What Happened to MH-17?

                             Who Shot Down MH-17?

                                                                                                              Jack Duffey

                                                                                                               09Sep2014  

                                                                                                              

On the afternoon of Thursday, 17July 2014, Malaysian Air MH-17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine. The Boeing B-777-200 was enroute from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Everything seemed to be proceeding well. So what happened and who did it?

The “West” believes they have solid proof that Russian-backed Ukrainian Separatists (or Rebels), who were operating in the area, fired a surface to air missile downing the plane. Russian officials and a number of individuals around the world with ‘alternative’ views believe that Ukrainian forces were responsible. The analysis assesses both possibilities in generating a most likely scenario.

On 9 Sep2014 the Dutch Safety Board released their preliminary report: "The report suggests that high energy objects penetrated the aircraft and led it to break up midair," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement.” This leads to the strong suspicion that a surface-to-air missile brought MH17 down, but further investigative work is needed before we can be certain," he added.

                                      Summary

(1) Scenario I: Separatist-Russian responsibility

In Scenario I, a composite team would have orchestrated the shoot down. One group, Russian air defenses, located in western Russia, near the Ukrainian border, would have first tracked the plane flying toward them over eastern Ukraine. This group would then have “handed off” the target engagement to a Separatist group, who would have actually launched the SA-11 missile from inside eastern Ukraine. This scenario seems to fit into the scenario timeline. The missile would have been launched from a near optimum location that could achieve a kill-probability of 0.8-0.9. Similarly the missile’s warhead’s explosion would have generated the fragmentation pattern found on the plane’s wreckage. Finally, the Separatists’ had already demonstrated their ability to intercept Ukrainian military jets with this type missile. An argument against this scenario would be the extensive cooperation and long hours of practice required between the two groups to execute the mission.

(2) Scenario II: Ukrainian Army responsibility

Scenario II would have required a deployed Ukrainian Army SA-11 air defense battalion. Known missile units were already operating in the area and were linked to their own acquisition, command and control infrastructure. The scenario grades high based upon the fact that there were at least three missile sites in the general vicinity, one of which was fairly well positioned. However, the timeline fit is not as good as in Scenario I. It would have required the preferred missile battery to have tracked the target for almost 150-seconds prior to firing (25 seconds would normally be sufficient). More importantly, the missile launch would have occurred just when the plane’s track was nearly perpendicular to the firing line. This is undesirable geometry, and would likely have resulted in a kill probability of 0.5-0.7. The missile would have approached the plane from slightly aft of the right wing, resulting in a warhead fragmentation pattern impacting the center and rear portions of the fuselage. This does not match with the crash scene evidence. Finally, the Ukrainian air defense has no recent operational experience in air defense.

In conclusion, Scenario I seems better matched to what happened: the air defense was set up optimally, the missile would have been fired from the heart of its envelope, and the crews had recent experience.

Part I: MH-17 Timeline Analysis

The overall objective is to establish a rational story supporting an SA-11 downing of MH-17. The analysis will correlate the plane’s flight path timeline with the known location of the plane’s debris site to determine how near the plane’s final known location is to the crash site. Then, for each scenario a missile engagement will be simulated to assess what might have happened.

At 12:14pm local time (Central European Summer Time), MH-17 departed Amsterdam, climbing out and turning eastward from Schipol International Airport.  It carried a total of 298 people on a flight that was to last almost 12-hours. All seemed routine, proceeding eastward high above Berlin, Warsaw, and then Kiev.

Alternative theories” allege that while over eastern Ukraine (now over two hours into the flight), Kiev ATC (Air Traffic Control) directed the aircrew to alter their heading to a more easterly direction than was originally planned. Perhaps there was stormy weather along their original routing to the south; thus the heading change would bypass the storms?  Maybe there was no heading change order at all. In any case, the plane now headed in a east-southeasterly direction (Heading 118 deg True) that would pass just north of Donetsk and into the heart of the Ukrainian-Separatists conflict region. As a precautionary measure ATC had closed all airspace below a flight level of 32,000 ft altitude; thus there should have been no safety issue. However, earlier in July several Ukrainian military aircraft (transport/fighters) had been shot down at lower altitudes by Separatists’ surface launched missiles.

