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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Malaysia Airlines jet shot down in Ukraine |
| 2014-07-17 |
| A Malaysian Airlines passenger plane with 295 aboard was shot down by a surface-to-air missile in Ukraine near the Russian border, according to multiple reports. The airline, the same one whose plane disappeared over the Indian Ocean in March, confirmed only that "an incident" had occurred involving the Boeing 777, which was en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam. Multiple reports said the plane was shot down at cruising altitude. Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's Interior Minister told The Associated press that the plane, carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew people onboard, was shot down. Gerashenko says on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit Thursday by a missile fired from a Buk launcher. A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #41 Thanks mods, I almost got sucked into his vortex... |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2014-07-17 22:35 |
| #40 They thought it was a military and went to the social networks claiming, then after they discovered it was commercial, they pulled the comments. Bad form. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2014-07-17 21:43 |
| #39 |
| Posted by: spano bellingbo3665 2014-07-17 21:11 |
| #38 There's no doubt that Russia will take (and deserve) serious heat because of its proxies downing the plane. Even though this occurred through mis-identification, it never would occurred had not Russia embarked on a strategy of dismembering smaller neighboring countries in order to re-build its empire. There were nationals of many countries on the plane and the issue of the murders won't simply go away. Even Putin tools like grom should understand that. |
| Posted by: Odysseus 2014-07-17 20:58 |
| #37 Good timing fro Israel. ground offensive under way. Giddy up! |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2014-07-17 20:05 |
| #36 Charles #32 is right & Grom is a Russ troll - it is a very tough job that will soon become something akin to Katyn Forest denial. |
| Posted by: Alpha2Charlie 2014-07-17 19:21 |
| #35 ..the hard drive will disappear. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-07-17 18:53 |
| #34 No, Grom, it won't "come to nothing". The evidence will mount that it was Putin and his puppets, and only those married to him will continue to deny. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2014-07-17 18:41 |
| #33 The difference is nobody gives two shits about Gaza or Hamas anymore From your mouth to the ear of G*d, Charles. Re plane: there will be accusations & counter accusations which will come to nothing. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-07-17 18:37 |
| #32 You'd be wrong Grom. The difference is nobody gives two shits about Gaza or Hamas anymore, not with Iraq being a Free-for-all along with Syria. Egypt won't do anything as Sissi is stamping out Big Brotherhood next door. For most people hearing about this sort of thing with Isreal and Gaza is like ordinary news. But a jetliner show down by rebels in a warzone, with probably a dozen nationalities on board? Yeah, that will make NEWS. I believe the rebels made a mistake. A stupid one. As did the airline for flying through the zone. That doesn't absolve either of those entities from being guilty though. And Russia by proxy through the rebels. What will be telling is where the plane pieces go from here. Kiev, and through there to european. asian, and american investigators. Or Moscow, in which case who knows when we'll get access. |
| Posted by: Charles 2014-07-17 18:16 |
| #31 My guess, tu3031, with IDF invasion of Gaza, the Malaysian plane won't make tomorrow's headlines. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-07-17 17:59 |
| #30 My guess is somebody fucked up. Big Time. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2014-07-17 17:57 |
| #29 SteveS, you assuming the operators are professional enough to make the distinction between passenger liner and military cargo plane. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-07-17 17:48 |
| #28 Ukrainian forces may have abandoned a Buk launcher to the rebels: AP |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2014-07-17 17:24 |
| #27 Because they can? Let's see what the reaction to it is? Emperor Clusterfuck I went out and got a burger. So there's one answer. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2014-07-17 16:28 |
| #26 What exactly is the value of deliberately shooting down a commercial airliner? |
| Posted by: SteveS 2014-07-17 16:16 |
| #25 That is an interesting pic. I would think that by that point of the flight Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur that all major maneuvering has been completed and are cruising in a predictable manner and speed at an altitude passenger planes use. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2014-07-17 15:57 |
| #24 Just got that Charles, thanks. This will be interesting. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2014-07-17 15:29 |
| #23 The rise of direct great circle routes puts aircraft everywhere. Check out traffic pic on AoS site. A Thai Airways plane did a diversion and took a 30 deg right turn. Diverting around a war zone in Ukraine will involve a lot of traffic. Looks like it would have been prudent but was apparently never done. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2014-07-17 15:25 |
