Slashdot Mirror
Russian Government Edits Wikipedia On Flight MH17
An anonymous reader writes A political battle has broken out on Wikipedia over an entry relating to the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, with the Russian government reportedly removing sections which accuse it of providing 'terrorists' with missiles that were used to down the civilian airliner. A Twitter bot which monitors edits made to the online encyclopedia from Russian government IP addresses spotted that changes are being made to a page relating to the crash. All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) changed a Russian language version of a page listing civil aviation accidents to say that "The plane was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers." That edit replaced text – written just an hour earlier – which said MH17 had been shot down "by terrorists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic with Buk system missiles, which the terrorists received from the Russian Federation."
They tried to edit slashdot to make this the first post
One biased side is fighting edits from an even more biased side.
The first casualty of war is the truth. In this case both sides are trying to pummel truth's dead body into a hamburger.
I don't think Russian state media should be editing Wikipedia entries especially not on matters of current affairs.
But still, interpreted literally the new statement is far more factually correct and unbiased than what it replaced. Whoever shot down the plane, they were "soldiers" or fighters of some variety and almost certainly can be described as Ukrainian, given that everyone seems to agree that the fighters are actually eastern Ukrainians and at most Russia is supplying weapons to them.
The original text, on the other hand, more or less exactly sums up western/west Ukrainian line despite the obvious abuse of the word terrorist to mean "rebel fighter" and the [citation needed] assertion about who did it and the source of the weapons.
I don't think Wikipedia should be used as a political tool fullstop. posting accusations that Russia was involved is for news sites not for supposedly unbiased material. If it proves to be a fact then it can be put there. The original text is more like a fox news story than an encyclopaedia reference.
The crash scene is a crime scene and all the bodies and bits should be left in place. Russia lost all credibility the second they started moving bits around.
Are those 'objectively' known? If not, then what am I doing here?
Btw. does anyone here remember the USS Vincennes?
I don't remember the US government editing the Wiki page on Iran Air Flight 655. Rather, the US government admitted to the mistake rather quickly, without attempting to blame Iran.
This MH17 thing is different. Russia has a huge role in this, no matter who shot down the plane. At the very least, the Russians armed an ethnic population in a foreign nation to create a war. And it is this war that got that plane shot down. I think, objectively, everyone can agree on this... It does cast suspicion on any Russian attempt to shape the Wiki truth.
Putin is a murderous goon. He and his cronies will get what's coming to them.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
I don't trust any of the parties involved. They're all war mongering liars.
Certainly the Russian and their armed separatists are war mongers. It's not clear if the Ukrainian government really wants a war or just wants sovereignty.
Russia is clearly the aggressor here, and no matter who fired the missile, Russian has a huge responsibility in the matter. Provda shouldn't be editing the Wiki.
> Btw. does anyone here remember the USS Vincennes?
Actually yes, I do. There were various discussions about at what point the crew knew they'd just shot down an airliner, or at what point they should have known that they were targeting one. There've even been various conspiracy theories that they knew it was an airliner all along and shot it down intentionally to kill someone or another who was onboard. But the US has always admitted that it was the one who shot down that airliner.
At no point has the US government tried to re-write history and disavow the blame by claiming that it not the US who pulled the trigger; but some bunch of locals who somehow managed to capture (and figure out how to operate) the Vincennes.
Imagine all the people...
The US government never admitted it's mistake, or apologised.
Certainly it admitted a mistake. The US government admitted shooting the plane down rather immediately, called it a mistake, and has since used it as a training case in the military for what not to do. You either weren't alive back then, or you have a twisted view of history...
Apologized is a different story. The idea of an apology became a bit of a political football during an election year, with Dukakis stating that the US should apologize and then Bush beating the crap out of Dukakis by saying we should never apologize for American troops. Bush won, and the apology never came. But Bush could be a bit of a douche. He did run the CIA.
a strategy of kremlin propagandists.
distribute lies about events ("oh, ukrainians shot down mh 17 ! they even shot down their own planes a few days before that. we claimed credit for that just for fun !"), then go "ooooh, but you know, i don't trust either side, they all are lying"
so far russia has been caught lying many times. all evidence points at russian special forces (and regular army, too) being responsible both for invasion in eastern ukraine, and for downing mh17 specifically.
please, stop whitewashing this terrible government, it can lead to even more tragic losses.
