80 secs of pure terror in crash

DEATH WOULD not have been instant for most of the 298 passengers and crew on MH17.

When the warhead of a high altitude surface-to-air missile detonates, it ejects dozens of steel rods that would have slammed into the aircraft, shredding it like multiple chainsaws.

The first that those aboard would have sensed was likely to have been an eruption of metal and the explosive decompression of the cabin as the pressurised air rushed out. The luckier ones may have been killed outright by this or the shrapnel. It is not clear whether the warhead exploded near the tail, or an inner wing. There is evidence for both.

A hit near the wing would have set ablaze the fuel tanks, turning the airliner into an inferno. Video of the destruction of a Ukrainian Antonov-26 military transport aircraft days earlier shows it spiralling and exploding after a wing strike.

The passengers and crew would have been subjected to violent G-forces as it lurched into a dive, quickly losing forward motion and plunging vertically. It was very different from the fate of those aboard Air France 447, an Airbus A330 that remained the right way up, intact and relatively stable as it pancaked into the Atlantic off Brazil, killing 228 in 2009.

Even those still alive after the initial strike would have had no time to grab a phone as the air rushed out of the cabin. The pilots would not have even thought of a distress call, their priority being to try to keep it flying.

Some passengers would have lost consciousness with the lack of oxygen at 33,000ft, but many would have remained aware as the aircraft plummeted to breathable altitudes within seconds.

The forces appear to have ripped much of the structure apart, with wings and tail surfaces falling off and the fuselage splitting into pieces, ejecting rows of seats with people still attached.

Some sections were intact on the ground, suggesting that passengers may have remained alive for the 80 seconds that it would have taken them to fall.