Slashdot Mirror
Malaysian Passenger Plane Reportedly Shot Down Over Ukraine
An anonymous reader writes The Russian newswire service Interfax is reporting that a Malaysian passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down with a Buk ground-to-air missile over Ukraine near the Russian border. The Associated Press cites an adviser to Ukraine's Interior Minister as the source. First reports are that it was mistaken for a Ukrainian AN-26.
Malaysia airlines confirms they lost contact with the plane (last known position), but there's no confirmation it was shot down (yet). The Ukrainian government accused Russia of shooting down a fighter jet in Ukrainian airspace last night. Reports indicate there are no survivors.
What a horrible tragedy, and one that changes the political climate considerably. Obama will face much less resistance from Europe if Russia turns out to be responsible. It also gives the Ukraine a reason to call in US "specialists" for help with the investigation.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yeah, an issue on board caused by a freaking antiaircraft missile, right?
Actually as I heard it Russia actually shot down a Su-25 the other day as well, so this may have been a result of an overzealous commander telling his subordinates to shoot down "everything that flies."
For those of us old enough to remember The USS Vincennes.
Best Slashdot Co
I share your hope but not your optimism. Disappearing over the Ukrainian/Russian border would be a remarkable coincidence. Then again, a remarkable coincidence started WWI, so...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I share your hope but not your optimism. Disappearing over the Ukrainian/Russian border would be a remarkable coincidence. Then again, a remarkable coincidence started WWI, so...
Well it is also a remarkable coincidence this happens to Malaysia air -- who lost another Boeing 777 in March.
It's entirely possible the reason both flights are lost is the same. But, all is speculation until we hear more news
Too much of a coincidence for a plane to crash in a war zone where a fighter was shot down just the other day and a transport aircraft An-26 was shot down by a missile at 25,000ft couple of days ago. And by the way, why would a commercial airliner fly through such an airspace anyway?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
http://www.aeroinside.com/item...
Recorded flight path: http://flightaware.com/live/fl...
Bubble and froth: http://www.airliners.net/aviat...
Manpad cant reach this high.
This was a deliberate radar guided attack.
From the reports, the plane was flying at a cruising altitude of ~30,000ft., way too high for a MANPAD. It would have to be a radar guided missile system like SA-11 (which both sides have) but still there is a question how they would identify the plane.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Russia hasn't taken over Ukraine yet. Unless you meant another fascist junta.
I highly doubt that a shoulder-carried ground-air-missile is able to reach up to 10 km.
>> issue on board
Like a missile poking up through the floorboards and then exploding?
I don't think MANPADS can hit a plane at that altitude. Early reports said this plane was at nearly 30-50k altitude on it's way to Moscow and most MANPAD systems have fairly limited altitude ranges in the 2 mile range. This is the reason Ukraine accused Russia of shooting that other plane transport plane down, it was at an altitude that very very few MANPAD systems are capable of reaching.
Either Russia has given the insurgents some very high tech MANPADS or Russia shot the plane down using an air defense system like the S300. You need pretty advanced (and relatively large) missiles to reach the altitude that commercial airlines fly at.
That rag tag militia got lucky it seems, with a direct hit no less. Those light ammunitions gathered from round the house, what the odd Klashnikov and what have you.
Speculation at this point is this is what those rag-taggers managed to bring it down with: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
And by the way, why would a commercial airliner fly through such an airspace anyway?
To get to the other side?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Well then, to add to the speculation... On Reuters via Twitter, reporter Anne Applebaum tweeted this: Donetsk commander Strelkov, longtime Russian agent, claimed credit today for shooting plane he thought was Ukrainian http://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bsw... Though I can not read Russian (could someone please translate?), I don't get the sense that it says anything too positive though.
you don't know what 'government' means, do you?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Citation required (seriously, you couldn't be bothered?)
I can't find anything to back your claim.
Please help metamoderate.
Oh, and my source via Reuters is this live feed: http://live.reuters.com/Event/... in case anyone else is interested.
This is a capture of the message in the VK network sent by Russian GRU officer Strelkov admitting that he ordered the missile strike against the Malaysian jet: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bs...
And by the way, why would a commercial airliner fly through such an airspace anyway?
Because the time & fuel savings were weighed to be more significant than any risks to commercial air traffic? Until today.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Cue Family Guy "let's get rid of government" reference: Now that we've freed ourselves from the terrible shackles of government, it's time to replace it with something better. The first thing we need is a system of rules that everyone must live by. ..Got to have rules.
And since we can't spend all our time making rules, I think that we should elect some people to represent us, and they should make rules and choices on our behalf. ..That's probably a good idea.
Now, this may be kind of expensive, so I got a plan: everyone should have to give some money from their salaries each year.