Background: this figure illustrates the general situation in the area on 14July2014. Note the plane’s route of flight (L980, the plane’s highway in the sky) progresses from upper left to lower right. One-minute local time call outs are labeled.

Two view any figure more clearly, just click on the image.) A black-dotted line separates the map notionally in two sections. The Ukraine Army air defense forces are shown deployed in blue in the upper left; Separatists plus Russian forward deployed air defenses are colored in red and located on the right side. Also, note the international border separating both countries. Finally observe the location of the crash site and the plane’s final transponder location at 16:20 local.

Over central Ukraine, MH-17, currently at 35,000 ft. was instructed to descend to 33,000. There were several other international commercial jets in the local airspace. Still, all must have seen pretty normal to the crew, as they had no questions of Kiev ATC.  The plane was less than 3-minutes from the Russian-Ukraine border, when suddenly all contact ceased. The final voice contact with the aircrew occurred at 16:19:56 or ~4:20pm local time (Eastern European Summer Time), almost exactly three hours into the flight. Most reports suggest the plane crash occurred  several minutes later.

Part II: The Crash Site and MH-17 Break-up

It is certainly known where and approximately when the plane crashed. I used this information to estimate where/when the plane was intercepted. Satellite photographs showing individual parts of the aircraft’s wreckage were combined to construct the above debris field map. As shown, the debris is scattered over a five-mile long area.  The central crash site (large yellow dot) is located just south of the small Ukrainian mining town of Hrebove (pop 1000), currently under Separatist control.

As noted, the two jet engines and the central wing section (wing-box) were found there. A large fire burned for hours. The central crash site consists of very dense/heavy parts, which tend to exhibit poor gliding characteristics, but would also decelerate least and be minimally impacted by winds aloft. So one might expect these items to have crashed the farthest from the intercept point; the figure seems to bear this out.  As shown, less dense pieces would have fallen 

more slowly and been scattered over a wide area.

The map also depicts the plane’s last known position, based on its transponder transmission (Latitude, 48.1129 North and Longitude, 38.5694 East). The transmission time was 16:20:18; that’s 18 seconds past 4:20pm local (see white triangle symbol).

But, by this time the plane was already crippled and falling to earth, as will be explained.

As shown below, the final MH17 verbal communications  began at 16:19:56 local (13:19:56 UTC); it ended  3-seconds later at 16:19:59.

The table suggests that the plane must have exploded just after this time. (See yellow explosion symbol in map figure.), because it never reached its next transponder transmission point (a minute latter). If it had, we’d know about it. More importantly, note that MH-17's flight crew attempts no verbal response to Dnipro Air traffic Control's (DNP) comment at 16:20:00-16:20:05 local.  Usually a response would have been expected within several seconds, say by 16:20:09. It didn't happen....

Most significantly, the plane's internal FDR (Flight Data Recorder) suddenly stopped recording data at precisely 16:20:03 local. This event most probably marks the moment of the explosion. It   is, not surprisingly, well-correlated with the break in communications from the plane at 16:19:59.

Finally, for the damaged plane to reach the known crash site, it needed to begin a plunge out of the sky within seconds of 16:20:00; otherwise, it would have overshot the crash site. Our conclusion: the plane began to break up at 16:20:03, resulting from a missile warhead detonation.

Heavy, low drag sections (eg jet engines, etc) of MH-17 fell rapidly to the east before impacting the ground; these would 'crash' farthest from the intercept point. The missile’s large warhead’s explosion, near the cockpit’s starboard side (right side), may have ‘pushed’ the plane’s course slightly to port (left) as the plane broke apart.

