Malaysian Passenger Plane Reportedly Shot Down Over Ukraine 752
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.
Re:Wait for it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, an issue on board caused by a freaking antiaircraft missile, right?
Actually as I heard it Russia actually shot down a Su-25 [telegraph.co.uk] 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."
Re:Wait for it... (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:Wow. Terrble Turn. (Score:5, Interesting)
Pro-russian separatist claimed it, wonder if they are still cheering:
http://vk.com/strelkov_info?w=wall-57424472_7256 [vk.com]
Re:Wait for it... (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:Seems like old times (Score:4, Interesting)
Another Malaysian Air 777 (Score:2, Interesting)
If I were Malaysian Air I would not be surprised if passengers start asking for flights on some other model plane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Ah. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Wait for it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Possible factor (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wait for it... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Seems like old times (Score:5, Interesting)
And those even older may remember Korean Air Lines Flight 007 and Korean Air Lines Flight 902 (both shot down by the Soviet Union). It seems they have done it again.
There was also Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 in 2001. Rumors have existed in certain circles that incompetent Russian soldiers shot it down by accident and Ukrainian President Kuchma agreed for Ukraine to take the blame in exchange for some sort of favor from Putin. Ukraine officially denied responsibility but they did offer compensation to the victim's families which is the usual legal dodge of not officially admitting guilt in case you get sued. My money in this case today is that Russia shot the Malaysian Airlines plane down. I expect US aviation experts to come to that conclusion and for Russia to deny it and insist that it's all part of the standard "Blame Russia" theme the West is currently playing.
Nice try, but (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Wow. Terrble Turn. (Score:2, Interesting)
Without some kind of inside information, it certainly is hard to see how European states like Germany could go along with policies which risk turning off the heat and otherwise messing with their healthy trade to Russia.
Re:Wait for it... (Score:5, Interesting)
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)