1、CRS InsightsPossible Missile Attack on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17Jeremiah Gertler, Specialist in Military Aviation (jgertlercrs.loc.gov, 7-5107)July 28, 2014 (IN10115)On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), a Boeing 777 bound from Amsterdam to KualaLumpur, crashed in eastern Ukraine.M
2、H17s position was shown on live aircraft tracking websites using the airliners automated dependentsurveillance broadcast (ADS-B) signal. Its final reported position was near the Russia-Ukraine border atan altitude of 33,000 feet.Initial reports from the crash scene indicated that the resulting debri
3、s field covered a large area. This ischaracteristic when an aircraft breaks up at high altitude (as opposed to diving into the ground orincidents on landing or takeoff, where the debris field is tightly confined around the point of impact).Inflight breakup can occur for a number of reasons, includin
4、g metal fatigue (as in the case of twoDeHavilland Comet jetliners in the 1950s); onboard explosions, whether caused by bombs or accidentalcombustion (such as TWA flight 800 in 1996); or external events like a missile attack (as was the casewith Korean Air Lines 007 in 1983 and Iran Air 655 in 1988).