Poor people will give a little bit of money and rich people will give a larger amount of money, and our representatives will use all that money to hire some people who will then provide us with social order and basic services.
Now, it won't be perfect.
Some of our representatives may end up being bastards.
But you know what? That's okay 'cause later we're going to have more elections, and we can use those elections to get rid of the bad guys and replace 'em with good guys, and then the system will just keep going on and on just like that.
So who's with me? Will you join me in trying this new crazy thing? Then let's do it.
Yeah, and we did it all without government.
Karma to burn so at the risk of being offtopic to the article, but ontopic to you: We're antiquated relics from a time when the slogan still applied. The beginning of the end can be traced back to the fall of the WTC buildings, but the /. editors still tried their hardest to keep stories to the theme of the slogan for years after. However, ever since that event, Slashdot has slowly moved away from focusing solely on stories that fit the slogan and bringing in stories that have a possible historic and/or "climate" (whether this be political or otherwise) changing significance. The acquisition of /. by Dice just sped up this process. While it is still a large focus of the site you'll probably notice that the slogan "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" has been removed from the main page*.
*Note: I just checked Beta, and noticed that the "News for Nerds" part of the slogan is part of the logo there... but who visits beta anyway?
Translating from russian... "Near Torez (city) an An-26 airplane was just shot down, it crashed somewhere beyond "Progress" mine site. We warned beforehand - do not fly over "our zone". Here's another video proof of the next "birdfall". A birdie crashed down beyond terricon (mine excavation site), missed living areas. Population not harmed. We also allegedly have info on another SU-25 shot down".
To answer your question...
The location tracking clearly indicated it is a normal flight path and at an altitude where only radar guided type missiles could hit. In other words, the weapons that could reach the altitude for it to hit should have known it was a passenger airplane. Unless they were rebels given equipment with very little training and no infrastructure to compare the flight paths with known flights.
I have a Russian coworker and he confirms thats basically what teh image is about; there is the usual spin about wrong plane etc but yes they shot it down.
Right, because nerds don't give a rats ass about civilian casualties in war zones from commercial jets getting shot down.
Nosirree, none of us ever fly because we're always safely ensconced in our mom's basement. Doesn't affect us at all. And we certainly might not know people from the region.
Don't like these stories? Don't read 'em.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
We're also now getting reports on numerous posters trying to white-wash this tragedy and make it look either as if this plane was not shot, or as if it was shot down by UA air forces. Clearly, Russian propaganda machinery is in full shit-on mode.
Firstly, I'd like to note that I'm not placing blame with any particular party or saying that this was definitely an incident where the plane was shot down. With that said, the plane was in the older Malysia Airlines livery, which has the bottom of the fuselage and engine nacelles painted grey. Perhaps this could contribute to it being mistaken for a military transport by inexperienced or trigger-happy forces, as it would be a similar color to that used on those transports. I hope the truth of this incident can be found without politics getting in the way on every side. The crew and passengers deserve it.
The separatists have control over a Ukrainian anti-air installation (A-1402). That installation contains BUKs, which are quite able to reach a plane at that height. Also, given the separatist's demonstrated willingness to shoot down airplanes and that they also lied about their capabilities, I dare say that it's not looking good for them at the moment.
And by the way, why would a commercial airliner fly through such an airspace anyway?
Each airline (and/or its regulatory overlords) will make its own decision as to where to (not) fly. The FAA told US based airlines to not fly over the region as a precaution. Apparently the Malaysian authorities came to a different risk evaluation. Or, they are still trying to figure out how to make a decision. Or they were ignored by the state flagged carrier.
I share your hope but not your optimism.
Your optimism is misplaced. Photos of the crash are on Reuters website, and reports of debris and body parts are coming in. The big question now is who shot it down. Most fingers are pointing at the pro-Russian rebels.
Well, the plane was shot down over territories controlled by pro-Russian terrorists. Just before noon, there was a few posts by them claiming that they have a powerful anti-aircraft missile system installed in this very area. There are videos of this, etc.. take a look -
https://twitter.com/kram_ua/status/489819473789333505/photo/1
It roughly says the following: "Anti-aircraft system BUK, on territory of anti-aircraft site PVO A1402 controlled by DNR (name of this pro-Russian terrorist organization)". Date: 29/06/2014.
If civilian commercial aviation is becoming fair game for armies seeking to gain advantage, then the world has just gone to a very bad place.
We're now getting reports from the airline that there was an issue on board, so everything, including being shot down, is speculation at the moment.
Reports on sceen are finding multiple wreckage sites. Suggesting it, in some way, blew up. So it's not looking good.
That was the same party telling it that was advertising other pearls of wisdom, like the fact that there were no mass artillery shelling in Sloviansk. Vice news did a nice video of it where they drove through the city showing the massive destruction from indiscriminate shelling, all while playing the audio of the denials of the Kiev representative.