Rich
But still, interpreted literally the new statement is far more factually correct and unbiased than what it replaced. Whoever shot down the plane, they were "soldiers" or fighters of some variety and almost certainly can be described as Ukrainian, given that everyone seems to agree that the fighters are actually eastern Ukrainians and at most Russia is supplying weapons to them.
Not exactly. There is a distinct difference between a soldier and a combatant. A soldier is trained and is a member of a standing military. The separatists can at best be described as "irregulars", or insurgents or rebels if you want to go with slightly more charged terminology. And who exactly is this "everyone" who are agreeing that they are all Eastern Ukranians? I have yet to see any reputable source make that claim. And Russia is not just supplying small arms to these groups. They are giving them tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, and anti-air systems (both MANPADS and tracked systems). You don't just pick these systesms up and start using them. They are recieving training, either in Russia or locally from trainers that Russia has moved into Ukraine. And given the fact that the missiles were launched from inside territory controlled by the rebelsis a very important detail. Why would the Ukrainians have anti-air equipment deployed in an area they do not control, against an enemy with no air power? All evidence points to the missiles being fired by the separatists, which means Russia had a hand in at the very least training them on how to use the equipment if not providing that equipment as well as continuing to use their influence to keep the conflict going.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Twitter bots that monitor and call attention to things, or future AI tools we develop that provide similar functionality for monitoring what appears to be the cyber behavior of certain groups or certain people, have a downside, too. Everyone knows it isn't very hard for somebody with substantial financial resources (or a sysadmin who works at a particular ISP and has substantial political beliefs or alliances) to spoof the IP addresses that are thought to be associated with certain groups/nations. This evolving condition of intrinsic uncertainty around digital media and Internet communications needs new technical and social solutions. See: http://slashdot.org/submission...
Whoever shot down the plane, they were "soldiers" or fighters of some variety and almost certainly can be described as Ukrainian, given that everyone seems to agree that the fighters are actually eastern Ukrainians and at most Russia is supplying weapons to them.
is that "everybody" 'russia today' ?
try googletranslating http://lb.ua/news/2014/07/20/2... - ukrainian army detains 23 terrorists. somehow all 23 turn out to be citizens of the russian federation.
there's also an interview with a former warrior from moscow how tells how 80% of them were from russia, with locals not exceeding 20%.
let's bisect the other thing you said - "at most Russia is supplying weapons to them".
"at most". as if they were given bows and arrows. they get armoured vehicles. they get... tanks. they get bloody sam systems that can reach targets up to 25km.
Rich
Trilateral Commission Wikipedia article edited anonymously by US House of Representatives
God forbid somebody who happens to work for or be a Congressperson spread disinfomation by alphabetizing categories...
City of London Corporation Wikipedia article edited anonymously by US House of Representatives
...or adding serial commas!
You might want to limit yourself to examples where somebody's changing the tone of an article to favor (or mock) some particular view, like the rest of the links.
And, of course, a particular Congressperson or staffer for that Congressperson isn't necessarily acting on behalf of the US Government, just as somebody working at or for the VGTRK isn't necessarily acting on behalf of the Russian government. (Perhaps it'd be more likely in the latter case, but if it were somebody posting from the Duma in that case, or somebody from the Voice of America in the former case, it'd be a closer match.)
Poor shills are on their 3rd straight day without sleep, and over-time pay is reduced to only 6 extra potatoes due to sanctions. Remember to take a rest, comrades. Next week when the satellite and black box data come out you will be needed even more.
Actually the US "STILL" hasn't admitted fault in that incident. They blamed it on the hostilities in Iran and then proceeded to cover up the whole incident as best they could, like the location of the ship, breach of orders, no court marshal despite blatant crew failings etc.
There is a big difference between admitting fault and admitting a fact. The US never denied shooting down the plane.
Claiming that an incident where nobody is even raising their hand as to who shot it down is the same as the Iran Air incident makes you sound like the kind of person that wants the vilify the US wherever they can.
But still, interpreted literally the new statement is far more factually correct and unbiased than what it replaced. Whoever shot down the plane, they were "soldiers" or fighters of some variety and almost certainly can be described as Ukrainian, given that everyone seems to agree that the fighters are actually eastern Ukrainians and at most Russia is supplying weapons to them.
