"Malaysian Airliner shot down in Ukraine" Topic

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Well the will hit the fan over this one.

Let the finger pointing begin.

For a second, I was wondering how did that missing airliner go from the bottom of ocean near Australia to all the way into Ukranian airspace.

RIP passengers.

Somebody was trigger happy. Can that airlines company survive two disasters so close together?…

CNN and BBC do not appear to be calling the crash a shootdown presently. For what it's worth.

Wow. I have friends with a business in Amsterdam with an office in Kuala Lumpur and fly that route regularly. I hope they are ok.

Edit- Just heard back from them. Thankfully they are all ok. However, they probably won't be flying that airline for a bit (which really limits their possibilities).

I feel so sorry for these poor families.

Reuters are reporting their correspondent on the ground has seen wreckage and bodies – so the plane is definitely down; BBC speculating on use of Buk 9K37 Gadfly SAM system – certainly a serious bit of kit, reaching the airliner flying at 30,000 feet – as to who was responsible, it is not going to be a pretty sight watching the recriminations start, and will likely be a turning point in the conflict- but let's not lose sight of the Human tragedy here…….. awful – MH17 joins MH370…….

No, it WAS blown out of the sky. There are bodies and wreckage spread over a large area, 15Km (unconfirmed), but it broke up in mid air.

This is what happens when fools play political games. It is a criminal act. R.I.P. to all the passengers and crew and heartfelt thoughts to their families.

A better link than the first one
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To illustrate the fact it broke up mid air

stupidity by those, involved in conflict led to the disaster and more innocents killed. As expected, all sides involved denied responsibility, and accused each other of the crime.
Ukrainian government hints that there was their IL-76 nearby, and rebels might have mistaken one plane for another. Rebels reported Ukrainian SU following Boeing…but the weather is fine and I guess we'll have reliable satellite footage soon. This, indeed, may be a turning point in propaganda war over the conflict…

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Horrible, simply horrible. I can't think of anything else to say.

-Will

Oh dear lord.

how can one do that with big ADA stuff? no IFF on etc? weird.

Very tragic for the poor passengers & crew, and IMHO the so-called Russian-backed Separatists are to blame for this. I am surprised that civilian airliners are flying over what is effectively a war-zone.

Rebels claimed they shot down another Ukrainian aircraft before discovering it was a passenger liner.

Do the rebels have anything capable of reaching the altitude these birds fly at?

Well, the Russians have shown no qualms about shooting down civilian airliners in the past…why stop now?

They've never shot down an airliner that was on course… which is not a claim every nation can make.

Huscarle – I guess they thought they were safe at that altitude, though I'm surprised as well.

Given the Ukrainians presumably have competent air traffic control I'd have to say it looks like the Russians.

If so, the implications are massive.

Competent air traffic control doesn't imply competent air defence command and control. We have at least one example of a very competent force downing an airliner flying a normal flight plan because the C2 concerned fell apart.

And so far the theory that it was shot down is just one or a number of theories, just the one thats being assumed to be correct.

Ukraine isn't exactly guilt free about shooting down civilians either though.
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Nochules – hadn't heard about that one….

David Manley – you are of course entirely correct, although one would hope in a situation where the troops didn't feel immediately threatened they'd be a bit more circumspect.

Interestingly, a Russian language tweet where the rebels claim to have captured a BUK has been deleted according to the BBC.

All the belligerents in that area have weapons that can shoot down many aircraft types at many ranges … another sad turn of events …

… although one would hope in a situation where the troops didn't feel immediately threatened they'd be a bit more circumspect.

I've said it many times before … very bad things can and do happen in a combat zone … worse in the heat of a conflict …

I just hope there were some intel assets active over that area at the time to identify from where the missile was launched.

David, its too late to be a theory.

It has come down in rebel held territory and there are pictures of it with people all around (and standing on bits of it). So the black boxes will be in rebel hands too.

Guess if they go "missing" or are "too damaged to recover" it will be the rebels covering up their own or Russia's mistake. If they genuinely didn't do it they will make a big show of finding and handing them over.

how can one do that with big ADA stuff? no IFF on etc? weird.

Civilian aircraft don't, to my knowledge, carry military IFF transponders. Israeli ones might (along with their chaff/flare antimissile systems), but not the general majority.

There's still the civilian transponder, which should have said "DON'T SHOOT ME, I'M A CIVILIAN" to any air-defense radars. Assuming that it was working at the time. And assuming that the major-league ADA system has a working civvie-transponder receiver. And finally assuming that someone at the command station for the major-league ADA knew what a civilian transponder code looked like (which would be a horrible accident) and cared (which would be a major criminal act).