The break up would have resulted from the explosive decompression of the plane's interior, associated with the missile warhead's detonation, as the plane's pressurized air  environment tried to violently vent from the plane's hull (crew/passenger cabin).

The ramifications of this these conclusions will strongly drive the analysis of Scenario I and Scenario II.

Part III: BuK-M1 (SA-11) System Overview

The SA-11 is a deadly surface to air missile. It’s been operational since the 1980s; both Ukraine and Russian (and Separatists) forces have the system. Infact, this is the missile that the Separatists employed to shoot down several Ukrainian military aircraft in June and July 2014.

The SA-11 missile is only one component of the BuK-M1, a self-propelled, tracked air defense system. (BuK is Russian for Beech tree.) There are three essential elements: (1) the TAR (Target Acquisition Radar) (2) the TELAR (Transported Erector Launcher And Radar), and (3) the SA-11 missile.

The TAR performs the initial radar search of the suspected air space and detects, locks-on, and tracks target aircraft. The TAR’s radar, called Snow Drift (NATO designation), usually sweeps out an assigned angular sector (say 90 degree wedge), attempting to locate possible targets. The TAR employs modern phased array radar featuring multiple pencil radar beams to sweep out its assigned target volume. Once it detects a possible target, the operators can direct the radar to lock-on; it then automatically tracks it. The crew monitors the track to ascertain the target’s intentions.

Additionally, the TAR is equipped with an electronic subsystem that determines if the target is Friend or Foe; it’s called IFF (Identify Friend or Foe). Commercial aircraft carry a black box that will automatically generate a “friendly” response when interrogated. The TAR also employs an advanced electronic technique, NCTR (Non Cooperative Target Recognition). This technique can usually identify aircraft type, by processing, for example, the target’s jet engine’s turbine blade radar signature.  If deemed a hostile target, the crew directs the Snow Drift to transfer the target track responsibility over to the second BuK element, the TELAR. The intercept continues.

The TELAR’s Fire Dome radar illuminates and tracks the target.

After achieving its own track, the TELAR crew determines if the SA-11 missile will be able to lock-on too. This is a view inside the TELAR’s control room. Their only contact with the target is what they can see on the radarscope. The target image presented on the scope gives the operator a range and bearing to the target as well as the targets closing velocity (Doppler velocity) with respect to the site. The operator has no sense of the target size or type. Following lock-on, it usually takes the crew twenty-thirty seconds to prep the system before pushing the SA-11 launch button. For additional details see Appendix A.

Part IV: Intercept Analyses

Scenario I: Russian-Separatists Cooperative Shoot Down

The day before the shoot down, Western evidence placed a Separatist SA-11 TELAR in a field south of the town of Snizhne, Ukraine (pop 42000).   The town was under Separatist’s control. Others believe that the SA-11 site was more likely between Snezhne and its neighbor, Torez (pop 82,000), about six miles west.  Either position is ideally situated to engage MH-17.

So how would the Separatists have engaged the plane? There was no Separatist TAR in the vicinity to cue the TELAR. At first blush, it appears the TELAR crew would have had to launch the missile autonomously without benefit of handoff from the TAR. This is possible, if the TELAR operated in a ‘point and shoot’ mode. However, even in this mode, the crew would have to know when there might be a target in their area. Otherwise, they would be randomly searching the sky all afternoon. Recall too, that operating in this mode, the crew would not have the ability to sort out the identity of any target they might track. Only a madman would proceed under those conditions. I have reasoned that this mode was not employed.

So someone had to tell the crew when and where to set up, where to point the TELAR missiles, and when to be ready to activate the system. However, it there were a Russian TAR, positioned in Western Russia, say 25 miles SE of the Snizhne site, the scenario could be made to work. (See below)

It was most probably a unit from the 53rd Kurst Brigade Air Defense. The Russians and Separatist could have worked as a joint-team, the TAR and command and control authority would reside in a Russian unit, the TELAR would fire the missile from south of Snizhne;. This joint operation could be made workable with practice. The TAR was too far away to actually launch its own SA-11 and have the plane crash in Ukraine. Any launch from near the Russian border would result in the plane crashing into Russian territory. This would be totally unacceptable because it would indicate Russian culpability. The Snizhne area would have been the ideal TELAR location.

