The engineer in me and long time watcher of the missile world finds this curious. The Buk is listed as a semi-active radar homing surface to air missile system. That means a radar transmitter on the ground is illuminating the target with radar energy. The missile homes in on the reflected radar energy coming off the target. A large aircraft flying basically straight and level (not maneuvering) and moderately high altitude (not treetop, not extreme height)... Should be a very easy target.
But that radar energy coming from below, and a missile coming from below... You'd expect the energy to reflect of large relatively flat surfaces such as the underside of the wing or fuselage near the wing root. Or parts of the tail assembly/stabilizers. You can also get radar "hot spots" off the front face of turbine engines or any significant discontinuities such as seams for flaps/slats or other control surfaces.
So what I find curious, is why the missile would have gone towards the front of the aircraft. Ok, maybe the radar "saw" through the radome on the front of the aircraft and got a big return off the weather radar dish in the front. That is a possibility if the radar was well out in front of the aircraft. But how did the missile miss so badly? These things are supposed to be able to hit small cruise missiles. They are supposed to able to intercept ballistic missiles. Why didn't it impact on the radar dish? Why didn't it fuse and detonate until it was passing over the aircraft? The closing velocity should not have been challenging compared to tactical aircraft or other missiles.
Like I said, curious. I wonder if the investigators came up with a theory and then force-fit their findings and conclusions to that theory.
I have similar questions but at least they made on thing crystal clear.
“it is clear that Ukraine already had sufficient reason to close the airspace over the eastern part of Ukraine as a precaution before 17 July 2014”
I’m thinking the sub-sonic speed and larger than usual size for a tactical target resulted in the programming of the missile to slightly miscalculate the fusing and detonation sequence, so the missile overreached across the nose of its target before completing that detonation sequence.