I think that's just the natural curiosity of the human brain, I occas find myself watching a YouTube video of the 9/11 attacks, not because It's enjoyable, just because of the "holy sh*t" factor.

This whole mess was triggered by a US/EU-backed overthrow of an elected government, don't forget...

Jill Dando used to say the same.

wasn't it Nick Ross rather than Jill Dando?

Do a google search for explosive decompression in an aircraft, there are some very good science papers on the subject specifically related to high altitude flying but basically the sort of catastrophic damage that will be caused by a missile means that by the time your brain has registered that something is wrong you'll be unconcious and then dead vety quickly afterwards - survival at just 25000 feet is estimated at 4 to 7 seconds in explosive decompression (loss of all artifical pressurisation with half a second) and the effect increases rapidly above that.

The whole "put your oxygen mask on" routine only works with a gradual loss such as a window fracture, any reports from autopsies on previous explosions that suggest that victims could be concious throughout just dont ring true when a body cannot survive in minus 60 degrees, sudden low pressure bloating every pocket of air in your body and oxygen saturation way below anything like necessary - by the time you can say "what the fook..." you'll be gone and if not then hypoxia can be a pleasant way to go - apparently.

Thanks for that JerryChicken.

Yet there are documented cases of wheel well stowaways who have survived flights of several hours at the relevant temperatures and pressures. I appreciate there is no "explosive" decompression but nobody seems to explain how these survivors survive the apparently impossible

That's due to the speed of the event though - what Jerry's talking about would give the body no chance at all to adjust/go into some kind of survival mode, which may be possible when someone is flown up to such an altitude.

If you're going to die in an air disaster, explosive decompression at altitude is by far the best option - I still regret watching one of those air disaster documentaries on a Japanese crash where everybody was well aware of what was going to happen and many wrote notes to loved ones in the time they had left. I am reasonably sure I would be far too busy literally sh*tting myself to be able to think of anything except terror.

Was looking this up on Wikipedia (yes, I know

) after watching a documentary about the early space age. Its thought that the crew of Challenger were alive but unconscious when the cabin hit the water. Columbia disintegrated and rapid depressurization effectively killed the crew before they were torn apart.

I believe it was generally a Ross quotation, but you understand, I have no doubt, the tenuous link one was alluding too.

Do any of you buy into the conspiracy theories around this one? I watched a video a mate sent me yesterday and there are quite a few 'oh, didn't think of that' moments, although I don't for one moment believe it's made up to frame Russia and get the world to support a sanctions-based war with them. The conspiracy theorists are very good though, I think they need to take on a career in hollywood.

Their first claim of proof of a cover up is the video footage of the passports. The very first video screened in the US (Apart from the smoke plumes) was of a guy showing the camera passports, flicking them open and showing the names. Pristine passports from about 20 passengers. Passports from people confirmed to be on the plane and at different ends according to the seat plan. Yet this guy had found them within 40 minutes of the crash, despite the wreckage being strewn over 8 miles. Another interesting aspect they claimed was that several of the passports he'd found were clipped, i.e had expired and could no longer be used.

Another thing they pulled up was news reporters talking about decomposing bodies and how some of the bodies weren't fresh when they were found. I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between charred and decomposing, but they seem convinced.

Yet another 'proof' was the video footage of the missile system with the one missing missile. They claim they shot a transport plane down the previous week, so if they had shot down MH17, there would now be 2 missing missiles. It had started to get a little silly by this point.

I used to carry a 'clipped' passport along with my current one when visiting the US. The expired passport held my indefinite US visa

No



War with Russia would be such a good idea of course.



The Sky footage showed a lot of stuff was pristine still, and Colin Brazier even picked some of it up to show us. Why would a passport be the only thing not to be pristine? Presumably the theorist had done a computer mock up of exactly how the plane blew up and crashed to show us how it's impossible that they could be near each other from opposite ends of the plane too.

Mo Farah can run 6 miles in 27 minutes, and unless one document was at one end of the 8 mile stretch and the other was exactly 8 miles away, it's not implausible that the documents could have been retrieved in 40 minutes or so.



Lots of people travel with clipped passports as they contain still valid visas and permit entry to whichever country, with a valid current passport as well.



News reporters are experts in death and human decomposition so I guess this one could be right





Not seen any reports of the transport plane incident, but I'm pretty sure there is more than one similar missile system in existence, possible even in the same area. Or they could have obtained a pack of spare missiles to reload the system. Like buying a printer with spare ink cartridges.

I have to say I'm pretty convinced by these theories though. If only we'd actually gone to the moon the missile could have been fired from there.

See! I was right!

No, and neither should you.


If this is their first claim I'd switch off there and then because they're clearly idiots. Firstly, the aircraft does not explode in some all-consuming Hollywood fireball. When the missile hit there would be a detonation near the aircraft, but the aircraft would disintegrate rather than explode, partly due to the damage to the fuselage from the missile shrapnel, and then as the sudden and violent decompression broke it apart. Everything would then simply fall to earth. There was a large explosion when the larger part of the fuselage hit the ground - from the wreckage it appears to be the strongest part of the aircraft where the wings (and engines) are connected to the fuselage, but unless someone's passport was in this fire I'd fully expect the majority to be in perfectly good condition.

Secondly, passports would presumably be in people's hand luggage, coats, etc. It would take a sustained fire to burn through and make any impact on them. If they weren't in the original detonation or the impact explosion, they would also simply fall to earth, unmarked.


IIRC it was a couple of days before reporters arrived and were allowed to view bodies. It's mid-summer in Ukraine and it's hot. Go and stick a dead animal in your garden in the heat and see how long before it starts to decompose. If someone spots a blackened body it could easily have been burned rather then decomposed.