The TAR’s Snow Drift radar could have locked on to the approaching plane 60-miles NW of the TELAR, as shown above. The crew simply transferred the target track to the Separatists, who had no reason to suspect anything was amiss. 

Upon initial notification, the Snizhne TELAR crew would have set up their system for action, taking about five minutes.

A TAR cued TELAR crew could have achieved a lock-on against the plane, ~26 miles distant. Twenty-five seconds would normally be needed before launching the SA-11, but this crew might have used upto 50-seconds. (Infact this is necessary to sync the intercept to 16:20:03.) The launch crew would never have visually seen the plane, as they were inside the TELAR. No one else could have seen the plane either because of its altitude, distance, and the broken cloud cover.

The Separatists would have launched the SA-11 when the plane was 18.7 miles away. (See above) The missile launch would have been in an area that one would think was viewable. To date no one claims such. Missile intercept occurred about 29-seconds after launch, near max missile range, ~15 miles from the TELAR. The crew would have known that the missile had succeeded in downing the plane, but would not have known it was MH-17.

The intercept end game also sheds light on what might have occurred. The SA-11 streaked upward toward the plane, closing the distance at 3200 ft/second. To visualize that speed, consider an SA-11 that’s initially 10 football fields away and coming directly at a viewer. It would impale the viewer before he could clap his hands together three times!

The missile employs a radar proximity fuse designed to sense when it’s close enough to the target to detonate its 70kg (155lb) warhead.  The proximity fuse ‘stares’ outward, almost perpendicular to the missile’s longitudinal axis.   As shown below, it was assumed to actually consist of two thin radar fans.

As each fan first struck the plane’s fuselage, it is reflected back; sophisticated software would have processed each signal and then computed when to detonate the warhead. 1/100^th of second time delay was assumed between target detection and warhead detonation.  

This delay results in positioning the missile’s warhead so that warhead fragmentation is ejected against a vulnerable parts the target. The figure visualizes the sequence.

The explosion would have propelled thousands of small precut metal fragments outward at supersonic velocities. The fragments would have been ejected into a fairly wide fan beam, which was also directed perpendicular to the missie’s longitudinal axis.  Most fragments missed the plane entirely, but a small fraction would be ejected in a direction that would allow them to strike the plane.  

Crash site wreckage photos suggest that fragments first penetrated the starboard (right) side of the cockpit area (as the aircrew would see it), passed through the flight deck area, and then exited the port or left side.  (See above).  These fragments probably caused the same explosive decompression as occurred in the Pan AM 103 explosion. The result would have torn the forward part of the plane into several major sections. The photos show possible fragmentation damage to this area.

Thus for all these arguments the Snizhne engagement seems well matched to the key events that occurred, from timeline to fragmentation pattern. This scenario has a solid basis and would be judged possible, if not very likely.

Scenario II: Ukraine Army Shoot Down

In Scenario II, the Ukrainian Army air defenses were also known to be deployed in the area to the west of the Separatists. As shown notionally, there would have been a TAR and command and control unit located some 20 miles south of Donetsk. (See below figure.) Assigned to it were at least three TELARs (labeled 1-3). The same basic operation would have transpired as in Scenario I.  TELAR #3, located ~ 5 miles south of Shakhtars’k, was the only site that could engage MH-17, that could match the 16:20:03 known intercept point.

Following target handover, TELAR #3 should have been able to easily achieve a lock-on against the plane some 25 miles away. However to match the known end time, the crew would have needed to track the target for about 140-seconds. This would make no sense, as 25 seconds would have been quite adequate. Note, the engagement geometry set up is what’s called a broadside attack. The missile would have fired at the plane just as it was flying past the site. This is not at all optimum. The SA-11 prefers to attack when the target is flying at the site. Recall that the Ukrainian Army has not downed any aircraft during this conflict and would be rather untested.