Brought the whole "Goebbels saying that everything is fine on Eastern Front as the Red Army is shelling the very radio station he's holding the speech from" feeling.
At least for that flight number, it apparently wasn't on a normal flight path. It was around 100 miles further north than that flight flew on previous days.
Check the FlightAware tracking data.
Don't know if that is significant or not but it's easy to verify for yourself. All the other flights on the page of MAL17 flights go over the Sea of Azov or even south of it. This one was well off to the north of it.
Again, don't know why or if that even matters, but at least compared to the other MAL17 flights it did appear to be off course in that region. Not that that is a reason to shoot it down.
Russian facist hunta has taken over Crimea in March, and trying to grab two more regions. This plane was shot while flying over territories controlled by pro-Russian terrorists. Get your facts straight man!
It's not my primary source, but it's hardly surprising when something like this actually gets posted.
Because it is stuff that matters.
As opposed to all of the whining and bitching about Apple v Microsoft and other pointless stuff that goes on around here.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I, for one, live in Odessa and consider Russia to be the major aggressor in this war. Vast majority of locals think the same. We elected new president just 6 weeks ago, so please stop making noises about illegality of UA's government. This was ridiculous at the time Russians started saying this, and it's old now.
Indeed. the BBC coverage states that "There is no official closure of Ukraine airspace but Germany's Lufthansa has decided to divert four flights currently in the air which would overfly east Ukraine".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... A large passenger aircraft Boeing 777, performing a flight between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur, was shot down in the eastern part of Ukraine. According to the General Staff of Ukrainian Armed Forces, the airplane was shot down by the Russian Buk missile system as the liner was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters. Ukraine has no long-range air defence missile systems in this area. The plane was shot down, because the Russian air defence systems was affording protection to Russian mercenaries and terrorists in this area. Ukraine will present the evidence of Russian military involvement into the Boeing crash. The leader of the terrorists Igor Girkin (Strelkov) immediately commented on the airplane catastrophe, believing that it was the Ukrainian jet that crashed down: “In Torez An-26 was shot down, its crashes are lying somewhere near the coal mine “Progress”. We have warned everyone: do not fly in our skies.”
Now way man, the NSA has clearly indicated it was Snowden with all the force of his computer juju.
Two other airplanes (non-commercial with much lower loss of life and thus less interesting to news outlets I presume) were shot down within the week in similar airspace. Why aren't we discussing those?
Because non-commercial airplanes being shot down in a war zone is not an out-of-the-ordinary technical news... not unless there were interesting technical attributes to the story .ie. new anti-missile system technology, radar, anti-missile technology failure, etc.
A commercial jet, and a big one at that, being shot down in a war zone, then brings a whole bunch of technical topics to discuss? What lead to the airplane being mis-identified? What technical prevention mechanisms could have been used to prevent this? Would it be worth while to explore temporary expansion of flight routes to avert war zones? Etc, etc.
Go ahead and try to put a techie spin on it, but the point remains that we're only oogling over this because a bunch of people died, which not only seem distasteful, but again, has nothing to with the type of news this site represents.
No, that is only you putting that spin on it so that you can accuse others of distasteful oogling. Stop projecting... or not, whatever rocks your boat and gives you a moment to build faux moral outrage and pass it as your moral accomplishment of the day.
Planes have already been shot down as part of the hostilities. To assume that because your commercial flight is flying higher than those it can't possibly be targeted is the height of stupidity. Likewise falling back on the 'well, Ukraine never closed their airpsace'. Just because a road is open does not make it wise to take it.
I'm sure flying over Ukraine is a cheaper route for the airlines. Until something bad happens and your bird drops. This is all about a failure of risk management. It is one thing if your final destination is in/near the hostilities. Then you make a decision if you are going to fly that route, well thats the only way to go and everyone knows whats what before you start. But to do a fly over when you can easily route around it (even within Urkraine) is stupid.
ITAR-TASS (Russian state owned) reported eyewitness claims that "Militiamen of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) brought down a military transport Antonov-26 (An-26) plane of the Ukrainian Air Force on the outskirts of the town of Torez..."
Given that the geographic area is predominantly occupied by separatists ("eyewitnesses"), and the speed with which the report got to Russia, that report may be a "smoking gun," almost literally.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I share your hope but not your optimism.
Your optimism is misplaced.
He implied he did not have optimism. Not sure how one misplaces what one does not have.
.
19:00:
A tweet (in Russian) from a key Twitter account used by pro-Russian separatists, in which they claim to have captured a Buk surface-to-air missile system, has now been deleted, BBC Monitoring observes. Ukrainians say the Malaysian plane could have been downed with a Buk, but pro-Russian rebels have now denied they have it.