If - and it's a big [uIF[/u - that was the suspect missile system, you don't suppose they could have possibly, just maybe, reloaded it in the interim, do you??!!! Or perhaps it was a different system?? EDIT - just seen the alleged footage of the guilty missile system being moved out of Ukraine into Russia. If genuine it only reinforces the case against Russia.

I share your cynicism on this, however you've not countered the other conspiracy claims, namely that it was done to kill the aids researcher on board, who apparently had proof HIV/AIDS have man made origins.

Or that Israel did it to draw attention away from their slaughter of civilians elsewhere.

The Israeli thing worked a treat I must say



The AIDS being man-made has been speculated about for years, without any proof. I wonder what had suddenly come to light in the last few weeks to make killing him so essential?

Are we sure it wasn't Shergar that brought the plane down?

As I've said many times before, it was Goebbels who said "The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed." Therefore it doesn't matter what ever happens in the world, some nutter or mischief-maker will post a wild conspiracy theory, many other nutters or mischief-makers will then "analyse" it and produce "evidence" in support of it, and so we go on.

Occam would have a field day with this one, though. We have social media messages between the 'rebels' about acquiring the BUK launcher; we have images of it; we have messages between the 'rebels' confirming they thought they had shot down a transport plane, and even messages where they realise it was in fact a civilian airliner.

And finally we have the 'rebels' preventing experts access to the crash site for many days, and no conspiracist has yet to devise a single reasonable explanation as to why else they might do that, other than to give an opportunity to remove/tamper with evidence.

The way these mad theories propagate is to me just a sad commentary on the dumbed down social media masses. It isn't about a willingness to accept official explanations, but a total lack of any critical or logical faculties. Healthy scepticism is one thing, rank stupidity is quite another.

Of course it is both ironic and tragic that the US themselves shot down a civilian airliner (Iran Air Flight 655) by "mistake" i.e. ludicrously believing their warship Vincennes was "under attack", and the Russians infamously shot down Korean 007.

As usual, when you get interested in a subject you can't let go and it got me wondering, if life is said to be very difficult to sustain above 25000 feet then how come a few assorted fools claim to have climbed Everest (29000 feet) without supplementary air or oxygen ?

According to National Geographic at the summit of Everest there is still 21% of oxygen in the air but the air is less than one third as dense so in simple terms its three times as hard to get enough oxygen into your lungs as at sea level (or under 5000 feet), the higher you go the thinner it gets and very quickly too so that at 30000 feet there is little chance of staying conscious for more than a few seconds, the statement in NG is that if you could instantly transport someone from sea level to the top of Everest they would lose consciousness almost immediately and die shortly afterwards - only with a prolonged and gradual ascent into higher altitudes and especially above 25000 feet is it possible to survive in that atmosphere, "survive" being an operative word because altitude sickness can kick in at around 8000 feet and results in hypoxia, or the brain being starved of oxygen, which in turn often causes hallucinations - many deaths at altitude on Everest have been put down to hallucinations and confusion causing mistakes.

Bottom line is that if you are flying along at 35000 feet reading a book or sipping on your fifth G&T (ice, no lemon) breathing air pressurised at 5000 feet and then suddenly, within a couple of seconds, you are plunged into the abyss of 35000 feet then you will lose consciousness before you realise what is happening and will be dead very quickly afterwards, an autopsy may show that your bodily functions continued for some time during your plunge to earth but you won't have known anything about it.

But can you prove that? I bet there will have been someone on board filming at the time of said alleged de-pressurisation. Would that stop the phone working also? And would the black box recorders pick up the screams?

You wouldn't see anything on the film, thats something else I learned, the pressurised air inside the cabin holds a lot more moisture that the not-very-airlike air outside, mix the two suddenly and you create dense fog, so thats what you get inside the cabin, not good for filming in then you die so you aren't holding the phone, or caring very much about filming it anymore.

Why would someone be filming? Do you film your flights? 4 Four hours into a 12 hour long-haul flight most people are either sleeping or watching films, or maybe in a meal service.

The effects of depressurisation are widely known. Partly as the result of extensive testing in pressure chambers, including those capable of explosive decompression (such as the BAE Faraday Centre at Rochester), and also testing at altitude, and partly due to past incidences such as Aloha Flight 243 and others. Remember though in the case of MH17 a missile had detonated and it's likely the aircraft came apart very quickly, if not instantly. Not enough time to select unlock, camera, video, record.

JC is correct, if it was a more gradual decompression the cabin would be filled with fog.

There are two types of 'black box' (actually they tend to be orange), which do exactly what they say: the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR). While the CVR will record the voices of anyone on the flight deck, you're unlikely to hear anything from the passengers.

I remember being played audio from a CVR many years ago. A fire had started in the rear of the cabin and as it spread the passengers swarmed to the front of the aircraft, and into the flight deck. Yes, you could hear their screams.

If OTOH you were belted into your surviving seat section in say the surviving back end of the fuselage, this would be rapidly descending and so air pressure rapidly increasing. It might take maybe 3 minutes to freefall out of the sky and in the relative protection of that environment I wouldn't be surprised if it was perfectly possible to be conscious when you hit the ground.

In this case I am doubtful as I believe the missile was likely to have been a "shrapnel" missile the projectiles of which would likely have ripped the fuselage and contents of the plane to pieces, and there would have been the blast wave itself. But I still don't think it's impossible.

And another one goes. A domestic Transasia flight in Taiwan has crashed after failing to land killing 'more than 40' of the 54 on board.

Whilst there have been a few recently, I'm regularly amazed at how few crashes there are when you consider how many flights there are every day.

Transasia has a top safety rating and this is their first major crash. Reports suggest trying to land in thunderstorm conditions, aborted landing but couldn't regain height.