Another issue. As the plane crosses the site, the TELAR’s Fire Dome radar may be challenged to maintain an accurate target track, because the plane’s distance to the radar is hardly changing. Under these conditions the radar may confuse the plane and the background clutter. (The radar tracks the plane best if the plane’s radial velocity to the site rapidly approaching/receding.) Thus the missile’s kill probability is judged to be only 0.5-0.7.

Now examine the moment of the warhead’s detonation.

The figure displays the geometry at this instant. Consistent with the missile’s fly out trajectory, observe that the missile approaches the plane from the plane’s aft starboard quarter. Fuzing would have likely been triggered by the plane’s tail section as shown. The subsequent detonation would propel the fragments against the plane’s aft fuselage and outboard starboard wing section,. Note that no fragmentation would have reached the cockpit region. This is contrary to what the evidence shows.

For all these reasons, this scenario appears much less likely than the first one. The engagement appears rather contrived on any number of issues.

Part IV: Conclusions

A joint team of Separatists and forward deployed Russian air defenses seems by far the more credible scenario. The 16:20:03 plane alignment to the crash site is the key. If the intercept did occur at this time and place, Scenario I unfolds straightforwardly. The biggest concern may be the need for cooperation between two separated units. Perhaps there are other variations on this theme that are more satisfactory? The postulated engagement, however, seems highly possible.  The details of the missile fly out and the warhead detonation are particularly persuasive. Scenario II lis not convincing, because it’s built upon a rather artificial story to delay missile firing for an inordinately long period. In turn, this leads to a detonation geometry that is crosswise with the evidence.

Common  issues:

Both scenarios fail to resolve two issues. First, and most alarming, an experienced TAR crew should have known what aircraft type was approaching: it was MH-17, not a Ukrainian military transport.  It was flying at 563 MPH (9.4 miles per minute) at 33,000 ft, and It would be over Russian territory in under 8-minutes. The IFF/NCTR functions should have spelled out everything clearly to the crew. So why then did they proceed to hand-off the target track to the TELAR crew? Perhaps the TAR crew was not as experienced as it should have been and thus failed to identify MH17 as a friendly. This perplexity haunts me. I continue to resist the possibility of a deliberate act!

Second, from nearby the SA-11 launch event is very noisy, and it trails a bright white smoke plume during powered flight. To date no one claims to have witnessed the launch. This doesn’t make good sense either. Wonder if the ‘witnesses’ are simply afraid to tell authorities. Stay tuned.

Finally, the Scenario I vs Scenario II plausibility should be easily resolved, if the West actually collected satellite and signals intelligence during the shoot down. This data would pin down launch and intercept locations and event timelines. I wonder if 

and when this will be released…?

Another alternative has recently come to my attention. Although almost unbelievable in its  audacity, it might help explain Issue One above.

16Dec2014 update:

First published on August 11, 2014, this article reviews the official Kiev government’s position concerning the downing of flight MH17, as confirmed by a statement of Ukraine’s Secret Service (SBU).

According to the official SBU report entitled Terrorists and Militants planned cynical terrorist attack at Aeroflot civil aircraft , the Donetsk militia (with the support of Moscow) was aiming at a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane and shot down the Malaysian MH17 airliner by mistake. That’s the official Ukraine government story which has not been reported by the MSM. 

Following the release of the SBU report, the Western mainstream media went silent. 

Global Research, August 11, 2014

The official MH17 narrative still prevails: the “pro-Russian rebels” shot down Malaysian airlinesMH17 with a Buk missile system provided by Russia.

In a new and rather unusual twist, however,  according to the Kiev regime, the Donetsk militia did not intend to shoot down Malaysian airlines MH17. What the “pro-Russian rebels” were aiming at was a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane.