An 'aircraft not squaking codes' might be a civilian, might be a Tu22, or might even be hijacked by a jihadi who's trying to repeat 9/11/01, which is why any nations ADA systems will still lock onto and engage a contact transmitting civilian-only transponder signals.

Rebels have already announced that BBs will be sent to Moscow. I guess they'll have to be inspected by international commission under given circumstances. Still, these black boxes will not show who has fired the missile.

One Question, if and I say if considering the aircraft was supposedly shot down at 33000 feet. Who would benefit politically from this sad and heinous crime?
My hearts condolences to the bereaved and a special prayer for the lost.
Sometimes I think things should just be left alone to sort themselves out, same in this stupid conflict far too much testosterone and so-called national pride, all it does is kill innocents 'again'
Heavy hearted about it all.

"one would hope in a situation where the troops didn't feel immediately threatened they'd be a bit more circumspect."

One of the separatist leaders is now claiming they shot it down, although others are denying it. If true then I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have a clue what they were shooting at.

One of the separatist leaders is now claiming they shot it down, although others are denying it. If true then I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have a clue what they were shooting at.

Exactly. It is not so much to speculate whether someone would benefit from this act. It is just as likely that the launch crew were incompetent or insufficiently trained.

Damon.

Rebels have just proposed a ceasefire "for 2 or 3 days" around crash site in order conduct international investigation without obstacles.

The "Donetsk People's Republic," one of the separatist groups posted on their twitter page that they had taken some BUK equipment, even which unit they took them from- "(Ukrainian) surface-to-air missile regiment A1402."

They then posted that they shot down a transport plane and posted video from the area to confirm their victory.

Now these posts have been removed. It sounds like a rebel group thought they'd stick it to Ukraine and realized they screwed up. Just how some insurgents could obtain fairly complex equipment like this and then use it almost perfectly points to some training or support from military who are trained in their use. It's not like you stumble on a BUK system and just blindly get it to work.

If this is all true, this makes things very sticky for Russia. The smart move would be to take out their special operators, and disavow the separatists (probably allowing them to quietly slip over the border).

It's still too early to know if these reports are true, but the bragging they did over 'protecting the skies over Donetsk' sure doesn't look good for the separatists.

In other news- who the hell flies an airliner directly over a warzone?

Yea, Russian separatists apparently claimed to capture the mobile SAM vehicle(s) back in June, when they took over a Ukrainian military base (photos were posted on-line), and claimed the shootdown, initially (supposedly, they thought it was a Ukrainian cargo/troop carrier, like the IL-76).

Appears someone has figured out how to use the SAM launcher effectively.

In the smoke plume, you can see aluminum, and/or plastic bits floating down out of the sky, as well as four, long, white streamers, which I believe may be the wiring control harnesses for the aircraft.

A terrible shame, and needless loss of 295 people, including apparently 23 Americans on the flight.

In a different take on the story, Putin is claiming the Ukrainians were targeting him, since his aircraft was supposedly flying near the region at the same time.

The separatists are preventing Ukrainian authorities from obtaining the black boxes, which have supposedly been found, and I suspect they will be whisked off to Moscow for "analysis".

Looks like the US has announced it was a missle that bought the plane down

Arg I give up, so much jingoism just sours my mouth. You lot can get on with it.

Mainly Dutch passengers killed in this trajedy, apparently. As President Obama said, our thoughts go out to the victims, wherever they call home.

I find it incredible that Putin's lies machine has already come up with a story to spin this as an attempt on his life – talk about colossal bad taste, when his brinksmanship and lust for power is directly responsible for this catastrophe.

If any good is to come out of this, it may serve as a timely reminder to the free West of the contempt for human life and democratic values that emanates from Russia, and always has done…I hope this will serve to arrest for a time Western Europe's race to divest itself of defences.

CBS is reporting this the third plane shot down in the same area in the last two weeks!?! I hadn't heard about the other two.

On a related note:

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Appears Russia, and/or Russian-backed fighters are shooting a lot of stuff out of the sky, with impunity, and little in the way of real consequences.

27 Australians were on that flight.
I'm pretty angry right now.

It looks like this was a screwup on at least two levels. The first, obviously, was the separatists' failure to confirm their target's hostility. Their IADS (or whatever air defense umbrella they have) could most certainly not provide a clear picture of the situation. Even then, accidents happen. They could have launched on a genuine Ukrainian military transport, but the missile guided onto the airliner, but we will likely never know for sure.

Now for the second- and most blatant- screwup here. As evidenced by network news announcing that tweet's deletion, it was known for several months that there was at least one fairly-complete Gadfly system on the loose in or near Donetsk. Does that sort of thing, on top of the oblast/whatever already being an active warzone, not deter folks from routing commercial airliners over it? I'm shocked that ATC did not take precautions.