Strelkov is former GRU and a present day Russian operative stirring up shit in Ukraine on behalf of Putin and fellow travelers. He has been personally sanctioned by the EU for corrodinating the separatist insurgency. Read his Wikipedia page if you want more.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
compared to the other MAL17 flights it did appear to be off course in that region
According to CNN, it was due to weather on the regular flight path.
Translating from russian... "Near Torez (city) an An-26 airplane was just shot down, it crashed somewhere beyond "Progress" mine site. We warned beforehand - do not fly over "our zone". Here's another video proof of the next "birdfall". A birdie crashed down beyond terricon (mine excavation site), missed living areas. Population not harmed. We also allegedly have info on another SU-25 shot down"
The AN-26 is a turboprop, vaguely similar to a DHC-8. The SU-25 is a twin engined fighter. The most obviously identifiable piece of wreckage is clearly part of a large gas turbine engine.
I, for one, live in Odessa and consider Russia to be the major aggressor in this war. Vast majority of locals think the same.
Go ask the same question in Donetsk or Sevastopol, and you are likely to get a different answer.
Yep, just like the neo-Nazi's who refuse to recognize Obama as President of the U.S. Same retards, different language.
... to replace the democratically elected pro-Russian president, who was overthrown by military force.
You mean when he fled the country with his looted money in the face of mass civilian protests. No military force was necessary, just a fear of justice after years of robbing his country and people.
Too much of a coincidence for a plane to crash in a war zone where a fighter was shot down just the other day and a transport aircraft An-26 was shot down by a missile at 25,000ft couple of days ago. And by the way, why would a commercial airliner fly through such an airspace anyway?
No U.S. carrier has been allowed to fly over certain parts of Ukraine since the end of April, due to an FAA order.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Since we're trying for technical accuracy here, the SU-25 is not a fighter. Even a glance at the pictures makes that transparently obvious. It's a purpose-built ground attack aircraft, much like the well-known A-10 Warthog. Its only aim in life is to kill people, and destroy equipment and installations, on the ground. And it's pretty much defenceless against fighters, unless it can keep low enough to evade them by jinking.
So why do all the media call the SU-25 a fighter? Maybe it's just standard incompetence and ignorance, but you should always ask "cui bono?" ("who stands to gain?") Perhaps the current Ukrainian "government", and those who support it - because if the SU-25 is an armoured ground attack aircraft, the question arises: whom has it been sent to kill? And the only possible answer is "Ukrainian citizens". So, just like Saddam, Assad, and Qadafi, Poroshenko is "killing his own people". Given how often the US government uses that as a pretext for a savage, unrestrained attack (and how unwilling it would be to launch such an attack against Poroshenko) it's pretty obvious that it has a powerful interest in labelling the SU-25 as a "fighter".
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
In the US pilots can and will alter their course to get around bad weather systems or take advantage of more helpful prevailing winds that day. For a trans-continental flight, 100 miles is a pittance.
Fortunately, for us, our pilots don't have to also take in consideration whether Nebraska is currently having a dispute with Kansas.
>> I, for one, live in Odessa and consider Russia to be the major aggressor in this war. Vast majority of locals think the same.
>Go ask the same question in Donetsk or Sevastopol, and you are likely to get a different answer.
That would be a bit complicated since these territories are controlled by terrorists these days. As far as I know from refugees (and we have LOTS of those coming from Donetsk and Luhansk regions), local support for terrorists is minimal. It is mostly limited to local criminals, ex- political leaders (Communist and "Party of Regions" parties).
>>We elected new president just 6 weeks ago,
>... to replace the democratically elected pro-Russian president, who was overthrown by military force. This new election was held in full knowledge that the eastern (pro-Russian) regions were in turmoil and could not meaningfully participate.
Yanukovich was not overthrown by military force. There were clashes in the center if Kiev, but police and military was on his side at the time, and they had guns, grenades, armed vehicles; rebels had one catapult and molotov's. Yanukovich didn't care about anything besides money, and he fled the country as soon as he realized that there's not much more to make. Basically, he bled Ukraine's economy in a major way - to the extent where we had a revolution with majority support from UA's population. Odessa has been one of "his" regions. Majority of locals supported President Poroshenko (new elect), same goes for all other ex-Yanukovich's regions - Nikolaev, Kherson, Zaporizhya, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, parts of Donetsk and Luhansk where there was no turmoil at the time.
One last bit on "democratically elected" - I participated in 2004 elections as an observer - there's no such thing as democratic vote in regions controlled by Yanukovich representatives.
Not as many as you might think. World population only hit 1 billion around 1804 and didn't get to 2 billion until around 1927. It was still under 3 billion when I was born in 1952.