The MH17 was shot down “by mistake” according to an official statement by the head of Ukraine’s Secret Service, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko (Ukraine News Service, August 7, 2014)

According to SBU Chief Nalyvaichenko:

“Ukraine’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies have established during the investigation into a terrorist attack on the Boeing… that on that day, July 17, and at that time military mercenaries and terrorists from the Russian Federation planned to carry out a terrorist attack against a passenger aircraft of Aeroflot en route from Moscow to Larnaca, Cyprus… as a pretext for the further invasion by Russia,”

“This cynical terrorist attack just happened to be planned for the day when the [Malaysia Airlines] plane happened to fly by. It was planned by war criminals as a pretext for the further military invasion by the Russian Federation.

Nalyvaichenko said that the Kiev government reached this conclusion “in the course of its own investigation into the downing of MH17″.

According to Britain’s foremost news tabloid, The Mail on Sunday, quoting the head of Ukraine intelligence, the insidious design of the pro-Russian rebels (supported by Moscow) was to shoot down a Russian commercial airline plane, with a view to blaming the Ukrainian government. The objective of this alleged “false flag” covert op was to create a justifiable and credible pretext for Vladimir Putin to declare war on Ukraine.

In an utterly twisted logic, according to Ukraine’s head of intelligence:

“the [Donesk] rebels were meant to down [the] Aeroflot plane… to justify the invasion [of Ukraine by Russia]“,

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko (right), head of Ukraine intelligence confirms that the pro-Russian rebels were “aiming at a Russian passenger plane “so Putin had reason to invade”.

In a bitter irony, the alleged “false flag” covert op got muddled. The Donesk rebels got it all wrong and hit the MH17 plane by mistake.

 Moscow was helping the pro-Russian rebels in their alleged false flag op to shoot down Russia’s Aeroflot plane by providing them with a Buk missile system, which had been discretely smuggled across the border to the Donesk region of Eastern Ukraine. The Aeroflot plane was slated to be “shot down over territory controlled by Ukrainian government troops”:

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said that Russian-backed fighters were supposed to take their BUK rocket launcher – which had been transported across the Russian border – to a village called Pervomaiskoe in Ukrainian-held territory west of Donetsk.

Image source: Mail on Sunday, August 10, 2014

Instead, they mistakenly positioned it in a rebel-controlled village of the same name to the  east of Donetsk..

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko claims pro-Russian rebels targeted the MH-17 civilian airliner

If the Separatists had gone where they had been ordered, he said, they would have engaged the  Russian Aeroflot flight carrying civilians travelling from Moscow to Larnaca in Cyprus.

And crucially, the Aeroflot  crash site would have been in Ukrainian-held territory. (Mail on Sunday)

Because of this mistake, the MH-17 Malaysian aircraft was shot down over Rebel- held territory by the separatists.  Their objective was totally missed and flipped on its head. The Russian/separatist would be blamed for the shoot down. Obviously the "invasion" was immediately cancelled....

This scenario, although intriguing, seems a bit too far-fetched for me to accept.

References:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByibNV3SiUoobnpCVDduaHVORHM/view?pli=1&sle=true

http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/07/25/mh17-verdict-real-evidence-points-to-us-kiev-cover-up-of-failed-false-flag-attack/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system

http://aviationweek.com/defense/buk-missile-system-
lethal-undiscriminating

http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/en/onderzoek/2049/investigation-crash-mh17-17-july-2014/preliminary-report#fasen

Appendix A: BuK-M1 (SA-11) System

The SA-11 is a deadly surface to air missile. It’s been operational since the 1980s; both Ukraine and Russian (and Separatists) forces have the system. Infact, this is the missile that the Separatists employed to shoot down several Ukrainian military aircraft in June and July 2014.

The SA-11 missile is only one component of the BuK-M1, a self-propelled, tracked air defense system. (BuK is Russian for Beech tree.) There are three essential elements: (1) the TAR (Target Acquisition Radar) (2) the TELAR (Transported Erector Launcher And Radar), and (3) the SA-11 missile.

