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Figure 31: Overview of damage origin (not to scale) (Source: DSB)

2.12 Fragments found
In the wreckage of the cockpit several non-aircraft fragments were found that
are assessed to be the high-energy objects, or parts of the high-energy objects,
which penetrated the aircraft from the outside. A number of these fragments
have a distinct butterfly or bowtie shape, as the one seen in Figure 32.

Figure 32: Bowtie fragment found in the wreckage of the cockpit, size in mm (Source: DSB)

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3 Possible scenarios

3.1 Focus of investigation
To investigate the possible cause of the high-energy object damage three
scenarios were analysed. These scenarios are based on the following:
1. The high-energy object damage on flight MH17 is caused by the effects
of a weapon system from outside the aircraft.
2. Only weapon systems that are operated in the region are taken into
account.
3.2 Proliferation
To generate a list of operational weapon systems in the region, a 400 km circle
around the last recorded position of the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) has been
drawn (Figure 33). Since the maximum range of all known operational missile
systems is less than 400 km, this ensures that a missile system would have to be
located within this circle at the time of launch. Two countries are located within
this circle: Ukraine and Russia. Since no information is available on the exact
location of the weapon systems of these two countries within their territories at
the time of the crash, all operational weapon systems of both countries are
taken into account. There is no evidence to suggest that weapon systems from
countries other than Ukraine and Russia were present in the region.

Figure 33 Circle with a 400 km radius around the last recorded position of the FDR (Source: Google earth)

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4 Scenario 1: Air-to-Air Gun

4.1 Su-25 (Frogfoot)
The specific Air-to-Air Gun scenario focuses on the Sukhoi Su-25, NATO
designation: Frogfoot (Figure 34). The Su-25 is a single-seat, twin-engine,
subsonic, low altitude, ground attack aircraft. It was designed from the outset as
a dedicated Close Air Support (CAS) attack aircraft to provide support for ground
troops that are in close contact with enemy forces. Its main task is to engage
enemy ground forces, including tanks and armoured vehicles. Its role is
comparable to that of the American Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt.

Figure 34: Su-25

4.2 Su-25 Performance
The performance of the Su-25 is optimized for low altitude and will be mediocre
at best at higher altitudes. Its ceiling is limited but the aircraft is assessed to be
able to reach 33,000 feet (10,058 meter), the altitude flight MH17 was flying at.
The published service ceiling of 7,000 meter (around 23,000 feet) is for
physiological reasons because the aircraft is not equipped with a pressurized
cockpit. Oxygen is available for the pilot through the oxygen mask to allow
operation at altitudes above 10,000 feet (around 3,000 meter) and the pilot is
assessed to be able to briefly operate the aircraft at 33,000 feet.

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Table 3: Russian Federation combat aircraft and their guns

4.4 Gsh-30
The GSh-30 is a twin-barrel automatic aircraft cannon (Figure 35). The calibre of
this cannon is 30 mm which means that the actual projectiles (bullets) leaving
the barrel have a diameter of 30 mm.

Figure 35: GSh-30 aircraft cannon (Source: airforce.ru)

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avoid a mid-air collision. This makes a left frontal attack a very difficult and
dangerous manoeuvre.
4.8 Visual identification
Because of the dynamics involved in an air-to-air gun attack, a gun sight is used
to visually aim the aircraft and the gun onto the target. The distance at which an
effective gun attack can be performed is limited. Within these short ranges, a
large aircraft such as the Boeing 777 will be clearly identifiable as a civilian
airliner by the attacking pilot. Therefore, an erroneous visual identification is
assessed to be highly unlikely.
4.9 Number of rounds
Over 350 high-energy object hits have been identified on the wreckage of the
cockpit of flight MH17 and over 800 hits are assessed to have hit the cockpit in
total, accounting for the structure that was not available. Table 2 and Table 3
show that the analysed aircraft carry a maximum of 150-260 rounds which
means that no aircraft could have produced this number of hits due to a lack of
ammunition. Also the number of projectiles (bullets) that will hit an airborne
target in a left frontal hemisphere attack is calculated to be several dozen at
best; much less than number of hits found on the wreckage of flight MH17.
4.10 Density
The density of the hits on an airborne target is assessed to be no more than
around 2 per square meter due to the difficulty in aiming, dispersion of the gun
and the dynamics of the attack manoeuvre. This is much less than the maximum
density of around 250 hits per square meter found on the wreckage of flight
MH17.
4.11 Direction
Gun projectiles will travel in approximately parallel trajectories towards the
target. As seen in Section 2.10 the back traced trajectories of the high-energy
objects hitting flight MH17 all converge to a general location close to the aircraft
and are therefore not parallel.
4.12 Type of damage
A 23-mm or 30-mm armour-piercing projectile leaves a hole in a thin-walled
metal structure, such as that of an airliner, with a more or less round or elliptical
shape, with ragged edges, which are bent inwards. The size of the hole is at least
equal to, but generally more than the calibre of the projectile. Measurement of
the high-energy object damage on a wreckage panel of flight MH17 showed that

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4.13 Air-to-Air Gun scenario conclusion
The damage observed on the wreckage is not consistent with the damage caused
by an air-to-air gun in number of hits, density of hits, direction of trajectories and
type of damage. The high-energy object damage on the wreckage of flight MH17
is therefore not caused by an air-to-air gun.