Not exactly. There is a distinct difference between a soldier and a combatant. A soldier is trained and is a member of a standing military. The separatists can at best be described as "irregulars", or insurgents or rebels if you want to go with slightly more charged terminology. And who exactly is this "everyone" who are agreeing that they are all Eastern Ukranians? I have yet to see any reputable source make that claim. And Russia is not just supplying small arms to these groups. They are giving them tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, and anti-air systems (both MANPADS and tracked systems). You don't just pick these systesms up and start using them. They are recieving training, either in Russia or locally from trainers that Russia has moved into Ukraine. And given the fact that the missiles were launched from inside territory controlled by the rebelsis a very important detail. Why would the Ukrainians have anti-air equipment deployed in an area they do not control, against an enemy with no air power? All evidence points to the missiles being fired by the separatists, which means Russia had a hand in at the very least training them on how to use the equipment if not providing that equipment as well as continuing to use their influence to keep the conflict going.
Even common sense kind of makes it obvious it was the separatists. This whole mess reeks of something that only an undisciplined mob of rebels would do. Why would the Ukraininans blindly shoot down an airliner with a tactical SAM when they have a multi layered air defense system and modern jet fighters at their disposal? Surely their military radars are capable of reading civilian transponder signals and they could have sent up a pair of MiG-29s to fly rings around MH17 if they'd had reason to suspect it of being something other than it's ID data, transponders and flight plan said it was. As for the conspiracy theory that the Ukrainians drove that Buk launcher into separatist territory to 'frame' the separatists, they'd have had to drive a tacked vehicle with four bigass missles sitting on top of it deep into separatist controlled territory unnoticed. The stories coming out of Russia trying to blame this on the Ukrainians are just plain ridiculous.
And they are brain dead easy to run
I have read too many quotes similar to the above, but there is just a _tiny_ problem - most (if not all) of the people who said that the missile system is easy (or like the above has put it "brain dead easy ") to operate themselves never had any hands-on experience on any of the missile system whatsoever !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Is it not humiliating to invoke Fox News in order to defend or deflect the actions coming from the Russian government? I mean, way to set the low bar and just barely jump over it.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Comment removed based on user account deletion
> Btw. does anyone here remember the USS Vincennes?
Actually yes, I do. There were various discussions about at what point the crew knew they'd just shot down an airliner, or at what point they should have known that they were targeting one. There've even been various conspiracy theories that they knew it was an airliner all along and shot it down intentionally to kill someone or another who was onboard. But the US has always admitted that it was the one who shot down that airliner.
At no point has the US government tried to re-write history and disavow the blame by claiming that it not the US who pulled the trigger; but some bunch of locals who somehow managed to capture (and figure out how to operate) the Vincennes.
They misidentified Flight 655 as an Iranian F-14 operating out of Bandar Abbas, a known F-14 base but also a civilian airport. That may seem strange to us in Europe or the USA where miltary and civilian operations are conducted from separate facilities but in many parts of the world it is not by any means uncommon for a couple of jet fighters packing bombs and missiles to be launching out of the military half of an airport and an airliner taking off of from the civilian half a minute or two later. The military systems I am familiar with today are data fused with air traffic control systems so civilian aircraft are automatically flagged for the military controllers and they have access to flight plans and other such data but I'm not sure to what extent the military had access to civilian flight control data back in 1988. I'm guessing very little especially on a destroyer off the coast of Iran. The Vincennes tired to contact Flight 655 on civilian and military emergency frequencies but not air traffic control frequencies which is strange since that was their best bet to get the attentinon of a civilian aircraft. Don't SAM crews get trained for this kind of an eventuality? You'd think they'd get suckered into shooting down an airliner during a few of their simulator sessions in military school just to make double and triple sure the identification procedure for civilian aircraft sticks in their minds like the aftermath of a good hard kick in the nuts.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Putin is a murderer. He is sending Russian Special Forces into Eastern Ukraine, supplying them with weapons, occasionally training them, and when shit happens does the "Russian Bullshit Story"(tm). "I don't know anything about it, its not me, it happened somewhere else, Russia is on the other side of the planet from Ukraine, while this was all going on my dog was eating my homework, ask Baghdad Bob, he will confirm that I was on a fishing trip in Jamaica during this event, along with all of the Russian military. We were all in a rowboat. Two guys got fish (which we all shared). I, being Putin caught one of them. My fish was 75 pounds. It came pre-cooked. Ask any of the thousands of soldiers who were with me. They all agree." Perhaps Putin expects us to believe the bullshit he is pushing. My real question is: do the Russian people believe his bullshit? And a followup: if they *really* believe his bullshit, is there a toxic lead leak in Russian water? Are they all drunk? Is there some mass mental defect somewhere?