So, they apparently did have "that kind of hardware." Of course, today they're claiming they don't.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Then again, a remarkable coincidence started WWI, so...
I don't know what is coincidental in the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne by Serbian nationalists armed and trained by Serbian military intelligence. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
Given the political and military alliances forged in Europe before WWI, this was not going to end well.
A Google translation gives this:
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
KAL-007 (and no, James Bond was NOT aboard)
The Russians approached that Korean civilian airliner from behind, positively identified it, then shot it down with loss of all souls on board.
At the time, left-wing apologists all over the world went full-on "9-11 truther" foil-hat conspiracy mode and tried to blame others, including the US govt, for the shootdown (one former Carter administration officiel even made money from a book he wrote trying to blame it on Reagan). Unfortunately for their misguided cause, the radio communications between the Russian fighter pilots and their ground controllers (which contained both the explicit ID and the shootdown orders) had been heard and recorded by multiple stations - none of the conspiracy theories were valid - the Russians, in full-Communist-era-paranoid mode had intentionally shot down a civilian plane full of people for straying into their airspace (which the blackboxes later showed was the result of a simple pilot error in configuring his navigation system before he tookoff)
Which is precisely the reason commercial flight corridors and hundreds of miles wide.
Ditto for Gannett, who operates a number of newspapers and their associated websites. Their Facebook-driven comment system has plenty of similar comments from posters who have their location as being in Russia, with those comments being highly up-voted.
Here, let me help you - https://twitter.com/kram_ua/st...
It says something along the lines - "DNR captured this BUK on 29/June/2014, from UA AA base".
the leader of the Ukrainian separatists (Mr. Putin's puppets) bragged about the shootdown (mis-identifying the plane as a Ukranian Antonov) and even put photos of the smoking wreckage with the announcement BEFORE word got out that it was a civilian 777 from Malasia. THEN he took down his postings (stupid moron is as dumb as many western politicians who think you can hide or "take back" something after it hits the www). Now, apparently, Putin's puppets at his mouthpiece "RT" are claiming it was not his puppets because they would not shoot down such a plane because it could have been Putin's plane that got shot down if Putin had been flying there at the time.
The ONLY "false flag" involved here is all those "Ukranian Separatists" Putin has injected into the Ukrain in order to stir things up and give him a fig-leaf of a justification to eventually move-in to "protect" them by grabbing more of the Ukrain. Putin is following Adolf Hitler's playbook perfectly and the Europeans are following the same path of willful-blindness and capitulation they followed in the late 1930's. Human nature, it seems, never changes.
Some of what I've been reading indicates that the "AN-26" the rebels thought they shot down was actually this 777.
If you splode something at 25-30k feet with an "illicitly acquired" SAM battery that you're probably not properly trained to use, unless you're an aircraft engineer you might have issues properly identifying the wreckage.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I am confused: here is the route of that flight: http://de.flightaware.com/live...
But if you look for older dates, you'll see that the route is much more to the south, almost above Crimea (about 300-350 km deviation depending on the date you choose), e.g. http://de.flightaware.com/live...
Are such deviations normal or could the flight be directed that far to the north by ground control? (Not an expert, just curious).
This is something that happens routinely due to weather.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
The "rebels" are in a good part active-duty Russian army and special forces personnel with no distinctions, so I wouldn't claim "very little training".
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Seems likely. The debris scatter is 9 miles, so that indicate a large explosion. Something larger then what would typically be use by an on board terrorist.
Maybe the fuel exploded but that is EXTREMELY unlikely for many reasons.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The size of the debris field seems to indicate a mid flight explosion. So something radar guided from the ground, or fired from another aircraft seems likely.
Could be on board terrorism. I would think being shot down has a higher likely hood.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm not sure. It was at 32000 feet when they last had contact, which means it wasn't quite at cruising altitude, but it was still several miles up. The 777's cruising speed is mach .84, about 630 MPH. I'm not going to do the math (i'd love it if one of you aerospace guys would, especially since we know where it landed and the last known altitude and the great circle between Schipol and Kuala Lumpur), but I think it would be safe to say that on the ascent it would be going about 350-450 MPH. I can't see terrorists getting their hands on that kind of hardware. Both Ukraine and Russia on the other hand...
FWIW the last flighttrack data showed a speed of 490 kts (564mph), altitude of 33,000 feet (a common cruising alt if there is turbulence at 35k+) Lat 48.088 Lon 38.6359.
There were German civilian ships in the Atlantic between 1941 and 1945?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
That would be a bit complicated since these territories are controlled by terrorists these days.
Please let's not make the term "terrorist" so broad that it means nothing. There is a civil war going on in Ukraine. The aim of the two sides is to control territory, not to terrorize people, though of course the war doesn't exactly make people feel safe. Not all bad things in the world are terrorism.
