RealAssanova
Vagitarian
if i'm not mistaken, that whole in the middle next to the aircraft registration was the aft right emergency exit located at the tail end of the aircraft. By looking at this, i'd have to say that the shockwave of the missle led to the fracturing of the cabin and thus subsequent break up of the rear-section of the plane. You can see this by the fuselage being warped around the exit, essentially peeled away, which certainly wouldn't happen upon impact with the ground.
To also support this, is the locations of the Vstab and Hstab which are the vertical and horizontal stabalizers on the aircraft. This suggests the tail section of the plane probably seperated or atleast a significant portion of the rear of the aircraft did from the rest of its body. The eyewitness accounts of bodies hitting the ground AFTER the plane impacted the ground, most of which were still in their seats, as well as huge sections of fuselage sidewall landing in nearby villages, indicates that as the aircraft went down, its contents were being strewn laterally and behind into the slipstream. I believe that this not only indicates that the tail section separated, but that at least one side of the airframe was also destroyed in the strike. The bodies, having less weight than the aircraft itself, would likely stay airborne for longer and retain more of the original intertia of the aircraft, while the aircraft itself dived.
My thing now is, after this tragic and unfortunate event, what are airlines and the aviation industry gonna do to protect themselves and passengers? Surely if that was a military aircraft, the pilot(s) would've known there was an incoming missile and would've dealt with the situation accordingly or not ( death). But with thousands and thousands of flights being operated daily and overflying airways and airspace which pose potentially far greater threats than this one, what should they do? Probably and realistically nothing. Money will probably be the number 1 main issue, along with aerodynamics and the fact that many alterations would have to be made on every aircraft worldwide for it to be practical.
Right now there is only 1 carrier that i know off the top of my head that have some sort of anti-missile defense mechanism equipped on their aircraft. EL-AL, which is the national airline of israel. Their system is called sky-shield and is reported to cost $1 million per plane installed on aircraft flying what are defined as “sensitive routes". I understand israel's reason for this as they are arguably one of the most hated nations on earth
Fed-Ex also uses a missile defense system called the Northrop Grumann Guardian, however its only installed on a few aircraft as Fed-Ex didn't feel it was worth outfitting the entire fleet with this technology. I unno about sky-shield, but northrop wouldn't have saved MH17 as it only protects against IR guided missiles, typical of older shoulder launched missiles and the BUC system (SAM-11) missiles are radar and perhaps optically guided and would not be affected at all by this system.
This a northrop grumman system on the bottom of a fed-ex aircraft.
, is knowing the plane being hit by that missile and everyone on board probably screaming as there being sucked out of the plane, plane falling rapidly, little kids/babies floating in the air and just crshing to the ground 