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5.4 Amount of damage
The R-60 is equipped with a small 3 to 3.5 kg warhead with limited effectiveness.
The amount of high-energy object damage found on the wreckage of flight MH17
is not consistent with a warhead of this size.
5.5 Type of damage
The R-60 is equipped with a rod warhead. In this type of warhead a large number
of metal rods are aligned cylindrically on the outside of the explosive material.
Figure 41 shows this construction in a burned AIM-7 Sparrow warhead. This
particular warhead is around 11 times heavier than the R-60 warhead. Figure 42
shows the damage mechanism of a continuous rod warhead. In a continuous rod
warhead the rods are welded together at the ends. The blast expands the rods
outward creating an expanding continuous circle of rods. Where this circle hits,
the target will receive a continuous cut through the skin and any underlying
structure. Figure 43 shows an example of the damage caused by the continuous
rod warhead of the aforementioned AIM-7 Sparrow missile. In a discrete rod
warhead the rods are separate and not welded together. Figure 44 shows an
example of the damage caused by discrete rods on an aircraft structure. Both
types of rod warhead damage were not observed on the wreckage of flight
MH17.

Figure 41: Burned AIM-7 Sparrow rod warhead (Source: zianet.com)

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Figure 44: Discrete rod damage (Source: PPRuNe.org)

5.6 Used materials
The rods of the R-60 are made of depleted uranium. No traces of depleted
uranium were found on the wreckage of flight MH17.
5.7 R-60 Air-to-Air Missile scenario conclusion
The damage observed on the wreckage is not consistent with the damage caused
by the warhead of the R-60 air-to-air missile in amount of damage, type of
damage and used materials. The damage on the wreckage of flight MH17 is
therefore not caused by the R-60 air-to-air missile.
5.8 Air-to-Air Missile overview
Table 4 and Table 5 give an overview of the air-to-air missiles operated by the
Russian Federation and Ukraine. Each missile type listed in these tables has one
or more versions. The versions of the listed missile types share the indicated
warhead; therefore the individual versions are not listed.

Table 4: Ukrainian air-to-air missiles

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6 Scenario 3: Surface-to-Air Missile

6.1 Surface-to-Air Missile overview
Around 20 types of surface-to-air missiles operational in the Russian Federation
and Ukraine that are capable of engaging a target at an altitude of 33,000 feet
are identified. All of these missiles use radar guidance and are equipped with a
fragmentation warhead. It is assessed that only the 9M38 family of missiles from
the BUK family of surface-to-air missile systems are equipped with a
fragmentation warhead that uses the unique bowtie shaped fragments found in
the wreckage of flight MH17. This information is confirmed by weapon experts of
the Russian Federation Investigation Team as well as a representative of AlmazAntey, the largest Russian weapon manufacturer and manufacturer of the BUK
surface-to-air missile system. The Surface-to-Air Missile scenario therefore
focuses solely on the 9M38 family of missiles used by the BUK family of surfaceto-air missile systems.
6.2 BUK Surface-to-Air Missile system
The Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) scenario focuses on the 9K37 BUK surface-to-air
missile system, NATO designation SA-11/SA-17. The BUK is a medium range, lowto-high altitude, mobile air defence system with semi-active radar guided
missiles. The system was designed in the former Soviet Union as a further
development of its predecessor, the 2K12 KUB (NATO designation SA-6). The BUK
became operational in 1979 and has since then gone through several upgrades.
Table 6 shows the different versions of the BUK.

