Things to know about Buk missiles

A Boeing 777 aircraft named MH17 of Malaysian airline carrying 298 people including the crew had just crashed in Eastern Ukraine and early information showed that it was likely that it was hit by an air-to-surface missile Buk .

Initial information shows the possibility that MH17 was hit by missiles while flying at an altitude of about 10,000 meters on airspace in eastern Ukraine - where fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian militants is taking place.

Military experts say that at an altitude of 10,000 meters or more, only the modern missiles launched from the ground or military aircraft are accessible, so some charges are focused on. Buk rocket.

Buk missiles , or SA-11 or SA-17 , are a large land-to-air missile that can reach a maximum height of between 11,000 and 25,000 meters depending on the version. This is a Russian military military weapon.

Buk rocket

A standard Buk battalion includes: a command vehicle; 1 reconnaissance / capture and control station (TAR); 6 launchers (TELAR), each with 4 missiles ready to launch and 4 reserve; and 3 bullets. A Buk rocket team consists of 2 TELAR and TEL vehicles. The batteries only need 5 minutes to deploy and fight off the field after launch. The reaction time of a squadron since tracking the target until the missile launch is about 22 seconds.

The feature of this Buk missile is that it will be guided by an underground radar and can destroy air targets quickly. However, military experts said Buk could not distinguish between civilian aircraft and military aircraft, so it was likely that MH17 had fallen into radar control and was "mistakenly" destroyed .

Larry Johnson, a former anti-terrorist CIA official, told the Associated Press: "Buk uses a camera system to identify the target, but that's not the type of camera that airlines often use to check. "Air traffic control. What you see on the screen is just a moving dot. I don't think this action is intentional, they just misidentify the target."

Currently, it is difficult to determine which side launched the Buk missile at MH17 because it is used by both Ukrainian troops and separatists. When the Ukrainian army withdrew from the East, a few missile systems were left behind and the separatist forces used their weapons.

It is known that Buk was built in 1979 and the Soviet army used it to shoot down enemy missiles, aerial targets and smart bombs.

No matter which faction fired Buk missiles on MH-17, the whole world will not be shocked by the departure of nearly 300 MH17 passengers and crew. So after the mysterious disappearance of MH370, Malaysian airlines in particular and the world in general received a new aircraft disaster.