That's not correct but the coincidence is even better than that. After their first failed assassination attempt of the day, the assassin moved to a restaurant that he believed would be along the Archduke's return path (it wasn't). The duke's driver went the wrong way and when the Governor saw that it was the wrong path ordered the driver to reverse and go another direction. The driver stopped the car in front of the restaurant the assassin had chosen, literally right in front of him. The assassin had to merely take two steps forward and shoot the Archduke from about 5 feet away.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
Unfortunately comparing to a track of a previous day doesn't tell us anything concrete. There are tons of valid reasons why the plane would be flying a different route. Planes optimize their routes according to weather - especially winds, and ATC just might have directed them differently this time.
Only dumb birds land downwind.
Strelkov does not have a twitter account, he was telling this since the beginning of the conflict.
this should not be a such a big surprise - rebels have the weapons that they got from Ukrainian army and possibly also from across the border (although direct involvement of of Russian military or in general government is unproven till now. They are also the only ones there under air assault (from Ukrainian air force) so any shooting into planes is done done by rebels who also happened to have the BUK which is good enough. The question is why with all this knowledge civilian airplanes were allowed there and why airlines knowing very well about the situation still accepted to fly just above the no fly zone. Either stupidity or provocation or both as this always works best.
LOL. If fake, how was the detailed post, which included pictures, created before the crash was publicly known, and why was it taken down so quickly? Also, you've cited no references for your claim. Given that 2 weeks ago the Donetsk People's Republic claimed to have captured Buk missiles, and today they claimed to have none, their integrity is quite suspect.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It is mostly limited to local criminals, ex- political leaders (Communist and "Party of Regions" parties).
In these situations I must always think about one of the leaked cables, where some embassador said that in Russia you cannot distinguish organized crime from politics.
I'll enlist for Kansas.
I'd be tempted to make a joke here, but Kansas already has a similar political proxy war in its history. Makes it much less funny.
160 years later, and evil looks pretty much the same.
If something looks like a duck, acts like a duck then it must be a duck. I heard plenty of stories of eye witnesses, now refugees from Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Saw hours of videos, photos, TV news etc. This is not a civil war. There are roughly 10,000 armed armed terrorists paid by ex-president Yanukovich, certain oligarchs and supported by Putin. Their goals are - to further destabilize Ukraine economically, politically; chop off a few more regions if possible, keep new UA government from making any reforms, generally keep UA attached to Russia, try to save property - production plants, mines, etc. Try to save control over certain regions. And they're failing, but we still have a very, very long way to go. For instance, the whole destabilization thing is likely to go on while Putin is in power, which may or may not last for long.
You are not using the approved language. Pro-Russian president, no matter how much money is being stolen, is to be referred to as the hero of the people. Pro-Western president, no matter what their background is, is to be called a Nazi.
Interesting moderation there. Gee there /. mod, something not sitting well with your limited view of the world today? I'm guessing it was the missiles found in a school in gaza. Not the first time either, it's much like hamas using ambulances to transport terrorists around.
Om, nomnomnom...
First a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 (flight 370) vanishes.
Now, another Malaysian Airlines 777 apparently shot down.
Two approximately $300 million (US) planes lost in five months. Odd.
There is a tweet from alleged ground control who was tracking the flight:
"El avión B 777 voló escoltado por 2 cazas de ukraine hasta minutos antes, de desaparecer de los radares"
My Spanish is a bit rusty, but it says something like "the flight B 777 was escorted by two Ukrainian fighters some minutes before disappearing from the radar". Don't know what to think of that. If true, then the Ukrainian Air Force at the very least knew that the plane was heading into the conflict zone.
In the US Air Force (when I was around it) it was generally slang to refer to all tactical aircraft (including light bombers like A-7s and A-10s) as 'fighters' and their pilots as 'fighter pilots'. This was in contrast to the heavy bombers and transports. The tactical attack aircraft were a lot more similar to the air-to-air fighters than they were to the heavy bombers and often they were dual role anyway. To the general public and press, any small, fast (A-10 is fast in this context), maneuverable military aircraft with weapons is a 'fighter'. And A-10s and SU-25s can carry quite capable air-to-air missiles (AIM-9 for the A-10 and AA-8 for the Su-25) so the distinction even in those cases is not completely clean. I don't think there is a conspiracy here.
It's not the gun you are talking about, it's a pretty sophisticated missile system which also needs a radio locator station to operate. Besides, the separatists have to have trained personnel as well.
As for the alleged tweet: it is from a sympathizer's group which sometimes posts Strelkov's reports. That tweet is not from him and was based on hearsay. A plane goes down, locals tweet about it, the group assumes that this was a Ukrainian military plane.