Table 6: Versions of the BUK Surface to Air Missile system

6.3 BUK TELAR
The launching vehicle is called a Transporter Erector Launcher and Radar
(TELAR). As can be seen in Table 6, several TELARs are capable of launching two
missile types. The three 9A310 family of TELARs are virtually indistinguishable

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6.5 Autonomous operation
Unlike its predecessor, the KUB, each BUK TELAR is equipped with its own fire
control radar located inside the radome. This gives the TELAR the possibility to
search and engage a target independently and operate completely
autonomously, even if an attack has disabled the Target Acquisition Radar and/or
the Command Post. The TELAR is limited to mechanically scan a limited sector
(whereas the TAR could provide 360° coverage), with an antenna designed to
track a target. The time needed for the TELAR to detect a target is longer than
during normal operation, but the system is still able to engage a target using only
the TELAR without any outside assistance.
6.6 BUK missile
Table 7 gives an overview of the operational versions of the BUK missile in the
region and the corresponding warheads.
Table 7: BUK missile versions

As can be seen in this table the 9M38 missile can be equipped with both the
9N314 and the 9N314M warhead. A representative of Almaz-Antey, the
manufacturer of the BUK surface-to-air missile system, stated that only the
9N314M warhead contains bowtie fragments. The 9M38 and the 9M38M1
missiles are virtually indistinguishable from each other from the outside. The
9M317 missile has a different, higher span and shorter chord wing design
compared to the earlier missiles, as can be seen in Figure 45. In the remainder of
the text the designation 9M38(M1) will be used to refer to both the 9M38 and
the 9M38M1.
The 9M38(M1) missile is 5.55 m long, weighs 690 kg and uses semi-active radar
homing with Proportional-Navigation guidance. In semi-active radar homing
systems the active tracking radar on the ground (in the case of the BUK system in
the TELAR) illuminates the target with a beam of radar energy. The passive radar
seeker in the nose of the missile tracks the radar energy reflected off the target.
Proportional-Navigation guidance systems use the target tracking information
obtained from the seeker to steer the missile directly towards the predicted
collision point with the target. After launch, the missile will perform an initial

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grooved or scored case in which cases the fragments are formed by the explosive
force at the moment of detonation. The fragments of a preformed fragmentation
warhead are arranged regularly around the circumference of the warhead and
stay intact after detonation of the warhead. The damage of preformed
fragmentation is different from that of natural and controlled fragmentation and
very distinct in that the preformed fragments give a regular pattern of fragment
impacts on the target. These regular impacts are observed in the cockpit area of
the wreckage. The type of damage observed on the wreckage of the cockpit of
flight MH17 is consistent with the type of damage caused by the preformed
fragmentation warhead of the 9M38(M1) missile.

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6.12 Number and density of hits
The 9N314M warhead is composed of approximately 7800 preformed fragments
of three different shapes which are arranged in two layers. See Figure 48 and
Figure 49 for pictures of a 9N314M warhead. A digital reconstruction of the
9N314M warhead fragment arrangement can be seen in Figure 50. The inner
layer consists of bowtie and filler fragments and spans the entire length of the
warhead. The outer layer consists of squares and spans approximately three
quarters of the warhead length as can be seen by the change in diameter on the
top half of Figure 49. The number and density of hits on the wreckage of the
cockpit is consistent with the number and density of hits expected from the
detonation of a 9N314M warhead.

Figure 48: 9N314M warhead fragment layers in an inert warhead. (Source: photo.quip.ru)

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6.13 Fragment dimensions
In Section 2.6 the size of the penetration damage was found to range from 6 mm
to 14 mm. Figure 51 shows the fragment dimensions of bowtie, filler and square
fragments of the 9N314M warhead. Comparison shows that the fragment
dimensions of the 9N314M warhead matches with the damage size found on the
cockpit area of the wreckage.

Figure 51: Fragment dimensions of bowtie (left), filler (upper right) and square (lower right) (Source: AAIB)

6.14 Static warhead model
In a warhead using preformed fragments, the separate fragments are ejected by
the blast and propagate away from the detonation point in an expanding ringlike pattern. Figure 52 shows an example of the fragmentation pattern of a
stationary, horizontal high-explosive fragmentation warhead detonation. This
fragmentation pattern creates a bounded fragment spray zone as can be seen in
Figure 53. The static fragment spray zone boundaries are defined by the angle α1
with respect to the missile (warhead) axis of the leading (most forward) fragment
and the angle α2 of the trailing (most rearward) fragment. Theoretically, all the
fragments that propagate away from the detonation will be within the fragment
spray zone between these two boundaries. Using a mathematical model of the
9N314M warhead these angles were calculated by TNO together with the
fragments initial velocities V₀ [3].

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6.15 Dynamic fragmentation pattern
The fragmentation pattern including the fragment spray zone and the initial
velocities calculated in the previous section are valid for a stationary detonation
only. In an actual engagement the warhead travels with the missile at the same
speed as the missile. The forward velocity of the warhead (and missile) needs to
be added to the fragment initial velocities in a vector sum. This changes the
angles of the fragmentation pattern forward, as can be seen on the right hand
side of Figure 54.

Figure 54: Change in fragmentation pattern from static (left) to dynamic (right) due to warhead forward
velocity