| #22 So Russia got the black boxes. Boeing better have it's lawyers on line, you can bet the data will be doctored. It will really show nothing much anyway. The crew will have never known it was being fired on, there is no system on the aircraft to detect it, the data will only show catastrophic failure of all systems on the airframe. Russia could doctor the data to show a system failure. They will have to reassemble the aircraft and the odds of this are zero... |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2014-07-17 15:02 |
| #21 Not a Putin apologist, just somebody who is disgusted by your enthusiastic support of Tranzi aggression. p.s. Wasn't there a certain Iranian Boeing? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-07-17 14:59 |
| #20 BPs link was pretty raw, though it looks like they have it cleaned up a bit, blurring passports. I did see a German passport of a young girl, so guessing at least one adult and quite possibly a family. Reports of 20+ Americans. Is this flight leg so long there is no wiggle room to work around an area where a fighter jet was shot down just the previous day? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2014-07-17 14:55 |
| #19 #16 - Putin apologist |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-07-17 14:48 |
| #18 World War IV - coming soon to a location near you. >:-( |
| Posted by: Barbara 2014-07-17 14:34 |
| #17 guess the dead can't be revived by Hillary pushing a 'reset' buttom |
| Posted by: lord garth 2014-07-17 14:32 |
| #16 This is a very fortunate occurrence for |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-07-17 14:27 |
| #15 Third: Yes I know, stupid me. There is one picture where a body is present. Just got to it. It's the picture with them firehosing the sight down in case anybody wants to skip that horror. |
| Posted by: Charles 2014-07-17 14:20 |
| #14 Added on: Fox news has some pictures up, no body parts. Though I wouldn't expect any pictures of that being allowed out by the russians. Anybody Air Force people able to give some analysis on the debris? Or wishful thinking? |
| Posted by: Charles 2014-07-17 14:18 |
| #13 They've found the debris field 49pan. 7 miles long. That's a mid-air explosion, so either a bomb or shot down. Also I'd like to point out, confirmed, 23 US citizens were on that flight. |
| Posted by: Charles 2014-07-17 14:14 |
| #12 For those not in the know, the Buk is a mobile SA11 platform. Tracked vehicle. Fairly robust but not a simple system. Its not going to be operational except when manned by trained personnel. So there is very likely direct Russian military involvment in this. And as I pointed out, this is not send in rifles or Mmanpad sa7 to some rabble. This took direct political decision making likely at the highest levels to transfer these weapon systems to the so called rebels. Putin lost his mind. And unlike before, there is no american president to hold the indane bear in check. Obama is a disaster. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2014-07-17 14:05 |
| #11 So do they have any proof it was shot down and not a bomb or something else? Video of the launcher or missile? |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2014-07-17 13:56 |
| #10 And that means you Grom. Enjoy your shit sandwich and the blood indirectly on your hands as a Russian Nationalist propaganda tool. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2014-07-17 13:50 |
| #9 People I know say the "rebels" got a Buk system in June. That has the reach 18000m. And the leader Strelkov said this morning "We warned Ukraine not to fly in our skies", and about an hour before the reports came in, rebel forces were claiming a shoot down of Ukrainian aircraft. Inexperienced crew can make serious targeting errors, and without proper command discipline its entirely possible to target civilian airliners. In other words:the rebels did it, and they did it with Russian supplied weapons which required high level political approval, this blood is on Putin's hands, and on the hands of the savages of people who encouraged the rebels with bigoted nationalistic bullshit. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2014-07-17 13:47 |
| #8 Reminds me of AEGIS+Iran airlines and so many others we will never know the truth about. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2014-07-17 13:46 |
| #7 I... I'm not sure what to think. This is beyond horrific. What was Russia thinking? |
| Posted by: Charles 2014-07-17 13:37 |
#6  |
| Posted by: 3dc 2014-07-17 13:11 |
| #5 Oh. My. God. When I first saw a headline mentioning this at another site, I thought it was some kind of sick joke about the missing Malysian airliner. Apparently not. There are no words. |
| Posted by: Barbara 2014-07-17 12:57 |
| #4 Some crash site footage |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2014-07-17 12:52 |
| #3 Moscow Prepares S-400 Export Model for China - how appropriate - wander to the Jamestown Foundation for that story. Wonder if this Malaysian Airlines shootdown will be added to the glossy sales brochure? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2014-07-17 12:44 |
| #2 It would be fun to see Malaysia demand Putin appear in the ICC over this. I would want the popcorn concession. The rebel group on their web page has just bragged about shooting down a Ukrainian transport plane - but none are missing... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2014-07-17 12:40 |
| #1 Who pulled the trigger? And can that weapon hit something at 33000 ft up? |
| Posted by: Airandee 2014-07-17 12:29 |