GoodDay!
As you can see in the title, regarded the sad loss of the Ukrainian plane I had a question regarding the descent rate at which the plane came down, do you think a pilot was still in command? The Aircraft was struck at 4700 ft Ground altitude and somehow it’s crash site was 16 miles away, in a completely different heading too. Considering a long bank to the right, and to travel 16 miles and then crash is quite a mystery. At this rate you’d expect a descent rate of between 1500-2000 feet per minute depending on speed. I believe there is no way the aircraft made it so far unless a pilot was in command, what would you gentlemen say?
I apologize if the question is not appropriate to the aviation community.
Sincerely Dan
Allegedly 2 SAMs were fired at it.
At least one looks to be confirmed to hitting the plane via video and some suspicious holes in the aircraft debris.
The plane shot down over Ukraine was hit by a similar SAM and cut through the flight deck and just aft if it.
Assuming the rocket or rockets in Iran exploded further behind the flight deck and no shrapnel hit destroyed vital flight controls, I’d assume it’s possible to fly it back.
Unfortunately the FAA & Boing have almost no credibility right now and the US/Iran conflict will make this a political circus. Iran already cleared the debris field in 1 day, I’m sure they took their time collecting evidence 
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Daniel,
This is a tragedy and hopefully the Iranians will honor their word and allow the NTSB to do their investigation.
As for the flight path I don’t believe it’s that great a mystery. It seems the airplane didn’t completely come apart upon being struck. Regardless of if the pilots were in control or the automation was just fighting to maintain something, at 4700’ with a speed of 250kts the plane would be traveling almost 5mi/min, if they could maintain a 1500fpm descent the time/distance works.
Very tragic.
Adam
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Dan,
Keep in ind that sixteen miles is not very far in a jet. I think it is way too early to form any real thoughts on this.
Chris
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Do we know yet if the pilot was able to declare an emergency or make any communication with ATC? It’ll be interesting to follow the investigation on this once they get the black boxes recovered.
The reports say there was no calls to ATC nor emergency declared. I don’t believe there’s much to investigate, the Iranians admitted to shooting the plane down
Adam