind of shit to them.

Now if we respond militarily, which has the advantage that a) it would target the people who actually blew the plane up, and b) if it worked would work really well; we face the disadvantage that c) our military aim isn't perfect so we'd probably nail a bomb shelter full of civilians, d) much of the Russian military is conscripted, e) invading Russia is historically speaking a really ineffective policy, and f) if we did so Putin might nuke Seattle.

Which leaves sanctions. Sanctions are slow, and they tend to hit a lot of innocents, but military action is worse (ie: Bush's invasion of Iraq ended the sanctions that killed thousands, but only by starting a war that killed hundreds of thousands and refuses to end).

Re:Yet Another Fake Picture

[fche]

It's a laughably bad fake ... but speaks volumes about the lack of math or science training amongst reporters to propagate this stuff.

Re:Wouldnt surprise me if there is a sat photo

[ArcadeMan]

Besides we all know Obama s baby photos were faked.

Yeah, where is Obama's birth certificate? I bet he wasn't even really born!*

* this message brought to you by Conspiracy Nuts. Now available in BBQ and Maple flavours.

Russian propaganda for the home audience

[photonic]

For a decent debunking go to the Bellingcat blog. Also saw some graphic somewhere that clearly showed that the perspective was wrong by an order of magnitude, either the plane was 1 km wide or the satellie was orbiting at 20 km or so. This fake is so bad, that I think the only target audience is the Russian public, most of whom believe everything that Putin's propaganda machine feeds them. I have a Russian colleague, whom I normally regard reasonably high, that believes some really strange facts about this incident. She probably gets all her info from Russian websites.

Re:In Soviet Russia

[Opportunist]

In Soviet Russia, photo shops YOU!

Re:Yet Another Fake Picture

[fustakrakich]

It's not for 'lack of training' that they propagate this stuff. The boss wants it on the front page. Makes for a good whodunit.

Re:Yet Another Fake Picture

[cavreader]

The most common (cheapest) ground based heat seeker missiles in use today detonate prior to impact and throw shrapnel (multiple, small, high velocity projectiles) into the target to obtain the widest kill radius. It's like the difference between buckshot and a slug. And yes there are missiles of all sorts where the warhead stays intact until impact but they are usually more high end (expensive) and need the guidance systems intact as long as possible to make sure it goes through the right window or down the correct air shaft when launched from several miles away.

Re:False flag

[bossk538]

It's on Channel 1 http://www.1tv.ru/news/leontie...

Can't get more mainstream Russian media than that, so it's the real deal, not some attempt to smear Russia with a bad photoshop job.

Re:Yet Another Fake Picture

[Maury Markowitz]

> What we do know is that the plane was downed with multiple, small, high velocity projectiles

Yes, it's called "shrapnel".

> even entertain the possibility that this was cannon fire

Because cannon fire has a minimum size of the puncture it can make, the size of the shell. The resulting marks on the aircraft will be a circle of that size, given a nice face-on strike, or elongations if the angle was more glancing. It can get much larger if the metal tears.

Now look at the image. There are many, many holes in the aircraft that are much smaller than a cannon shell. In fact, there are quite a few that are exactly the size of a piece of shrapnel.

So that's why "west no one seems to want to even entertain" the idea, it's clearly false.

The plane is the wrong type

[smooth wombat]

If one is to believe the Russians (ha!) the picture shows a jet which is clearly not an Su-25 but rather a more modern Mig.

First, look at the wings. An Su-25 has a very shallow swept wing design which is because it is for ground attack. You need wings which are stable at slow speeds.

The jet in the forgery clearly has very sharp swept back wings consistent with all modern jet fighters.

In addition, if you look closely at the picture the Russians provided, there are no pods on the wingtips of the jet shown. Now look at the Su-25. Pods on each wing tip.

Also, the elevators (the small wings at the back of the jet) are too large in the picture provided. The Su-25 has much smaller, more narrow ones.

Second, look at the nose of the jet in the forgery. Long and pointy. Now go look at a picture of an Su-25. Shorter and more stubby, similar to a Harrier.

Finally, there is issue of ceiling. The Su-25 has a max ceiling of 23,000 feet. Most 777s fly from 35,000 to roughly 60,000. If the Su-25 was flying at roughly the same altitude as the jetliner, that means the pilot was flying higher than Mt. Everest without any oxygen because the Su-25 does not have a pressurized cabin.

Granted, none of this will matter to the Russian people, but anyone who has two brain cells can clearly see this isn't even close to being an Su-25 as the Russians claim.