Ukrainian Su-25 fighter detected in close approach to MH17 before crash

“A Ukraine Air Force military jet was detected gaining height, it’s distance from the Malaysian Boeing was 3 to 5km,” said the head of the Main Operations Directorate of the HQ of Russia’s military forces, Lieutenant-General Andrey Kartopolov speaking at a media conference in Moscow on Monday.

“[We] would like to get an explanation as to why the military jet was flying along a civil aviation corridor at almost the same time and at the same level as a passenger plane,” he stated.

The presence of the Ukrainian military jet can be confirmed by video shots made by the Rostov monitoring center, Kartopolov stated.

At the moment of the MH17 crash an American satellite was flying over the area of eastern Ukraine, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry. It urged the US to publish the space photos and data captured by it. ‘Ukrainian Buk missile system transported to militia-held area’

In addition, MH17 crashed within the operating zone of the Ukrainian army’s self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air ‘Buk’ missile systems, the Russian general said.

“We have space images of certain places where the Ukraine’s air defense was located in the southeast of the country,” Kartapolov noted.

The first three shots that were shown by the general are dated July 14. The images show Buk missile launch systems in about 8km northwest of the city of Lugansk – a TELAR and two TELs, according to the military official. Another image shows a radar station near Donetsk.

Some of the newer missiles are designed to avoid jamming techniques by firing them into an intercept vector without active radar control and then allowing the seeker to acquire the target when it is too close for jamming to be effective.

It seems logical that such a missile might find it more difficult to acquire a smaller more agile target like an SU-25 and instead acquire a larger, more stable target like a passenger plane.

“It seems logical that such a missile might find it more difficult to acquire a smaller more agile target like an SU-25 and instead acquire a larger, more stable target like a passenger plane.”

You might think that, but there is an important assumption involved. The seeker is given a finite set of parameters that the target must match for the seeker to initiate an interception. Exactly what these are depend upon the missile system and neither of us have this type of information necessary to do a complete analysis of whether a specific engagement scenario is plausible or not.

For the engagement to be plausible, you must assume that both aircraft match those parameters. At the very least, both aircraft would have to be very close to each other, flying in the same direction, and at similar velocities for a match to occur. The definition of ‘very close’, ‘same direction’, and ‘similar velocities’ would vary depending upon the system. Systems designers take great care that these terms are not so loosely defined that it is highly unlikely that a missile would engage any other target except the one it is fired at. You would rather miss than engage the wrong target. The SU-25 would almost have had to be flying in formation with the airliner for this scenario to work.

Missiles are very expensive. You take great pains to ensure it engages the target you want it too. You do not let it wander off because it might shoot down one of your planes.

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