Russian Buk. This weapon could take down a Malaysian airliner MH17 jet. CNN Videos

“We warned you… Do not fly in our sky.”

Girkin, Defence Ministry of pro-Russian self-proclaimed DNR (Donetsk People Republic), FSB colonel.

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/07/18/ac-pkg-cooper-malaysia-airlines-mh17-what-we-know.cnn.html - CNN Videos related to teh MH17 crash

Pro-Russian separatists boasted just a short time after the shooting the plane that they destroyed Ukrainian plane and boasted on the social networks “We warned you… Do not fly in our sky.” Less than an hour later it became obvious that this was not a Ukrainian but Malaysian Air plane. The boasting notes quickly disappeared from Twitter, Facebook and VK.com.

CNN’s Tom Foreman takes a look at the Buk missile system, which may have played a role in the downing of Flight 17.

US expert says that most probable cause of tragedy was missile strike by Buk system. He admitted that the Buk is so powerful that it could reach the plane on the height of 33,000 feet from anywhere on the ground including any location of the rebel pro-Russian DNR territory (the plane was flying over this zone exactly), Russia or even Ukraine.

Buk is a state of the art anti-missile system that needs mere five minutes to get ready and fire the target. To acquire a target and fire it needs only 22 seconds. It can be operated by four people and is highly mobile. It has 4 ready to launch missiles that can move around. Each missile is each 16” long, weighting 1500 pounds, each warhead is 154 pounds of high explosive (it even does not have to hit the target – it’s enough to close) and the speed of the missile is 3 times the speed of sound – 2,684 mph. By comparison, a passenger jet is traveling only 506 mph. This means that when fired even 40 miles away in about 40 seconds, the missile would be on the plane and it is highly unlikely that neither passengers nor crew would ever see it approaching before the plane is hit.

Russian Buk. This weapon could take down a Malaysian airliner MH17 jet. CNN Videos