In Soviet Russia, 'First Post' gets you!
I went there. I'm not proud.
Almost like invoking MSNBC or any of the other shoddy and partisan news publishers.
here's a usa statement (they got some satellites and other systems that help with gathering information) :
http://ukraine.usembassy.gov/statements/asmt-07192014.html
the careful wording in the world of diplomacy means "oh stop fucking around, it's 100% clear who did it".
also, the terrorists are sent and controlled by russia. if that indeed was not them... you can be sure as hell they would allow any and all inspections, completely secure the area to prevent any tampering, get all blackboxes and deliver them to international experts. because it would be juuuust perfect for them.
they did the opposite.
Rich
The commander of the eastern Ukrainian militia is a Moscow native and "former" GRU (Russian military intelligence) officer with no ties to Ukraine prior to the war.
No-one disputes that. Not on either side, Ukraine or Russian. The only dispute is over that "former". The Ukrainian government says he's still an active duty officer taking direct orders. They even know the name of his immediate GRU commanding officer in Moscow. Russia claimed he "retired" a month before he entered Ukraine.
The "Prime Minister" of the break away territory is a Moscow native. He ran a right wing news service for several years, with the protection and support of the Russian government. He was widely believed to be FSB. He had no ties to Ukraine before the war. He was sent into Crimea as a political "consultant" on behalf of Moscow during crisis there, then "retired" and moved on to eastern Ukraine.
No-on disputes any of that. The only dispute is whether he's FSB and whether he's still working for the FSB.
It seems that it's only really the western media which persists in treating it like a spontaneous uprising by local (ethnic-Russian) Ukrainians.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Subsequent reports showed that he was well out of his depth and exceeding his authority when an ill-conceived "show the flag" mission hit contact with real sea mines (reconditioned WW1 mines made by Tsarist Russia!) and other problems such as friendly fire from the Iraqis they were sent in to support. Under such pressure he was unable to operate and took a variety of shortcuts that resulted in shooting down an airliner sticking to it's schedule. Admitting the mistake in any way was not seen as acceptable so he was just quietly promoted to an appointment on land.
Btw. does anyone here remember the USS Vincennes?
Funny thing, I once bought a used Science Fiction pulp novel from a used book store (up in State College, PA), sometime in the late 90's. Only later did I realize that "USS Vincennes" was stamped on one of the edges, indicating it must have come from some on-board library. It's a small world.
Anyway, to continue with your question -- yes, I remember it pretty well. And there were plenty of talking heads in the media trying to shift some of the blame onto Iran (that it must have been a martyrdom operation where Iran sacrificed it's own citizens to make us look bad, or that Iran shouldn't have operated civilian and military aircraft out of the same airport, or that the pilot should have known better than to fly on a path directly crossing that of a U.S. warship -- all bunk excuses).
But the U.S. government never denied that we were the ones who shot it down, they admitted it quickly and bluntly.
From documentaries/etc that I've seen there were a few issues:
1. An airline timetable that was used to check published routes was improperly adjusted for timezone, thus missing the planned takeoff.
2. The operator interrogating the aircraft transponder kept the aircraft selected for a long time - which caused it to keep a different aircraft's response after they had separated on the screen. If they had re-interrogated it they'd probably have picked up the civilian transponder code.
3. I believe there had been threats or an actual attack on another ship recently, putting pressure on the captain to not let hostiles get too close.
The only reason that more events like this happen is that the Iranians (or anyone else) haven't actually fired on a US ship. So, US ships accept risky situations that would be likely to get them sunk in an actual conflict. The fact that an aircraft is using a civilian transponder code and is on an airline timetable doesn't in any way ensure that it isn't a hostile aircraft. If somebody actually launched an attack by masquerading as a civilian aircraft it would make air travel a LOT less safe overnight. Either the US would have to stop putting naval ships in constrained waters like the Persian Gulf, or it would have to announce fairly large no-fly zones (extending over national airspace), or it would have to accept losing the occasional ship when somebody decides to sink one (unless Aegis really is that good).
