File talk:MH17 Rostov radar MK.jpg

It is interesting that something was seen there for 20 minutes, but if this is indeed from Rostov, it will be based on the same data as from Russian military report. It was said by MoD that in its sleepy mode, planes above 5,000 m were not tracked. The issue with that report is that there was no second signal prior to what appears to be the crash, and thereafter it may be plane disintegrating into two. If something there does not actively respond, it is not different from unfriendly military plane; Russian military presentation was that it was not responding, with military plane interpretation. Thereafter, military presentation included a rather short time span, and the second signal was not moving (much), compared to another commercial plane not far, which was seen moving (towards Russia). It is unclear what second object' is, very unlikely military plane will move so that appear almost stationary on radar, no rational reason and next to impossible to implement. It may be some fluke in data or data processing method, presumably. Actually it is not fully certain that MK screen is from Rostov, they say something like "this is from, let's put it like that, Rostov " (ATC), giving slight hope it is new data from elsewhere, Ukraine may be. That may move things forward. If Russian side has new significant information, they very likely provided something about it to investigators or parties already. Military planes may show up on some recordings on Ukrainian side, the issue is to have that released to investigation(s). There are several witnesses telling about planes, and whether or not they were there is very significant by itself. That means that in-good-faith party to investigation should make relevant data available.--Resup (talk) 14:55, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
 * In 20 minutes, a plane will travel some 200-300 km; scale on the figure is unclear but it seems that it traveled much less. No reason to even try to stay there (above clouds, so not seeing MH17 much; but still seen itself by radar). --Resup (talk) 15:16, 14 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it's not going any clear direction, is it? That's what I half-suspected when they said it "hovered". It could be a helicopter, lingering/hovering. Helicopters can have anti-aircraft weapons. Russia says jet, though, if these passages refer to the same thing:


 * “Also, Russian monitoring systems registered that there was a Ukrainian Air Force jet, probably Su-25, climbing and approaching the Malaysian Boeing.” “The Su-25 was 3-5 km away from the Malaysian plane...


 * Are these clustered, non-linear returns 3-5 km away?


 * “At 17:21’35, with [the Boeing’s] velocity having dropped to 200 kilometers per hour, a new mark detecting an airborne object appears at the spot of the Boeing’s destruction. This new airborne object was continuously detected for the duration of four minutes by the radar stations Ust-Donetsk and Buturinskaya. An air traffic controller requested the characteristics of the new airborne object, but was unable to get any readings on its parameters – most likely due to the fact that the new aircraft was not equipped with a secondary surveillance radar transponder, which is a distinctive feature of military aircraft,” said Makushev. “Detecting the new aircraft became possible as it started to ascend. Further changes in the airborne object’s coordinates suggest that it was hovering above the Boeing 777’s crash site, monitoring of the situation. “Ukrainian officials earlier claimed that there were no Ukrainian military aircraft in the area of the crash that day. As you can see, that is not true.''


 * Looking at the track, I'd wonder if the wind was from the south/SE. But records have east and e-NE prevailing... so maybe this is not parts of the plane falling and drifting. Also they say they lost track as the object(s) flew higher, rather than losing track as they fell below radar coverage. I don't know. --Caustic Logic (talk) 22:37, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Falling stuff, dense smoke, rain, birds, may give some radar echos; not knowing details of signal it's impossible to tell (and this is complicated). Usually steps are taken to discard it, but if they look for a signal it may pop up. A reference where it is briefly discussed clear air echos. (Also some metal dust if it gets suspended in the air may give strong reflection).(+ There could be some talk on a weather balloon in early days, but I was not following those stories.)  --Resup (talk) 23:38, 14 November 2014 (UTC)


 * However, these returns seem too far to be debris of any size anyway, relative to crash site. I marked the apparent border station with a red dot, then rotated and scaled the image on my last comparison (and cropped and stretched) until that and the border and the flight track seemed pretty well lined up. This is all supposed to be the same info: at the new link Melnichenko says "Our data is somewhat more precise that presented the military (in July). Theirs was not so clear in presenting the the flight path of the aircraft. I don't know, maybe they did it intentionally. But the overall picture - Yes, this is the same as that presented by the military at its press conference."

--Caustic Logic (talk) 23:49, 14 November 2014 (UTC)