I highly doubt that this would be a deliberate act by pro-Russian separatists. If it does turn out that this was done by them, this is a HUGE PR disaster for them. They have nothing to gain by it. I see three possibilities:
1 - separatists shot it down accidentally (unlikely as a crew trained to use a highly sophisticated SA-11 system would also know how to tell a civilian airliner from a military transport turboprop)
2 - false flag operation by Ukrainians in order to blame pro-Russians (unlikely as they are too incompetent to pull this off without the word leaking out)
3 - Ukrainians "tricked" the separatists into shooting down the plane. Only couple of days ago separatists shot down an An-26 military transport plane and warned Ukraine not to fly over the region anymore. Two days later a civilian airliner is sent (by the Ukraine flight-control?), 100km away from it's usual flight-path and straight over the separatist area. (Most likely in my opinion)
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Ukrainian Ministry of Defense states that there were no Buks in the bases taken over by the terrorists, and any other military equipment left there was rendered unusable by the leaving troops.
Actually, the FAA told US airlines not to fly over Crimea, because in April Russia claimed they controlled air traffic over that airspace. The FAA told US planes not to fly there because it was a convoluted, disputed mess which could lead to accidents. It had nothing to do with risk of being shot down, and that area does not (or did not until today at least) cover the area over Ukraine where this flight was shot down. That flight path would not have been restricted by the FAA.
Better known as 318230.
Actually there were no BUKs there, so the separatists couldn't get any from UA military. If they have BUKs then those cam from Russia. It's a standard scheme - the separatists claim to have captured something from the army and then they get that from Russia. Often times in 10x quantities comparing to their claims.
So Ukraine intelligence is recording separatist traffic and giving it to the media. Among these are two calls between some "Major" johnny-on-the-spot reporting to someone called "Greek":
One call:
Greek: "Yes Major!"
Major: "Kazaks from the Chernukhino checkpoint shot down the plane."
The above is abridged; the audio has a lot more speech and this is an alternate translation:
Major: "Well, these were <guys from> Chernukhino who shot the plane. From Chernukhino checkpoint. The Cossacks that are standing at Chernukhino."
Next call:
Greek: "What's the news?"
Major: "I mean, it's definitely a civilian aircraft."
Greek: "Were there many people?"
Major: "A fuck ton. The debris rained right into the yards"
Greek: "What's the aircraft?"
Major: "I haven't figured it out yet. I haven't reached the main section. I only looked at where the bodies began to fall."
Major: "There are remains of chair mounts, the chairs, the bodies."
So we've got separatist commanders taking credit for the shoot down before they knew it was civilian, Twitter posts celebrating captured Buk missiles deleted by separatists and captured traffic naming the shooters; the Russian equivalent of rednecks standing a post and firing missiles at unidentified aircraft.
Patton wanted to keep marching East and settle Uncle Joe after Germany fell. He might have saved us all about 70 years of this bullshit.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
unlikely as a crew trained to use a highly sophisticated SA-11 system would also know how to tell a civilian airliner from a military transport turboprop
What makes you believe that they have a properly trained crew? It's much more likely that, after acquiring those AA launchers, they cobbled together a team of "best and brightest" who did their best to figure it out - and maybe had a hazy recollection from 40 years ago when they were conscripts. In fact, that's precisely why I think it's the most likely scenario - people operating complicated machinery without proper training is exactly the kind of thing that'd be likely to lead to this disaster.
The silhouettes are similar, and Boeing 777 flying at 30000 feet is roughly the same size as An-26 flying at 15000 feet, if you look at their wingspan and do the math. A bunch of untrained militia types who are trigger-happy with their new shiny toy mistaking identity? Especially after they have already downed one An-26 with it just three days ago? Sounds very likely, IMO.
Perhaps the current Ukrainian "government", and those who support it - because if the SU-25 is an armoured ground attack aircraft, the question arises: whom has it been sent to kill? And the only possible answer is "Ukrainian citizens".
What bullshit. The obvious answer is: "enemy ground forces". Exactly the same role that A-10 was used in Iraq and Afghanistan for: close air support. Seeing how rebels have armor and heavy artillery now, and have had bunkers and other strong fortifications for a while, why wouldn't Ukrainians want to use ground attack aircraft to take them out?
Article states of the bat that it was a vacant UN sponsored school building. To spin this as the UN being complicit in hiding Hamas missiles displays some remarkably reading comprehension problems.
Maybe the UN should start sponsoring schools in the
US. Obviously the education system failed you.
accident that Putin gives heavy weapons and training to pro-Russian militants and then things like this happen....yup, accident
Oct 2001 the Ukraine shot down an Air Siberia plane killing 78.
Basically check your flight plan. Some area you want to go around.