Where are the headlines about Ukrainians having already done the same thing? Where is the balance?
The Russians are sending arms and support into Ukraine and have created a war there. If there appears to be bias against the Russians, then the Russians have brought it on themselves.
If the Russians hadn't been in Eastern Ukraine, where they don't belong, then nobody would be complaining about Russians. Instead, Putin and his buddies have been acting like jerks, which kind of makes the Russians look like suspect #1.
He is ex FSB not GRU. regardless he seems more a mercenary for hire rather than a Russian agent. if you look at his history he has been involved in wars throughout the world where he would have no reason to be apart from money or simple love of war.
The layers of disinformation and conspiracy run deep with you.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Unless it was done as a false flag action to blame on the separatists and rally the world to Ukraine's side.
Learn to love Alaska
Don't SAM crews get trained for this kind of an eventuality? You'd think they'd get suckered into shooting down an airliner during a few of their simulator sessions in military school just to make double and triple sure the identification procedure for civilian aircraft sticks in their minds like the aftermath of a good hard kick in the nuts.
And these days they do. It's one of those "lessons learned" things.
I, along with a bunch of other guys, once got sucked into lighting up an entire household of civilians in training. It really, really sucked. But the reason those scenarios existed is because some poor bastards lit up civilian households for real, and we got to learn from their mistakes.
The US Government never really admitted, from wikipedia:
The U.S. government issued notes of regret for the loss of human lives and in 1996 paid reparations to settle a suit brought in the International Court of Justice regarding the incident, but the United States never released an apology or acknowledgment of wrongdoing.[8]
We don't believe in radical loony monotheistic religions from the middle east -- we're Christians.
I don't think black box data will be much use, they were shipped out to Russia within hours of the crash, Alexander Borodai, a Russian national, normally a resident of Moscow and political leader of the "rebels" claims he has them and is waiting for the ICAO to turn up so he can hand them over, except the ICAO can't turn up because his soldiers are blocking them from doing so. The Russians/Rebels are very clearly stalling the handover (they've also been caught removing bits of aircraft and a number of the dead who showed evidence of damage/wounds that would be caused by Buk missile fragmentation FWIW so the whole crash site has become a forensic nightmare in that regard).
So the chain of custody of flight recorders now makes them utterly useless for determining anything worthwhile. To be useful they'd have had to have been left in the exact spot they fell until international investigators showed up to properly document their locations and to set up a proper chain of custody.
Speculation is that Russia would easily enough be able to remove some flight data to make it look like the last location pings from the aircraft came further back to the west than where the aircraft was actually shot down so that they can try and pin it on the Ukrainian military.
I'm intrigued after MH370 whether MH17 was relaying it's satellite locations though given that the company that handles that said they'd offer it for free. I expect an interesting blame game and arguments about tampering to come up if the temporary Russian held black box data mysteriously does end earlier than the satellite data held by Inmarsat in the UK. I'm sure Putin and his cronies will be accusing Inmarsat of making up data when the reverse is true - that if Putin and his soldiers in Ukraine had nothing to hide they wouldn't be fiddling with evidence, removing bodies, running off with the black boxes, and blockading international investigators.
Yes it is sad how people always have to die before lessons are learned
Not always, but you know how it is with bureaucracies ... nothing gets them motivated quite as well as a good disaster.
I always figured the Flight 007 was a similar case, after seeing documentaries about both incidents I see them in a similar light.
Naw, man. I mean, sure, there are some superficial similarities, but the things which actually caused the incidents are COMPLETELY different.
The Soviet shootdown is a simple case of browbeaten lackeys under a tyrannical regime making what they figured was the best choice to cover their asses. There was no threat to them. The aircraft was nowhere near the people who made the call, and was on it's way out of Soviet airspace. The pilot involved even told them he believed it was a civilian airliner. Yet they decided to shoot it down anyway.