Now these posts have been removed. It sounds like a rebel group thought they'd stick it to Ukraine and realized they screwed up. Just how some insurgents could obtain fairly complex equipment like this and then use it almost perfectly points to some training or support from military who are trained in their use. It's not like you stumble on a BUK system and just blindly get it to work.

Ahem. Conscript armies, both Ukrainian and Russian. There's lots of military experience lurking in the area.

Besides, it's Russian kit. How hard could it be to turn on, spin up radar and missiles, see a target on the radar scope, and pull the trigger?

I'm more amazed that anyone was flying civilian aircraft anywhere near a shooting war, but crazier things have happened. After all, people aren't *supposed* to shoot at civilians. And too many sillyvilians confuse 'not supposed to' with 'magically will not'…

But that separatist group who claimed credit for the shootdown? They are about to hate life. Because I'm pretty sure that there are Dutch, Aussie, German, Belgian, and American special forces with their all the separatist's names on decks of cards. And that assumes that the Ukranians and/or Russians don't beat the rest of the world to the punch…

Congratulations, dumkopfen, you just eclipsed ISIS and Al Quaeda as Number 1 Priority Target for most of the civilized world! (Hey Barin, what's Russian/Ukranian for 'really, really ing stupid person'? That will be more appropriate than my bastard-German…)

You know what will happen…… Nothing of any great consequence.

There'll be bluster and wishy washy "diplomacy" for a few weeks but no one will want to put Putins nose out of joint, least of all the worlds superpower.

I'm thinking the next bit of air traffic in that area won't show up on radar and will leave a lot of burning scrap metal in its wake.

+1 to the furious Aussies list here

The BBC have on their site some pics showing a BuK 'Gadfly' launcher on a civilian low loader, originating from a Ukranian reporter, ostensibly showing equipment captured by rebels some time ago.

A complete mess … and it all started and continues with our favorite former KGB agent's leadership … The Cold War continues to get colder …

Desperately sad for all the victims and a terrible run of bad luck for the Malaysians.

Sky has just aired film of a BUK, with one of its three missiles missing, allegedly heading to Russia on a low-loader.

@Nochules – thanks for the reminder about the shootdown of Siberian Airlines 1812. A missile was fired at a target drone during an exercise, missed and locked on to an airliner. I'm not surprised it's been forgotten about. It happened less than a month after 9/11 and a few days before the invasion of Afghanistan so was swamped by other news.

Ironically, back then, Putin and Kiev were on the same page in denying the airliner has been shot down (the Ukrainian missile was fired from a Russian exercise area in the Crimea). Putin said "the weapons used in those exercises had such characteristics that make it impossible for them to reach the air corridor through which the plane was moving" and US claims to the contrary were "unworthy of attention". The Ukrainians admitted the truth about a month later.

Also, don't forget that, in September 1993, two Georgian airliners were shot down by Russian-backed Abkhaz separatists.

Current Ukrainian position is that WAC has not provided enough proof that 1812 was shot by Ukrainian missile. In 2011 they have ruled out that accident was caused by internal explosion.
It seems that every list composed lacks some entries….but this one from USATODAY has a couple of stories I've never heard about:
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I don't know who WAC is but, from what I can glean from Wiki, the Ukrainians admitted responsibility in 2001 and then back-tracked in order not to have to pay compensation to the victims' families. (Or maybe pay compensation without admitting liability)

Whatever the truth about that, the USA Today story you linked to is wrong. SA1812 was not shot down "in another conflict between Russia and Ukraine" but during a JOINT Ukrainian-Russian exercise.

IAC, my mistake in translation. (international aviation committee)
But you're right, they got it wrong, as there was no open conflict between Russia and Ukraine at that time.
The closest situation will be 6 days war, when Russia lost several planes to BUK systems that were supplied by Ukraine and supposedly operated by Ukrainian technicians, no real proof of it though.

I know this approaching Blue Fez territory, but I cannot but share my disgust at Putin who's brinksmanship and lust for power has led to this Russian backed atrocity. 2 of the murdered victims were retired teachers from Kanahooka, just down the road from me. It brings this mindless, terrorist slaughter home.

After 25 years in the military, I have never, ever taken part in a political demonstration, and regard those who do as unemployed, layabout hooligans…

but as God is my witness, if Australia invites Putin to Brisbane for the G20 conference, without that Putin has afforded every cooperation to his Donetz terrorist stooges to help the investigators, I will go up to Brisbane with a placard and a bucket of red paint it I have to do it on my own and lose my (very respectable university) job, and military pension, to do it….Enough's enough! Once again, its time to stand up and do whats right!