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Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey
I've heard rumors that those shrapnel holes were really bullet holes. Anyone know anything about that?
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Not likely. First, they're too small. A 30mm rifled round from an SU-25 as suggested the culprit by some, leaves a much bigger hole. The penetrators in AAA missile warheads, however, are most often small steel ball-bearing style projectiles. They're cheap and easy to manufacture out of very hard metals and they fly straight and true over a short distance regardless of orientation, and produce the most effective shrapnel ball for the target to fly through. Those holes in the Malaysian Air jet are far more consistent with AAA shrapnel than with 30mm rifled projectiles.
Second, when a 30mm slug strikes an airplane from behind and strikes longitudinal surfaces like wings and fuselage, it tends to leave a long narrow holes or tears. In order for rifled projectiles to make a circular hole, it has to enter or leave roughly perpendicularly to the surface, which would happen only if the aircraft were approaching at a 90 degree angle from the side. That might have been common in the biplane era, but that's not how modern fighter planes work.