The Vincennes incident was the exact opposite. It involved personnel under serious threat from Iranian forces, in hostile territory, faced with an aircraft they couldn't identify which seemed to be on an attack vector. They were scared for their lives, and under an immense amount of stress. I'm not sure how to explain that to someone who works a 9-5 job in an office. Lots of people talk about "stress" in their day-to-day jobs, and I'm sure there's some truth to their complaints, but unless you're a first responder, an air traffic controller, or a soldier in a combat zone, you really don't know what stress is, or how badly it can skew your normal behaviour. We train our people to recognize it, avoid it, or deal with it ... and we put measures in place to try and minimize it ... but when you're engaged in combat and feel that your life is on the line, even the best preparations can only do so much. It only gets worse when you're the one responsible for a multi-million dollar vessel, and several hundred lives on board it.
The difference may be easier to visualize if you relate it to something you're more familiar with. The Soviet shootdown of 007 was the equivalent of a couple police supervisors sitting at headquarters, ordering a patrolman to shoot an unarmed man running away from a property he trespassed on. The American shootdown of the Iranian flight was the equivalent of a couple SWAT guys under heavy fire panicking and shooting a civilian who was running towards them. Both are horrible incidents which should never have happened. But other than that, they have absolutely nothing in common.
I am from the Netherlands, where most of the casualties are from: can we PLEASE stop our uninformed finger pointing until at least some evidence turns up?
None of us know what happened.
Russia or the separatists in Eastern Ukraine might have done this -- although no-one is sure what they would stand to gain from it. Ukraine's own military might have done it (they've done it before and denied it vehemently until it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt).
For the moment though, we are doing the victims' families a shameful disservice by pretending to know what happened. Their loved ones are currently being cynically used, by both sides, as pawns in a game they had no part in.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Dunno what China has to do with any of this, but if you fear a war is coming, maybe you should tell Putin to stop? Because he's the one hell-bent on conquering his neighbours, which is what this is about.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
So who profits? The key question remains, of course, cui bono? Only the terminally brain dead believe shooting a passenger jet benefits the federalists in eastern Ukraine, not to mention the Kremlin.
You have made a very basic logic error.
The realization of, or failure to realize, a profit is *not* the key question. The key question is who *expected* a profit when the action was committed, whether they were successful or not is an entirely different matter. Its the expectation that motivates action.
The simple fact is that the Russian backed separatists *believed* they were firing at a Ukrainian military transport. Shooting down such a military transport would benefit the Russian backed separatists. The Russian backed separatists initially took credit for shooting down a Ukrainian military transport, until they discovered they had actually shot down a commercial aircraft not a military transport. The shoot down of a commercial aircraft was not intentional, a commercial aircraft was mistaken for a military aircraft. That said, being unintentional in no way relieves the Russian backed separatists from responsibility, legal or moral. They fired the missile at a mistaken target, it was their negligence and incompetence that killed hundreds of innocents.
I've realised why people keep quoting this. FlightAware provides a low resolution track of the flights - about 100 points* for a flight between Amsterdam and KL. FlightRadar24 provide a track with a 1 minute resolution (~600 points, with large sections missing where there is no ADS-B or MLAT coverage).
* They now seem to have slightly improved resolution, but now highlight where the track is actually known. Check for yourself - the tracks where data is available is in green, then they draw a great circle where the track is unknown.
MH17 2014-07-15
MH17 2014-07-16
MH17 2014-07-17
This is the data I originally compiled from FlightRadar24 - All MH17 flights since 14th May - and as you can see, they have data points provided every minute, as opposed to guessing where the aircraft was.
Basically, you've a choice of using a website that provides low resolution lat/lon pairs (FlightAware), or a website that provides timestamped lat/lon data, along with speed, course, altitude and area (FlightRadar). If you're going to use rubbish data to support a hypothesis, you'll end up with a rubbish hypothesis. In fact, you're doing it wrong if you need to use rubbish data to "prove" your hypothesis.
As for the altitude, it's true that the pilots request FL350, but were refused - this could have been for any given reason - congestion (apparently there have already been reports of near misses over Russia due to congestion due to aircraft avoiding Ukraine airspace - I'm trying to find where I read that), weather (which has been suggested by a pilot's group). However seeing as an SA-11 has an altitude range of 60 - 25,000m, 600m isn't going to make a difference if you're attempting to shoot down a civilian airliner.
I've realised why people keep saying this - they're using FlightAware, which uses low resolution data, unlike FlightRadar24 which uses 1 minute resolution data. So, people have the choice of using low resolution lat/lon pairs, or 1 minute timestamped lat/lon data which also contains course, speed, altitude and ATC zone. Whether people are are using rubbish data to support their hypothesis out of ignorance or malice doesn't matter - it's rubbish data.