The TAR performs the initial radar search of the suspected air space and detects, locks-on, and tracks target aircraft. The TAR’s radar, called Snow Drift (NATO designation), usually sweeps out an assigned angular sector (say 90 degree wedge), attempting to locate possible targets. The TAR employs modern phased array radar featuring multiple pencil radar beams to sweep out its assigned target volume. Once it detects a possible target, the operators can direct the radar to lock-on; it then automatically tracks it. Against MH-17 cruising at high altitude, TAR should be able to achieve lock-on out to some 140 km (87 miles). The crew monitors the track to ascertain the target’s intentions.

Additionally, the TAR is equipped with an electronic subsystem that determines if the target is Friend or Foe; it’s called IFF (Identify Friend or Foe). Commercial aircraft carry a black box that will automatically generate a “friendly” response when interrogated. The TAR also employs a more advanced electronic technique, NCTR (Non Cooperative Target Recognition). This technique can usually identify aircraft type, by processing, for example, the target’s jet engine’s turbine blade radar signature.  If deemed a hostile target, the crew directs the Snow Drift to transfer the target track responsibility over to the second BuK element, the TELAR. The intercept continues.

The TELAR’s Fire Dome radar illuminates and tracks the target. After achieving its own track, the TELAR crew determines if the SA-11 missile will be able to lock-on too. This is a view inside the TELAR’s control room. Their only contact with the target is what they can see on the radarscope. The target image presented on the scope gives the operator a range and bearing to the target as well as the targets closing velocity (Doppler velocity) with respect to the site. The operator has no sense of the target size of type. Following lock-on, it usually takes the crew twenty-thirty seconds to prep the system before pushing the SA-11 launch button.

The SA-11 is what’s called a semi-active guided missile. (See below.) It is a complex system.   The TELAR’s Fire Dome radar directs a narrow beam toward the target; which is then reflected back off the target, returning to both the Fire Dome and the SA-11.

The SA-11 has its own, much smaller radar receiver in the tip of the missile, enclosed in the missile’s radome. Because of the missile’s small receiver it can lock-on to an approaching large aircraft target out to about 42-km (~26-miles). As shown the missile ‘sees’ the target’s reflected radar energy.  The SA-11’s radar receiver detects this energy and uses it as a source to continually ‘stare’ directly at the target. In turn, this staring action causes the missile’s internal guidance computer to generate the appropriate maneuvers to place and maintain the missile’s velocity vector aimed at the predicted intercept point.  The missile essentially flies a lead collision course toward the target, much like in football where a safety tries to chase down a receiver attempting to catch the football. To fine-tune its maneuvering computations, the SA-11 also receives a “rear-reference’ signal from the Fire Dome, telling the missile how fast it’s approaching the target.

The missile is over 18-ft long, 15” in diameter, weighs about 1500 lbs, and carries a 155 lb (70kg) fragmentation warhead. Each TELAR vehicle carries four ready missiles.

A mathematical model of the missile’s intercept trajectory was generated to help understand the challenges facing the SA-11’s engagement of flight MH-17. The model addressed each of the topics already discussed. First, the missile’s rocket motor thrust was modeled as a dual thrust level burn, featuring a 4-sec burn at max thrust transitioning to a 16-second burn at a much lower thrust level. Up close the SA-11 launch event is very noisy, and it trails a bright white smoke plume during powered flight.

 The high thrust burn accelerates the missile upto 20-g’s; it soon reaches a top speed of Mach 3. To visualize its speed, consider an SA-11 that’s initially 9 football fields away and coming directly at you. It would impale the viewer before he could clap his hands together three times! After motor burnout, missile velocity drops off rather dramatically. I modeled the missile to have sufficient speed and maneuverability for a total of ~ 35 seconds of guided flight. This places the missile ~ 17 mile from the TELAR.