On the other hand. The dutch royal airline (KLM) pre-emptively stopped flying through Ukranian air spance quite some time ago. It's the difference between, 'it's probably going to be ok' and 'we're not taking any chances'.
The mountains of madness have many little plateaus of sanity - Terry Pratchett.
There is no such thing as "Russian citizens in Ukraine". There are 10 million Russian-speaking, Russian ethnic people living in Ukraine, with Ukrainian passport. They are citizens of Ukraine. My home city of Odessa's population is almost 100% Russian-speaking, 30% Russian-ethnic people. And as one might expect, I have plenty of friends and co-workers who fall into this category - ethnic Russians. And they all despise what Putin is doing, they do not want to be under Kremlin control and they are all calling these "rebels" "terrorists". To a larger extent, an exact same thing is happening in all former "pro-Russian" regions of my country. You see, people are smart enough to realize that Ukrainian government is not going to be prosecuting anybody based on language or ethnicity. This is simply B.S. coming from Russian propoganda. And people are smart enough to understand that Putin's regime has nothing to do with Russian culture, and they don't actually have to be governed by Kremlin in order to be Russians culturally and ethnically. For example, take a look at Russians living in Brooklyn, NY, or in Germany. Is anybody's willing to back to modern Russia? Is there anybody who supports annexation of Crimea on anything but nationalism?
Actually I agree that "terrorists" is perhaps an incorrect word to use. What we have on our hands in Russian military invasion of Ukraine. So at this stage, I'd call them Russian mercenaries.
They actually do focus on civilians - kidnapping is a huge business over there. They also torture and kill anybody who does not support their point of view. There has been numerous reports on all of this in the press, by eye witnesses, by people who escaped. These guys are not what one would call "orthodox terrorists". Do we really have to keep searching for a mildly more correct word to use?
Actually Russians are the masters of automation when it comes to air defence. They built almost all of their system to be so automated, that a layman could operate them in a crisis with minimal training. A good example of this was MiG-25, the aircraft that was built before age of transistors that was so automated that to shoot down a target given to aircraft by ground contol was to press one button on the flight stick. The aircraft would automatically re-orient itself to face the target, lock it's own fire control radar on it and fire the missile as soon as firing solution was found. And because the airplane was inherently unstable and had a tendecy to roll after a high altitude missile launch, it would automatically correct this as well without any input from the pilot.
All was done by onboard computer system built on nothing but vacuum tubes.
Russian SAM systems were a part of this philosophy as well and included a fully automated mode where all operator required was to press one button for system to automatically shoot down anything in range. US later incorporated similar philosophy in automating interception on its naval AEGIS system.
Yes, BUK is large, slow, heavy, easy to spot. And guess what? There are numerous photos and videos of this BUK spotted in the area on the day of the tragedy.
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2014/07/17/7032237/
https://www.facebook.com/dmitr...
https://twitter.com/Dbnmjr/sta...
Russia supported terrorists with tanks, armored vehicles, ammunition, grenades etc since early April. It has been confirmed by numerous sources - by locals, UA military, by terrorists themselves. What makes it unlikely for them to smuggle in a few BUK-s and a few specialists as well? Given that, after all, the major issue terrorists had do deal with was UA air forces?
Funny that you say "deliberate strategy" and "war crimes" did you miss the story today about the Hamas spokesman saying that civilians should be doing their utmost to be human shields? Hello, that's a war crime. Shooting rockets at civilians, war crime. Targeting schools, and playgrounds in Sderot...well that's a war crime too. Building rockets inside civilian structures, war crime. Launching them from civilian buildings, war crime. Launching them from hospitals, and religious buildings, war crime.
If Israel was really about "collective punishment" they would have shut off power to gaza along with the water. They would also refuse to allow any of them to transit into Israel to work. They would also reduce food stuffs to the materials for basic nutrition. But they're not doing that either. Let us not forget that technically since they're an "elected government" and they're firing rockets. That is a full on declaration of war, Israel could with due-prejudice level every building that they even suspect that's involved. And fully occupy the area, but funny they're not doing that either.
The UN is as close to the most anti-jewish organization with a "humane" face to exist, and that's because of the OIC. But hey, while you're going on about that gag order. The people who killed the Palestinian(actually arab that lived in Israel) have already been arrested, and it's before the courts as we speak. Where's the palestinian government looking for the ones who killed the Jewish kids. And while we're at it, why was it at the first opportunity they started launching even more rockets. Nearly 1k in under 9 days.
Om, nomnomnom...
Look, I can simply restate the same thing you just said, reverse the roles and change "happy" to "sad", and have roughly the same argumentation to support my point of view.
These people are confused, still shocked, they are in despair as their homes are partially ruined. But when it comes to liberation, they are all happy and not looking to go back under terrorist control.