If you now look at FlightAware's website - they show the known track in green, and fill in the unknown track with a great circle. In fact their [ADS-B, I think] data appears to stop around the Poland-Ukraine border in all cases:
15th May
16th May
17th May
Compare this to the high resolution data I downloaded from FlightRadar24 - I overlaid all the tracks in Google Earth:
All MH17 flights since 14th May
You can see from the image a myriad of data-points, something that is missing from the FlightAware data.
As for the altitude - FL350 was requested and refused - I can't comment on why, but there are plenty of reasons - congestion, weather, etc. However if you're planning to shoot down a civilian airliner with an SA-11 (which has a altitude range of 60 - 25,000 metres), then a difference of 600 metres isn't going to make a difference.
Russia or the separatists in Eastern Ukraine might have done this
That's a distinction without a difference.
although no-one is sure what they would stand to gain from it.
It looks like they thought it was a Ukraine military plane and were a bit too trigger happy, not realising it was a civilian aircraft until too late.
Ukraine's own military might have done it (they've done it before and denied it vehemently until it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt).
Here's the thing: if the Ukraine were responsible, then Russia would have a vested interest in a visibly transparent investigation and be in a position to ensure that it happened. If they could convincingly portray the Ukraine as having shot down a civilian aircraft then that would significantly alter the political sympathies in the current conflict. Instead, they have done everything in their power to block it.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
And by American I presume you mean South American since potatoes were originally from the Andes regions of Peru and Bolivia.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They use this science to incite wars in Libya, Syria, Palestine, now Ukraine. And if US burns through all Ukrainians, they'll continue ther wars with Poles, Estonians and others. I'm a Pole - that's why I'm freaking out. I want no part in this madness.
You can't be a Pole, if you were you'd already be suspicious what Russia's intentions from the very beginning. The truth is, there is close to zero appetite for war from any of the western nations of any kind, with any kind of involvement. Especially the United States. All everyone wants is Russia to leave Ukraine. If Putin is so *desperate* to avoid conflict in Ukraine then then please explain why he's even there to begin with? Oh, he only wanted Crimea, I forgot. But nothing else, he has promised! Don't worry! Anyway, if you were truly a Pole you'd be taking note of Putin's actions, not his words. Nobody wants a war, not even Russia, not the West, nobody. In fact Russia would much, much prefer to do this quietly via political maneuvering and flexing its military muscle rather than actually starting a conflict. However if everyone did as you suggest and stood aside, it'll be a few years and Putin will do it again with yet another country. Just wait and see.
You're right on WW1, you're right on Iraq, but you're wrong on this one and you're also conveniently ignoring WW2. History doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme. Stick with the facts, Russia unequivocally annexed Crimea. I'm sorry but taking land from another country is sort of considered a "big deal" if you know what I mean.
That is why we must be careful about information claiming that "Russians are blocking investigation".
Remember that similar claims made people believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. There was no good evidence of the existence of such weapons, but well-orchestrated rumors of "Saddam is blocking the work of investigators" sounded very convincing.
I find it even possible that the investigators (if they are anti-Russian as much as the former were anti-Saddam) make unreasonable requests just to get refusals.
A Finn who saw the scars your attempt to conquer our country left on innocent people. And now you're doing the exact same thing again - you prop up a puppet regime and have it request help. Only your puppet got ousted, so now you're going with plan B: russian troops posing as rebels.
You're wasting your time. Everyone who has the bad luck to live next to Russia knows the truth about you.
And Otto Wille Kuusinen was a Finn and Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian. Good luck on your chosen career.
Then stop working for a madman.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Um, where in my post did I say who was responsible? All I did was give my reasons for not believing that MH17 was "over 500km from its usual path", and providing data to support my reasoning. You continue to solely use FlightAware as supporting evidence, even though I have demonstrated that their data [as provided in their basic maps] is not accurate enough to jump to conclusion that MH17 was off it's usual flight path.
At least explain to me why the FlightRadar24 data (with a 1 minute resolution) doesn't agree with your assertations?
Again with the altitude - please explain why you would need to reduce the altitude of civilian airliner by 600m, even though it was flying at less than half the maximum altitude of an SA-11
Oh, and why have I been "accused" of being an American?