Technology has always been evolving at an exponential rate and it affects every life of every human being, including how the entire industry works. Now, technological advances are being used to investigate one of the worst, high-profile aviation disasters. Malaysian Airline MH17 was shot down on 17 July 2014 just above Ukraine airspace bound from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. First analysis suggests that it was a surface-to-air missile that shot down the airliner but who and what type of missile was fired, was still a mystery, until now.
Hundreds of evidences – be it physical or digital data- was collected over the course of the investigation. Processing the library of evidences collected is another major challenge that requires hundreds of man hour and all the latest analysis technology they could get. Here we will try to explain a little bit of the technology and type of analysis that was done to draw the conclusion of the incident.
Thousands of commercial airplanes fly above war zones every day. The restricted altitude was determined by the air safety authority such as ICAO. Before the incident, the altitude that MH17 flew was very well above the safe zone. Nobody have thought that a missile was capable of reaching the altitude that MH17 was flying on.
Led by the Dutch authorities, technology will certainly catch up to the bad guys sooner or later.
Physical Reconstruction of The Wreckage
For any investigation, physical evidence is always the number one factor that determines everything. MH17 fell from the sky and broke up into thousand pieces as it rained down. A structural recreation will further validate all other analysis and evidence in an aircraft investigation as they could reveal on to where did the aircraft failed, how and why.
Each and every piece of the wreckage was brought to an investigation hangar, tagged and scanned. The 2D reconstruction was later done based on the scans and photographs of the wreckage to determine the position of each piece on the original chassis.
In the reconstruction process, investigators built a framework of the original aircraft. This allows the investigators to piece the wreckage back together.
The debris and parts recovered will then be reconstructed on top of the framework.
Material Analysis
Every material behaves in a unique but recognizable pattern or reaction when it was exposed to external forces. In this case, they are trying to determine that if it was really the suspected BUK missile manufactured by Alamz-Antey was the culprit.
By conducting an actual live test explosion, they could analyze and compare the explosion and rupture pattern made by the missile on the aircraft material. The unique pattern made by the fragments from the missile will confirm if it has the same pattern. In this case, the pattern was found to be matched with the MH17 wreckage.
The radial fragmentation pattern was also found on the fuselage to further confirm the type of missile used. Around 800 fragment hit the cockpit consistent to the radial pattern found during the digital simulation and also the physical live fire simulation.
Small fragments were also recovered believed to be the pre-formed fragments that originates from the missile. The small pieces are deformed in a consistent bow-tie and mushroom shape which further validates the type of missile being used.
Missile parts found undergo further chemical analysis and the paint found on the fragments match to the exact paint used by the type of missile speculated.
Soundwave & Audio Analysis
According to the official report by the Dutch authorities, the exact point of detonation was determined by sound recording analysis.
The position of detonation was determined by comparing the soundwave recorded by four microphone that was at the time, places on four different point in the cockpit. The timing differences allows researches to triangulate the sound and shockwave movement across the air.
This similar type of unconventional data analysis was also done to determine the last known location of flight MH370. By using the aircraft’s transponder ping, various satellite recordings were processed intensely to estimate the last known posistion, heading and speed of the aircraft.
This shows that even when a certain system was not designed to record certain events, can be used to determine other event records. With creativity and advanced mathematics, even interference in WiFi signals could determine a heart-rate and position of individuals inside a building. Sounds scary, but it can be done.
Reference:
English video of Dutch Authority report on MH17 investigation.
Press conference of Alamz-Antey regarding tests conducted on missile detonation.
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