MH17 Crash- Investigation reconstruction and conclusion

mshunter said:
Am I the only one who still thinks "WTF were they doing flying over an active warzone, where other airplanes had been shot down recently?"
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It's the real world.

I've been over plenty during my international days. The freight guys? Far more.

That's a very busy route in Simferapol's airspace from Europe to the Middle East and Asia.

That's almost like saying "What are passenger airliners doing in airspace that the pirates are flying in". Africa is full of jet traffic, not on flight plans, no transponders, running all sorts of contraband around the skies.

Hell, I remember when the US and Iran were talking smack about one another and here I was taking pictures of the sunset over Tehran.
 
Derg said:
It's the real world.

I've been over plenty during my international days. The freight guys? Far more.

That's a very busy route in Simferapol's airspace from Europe to the Middle East and Asia.

That's almost like saying "What are passenger airliners doing in airspace that the pirates are flying in". Africa is full of jet traffic, not on flight plans, no transponders, running all sorts of contraband around the skies.

Hell, I remember when the US and Iran were talking smack about one another and here I was taking pictures of the sunset over Tehran.
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Simferopol radar is now a "dead" zone, no pun intended. Times have changed since you were in the area. ;)
 
mshunter said:
I'm not placing blame on the crews. I'm placing blame on the operation. Me personally, I'd be sick for every flight that involved a flight over a war zone. I'd rather be sick and fired, than dead. And if that excludes me from ever leaving a regional airline, guess I'd probably better get comfortable where I'm at.

I'm not going to bend on how idiotic flying over a war zone is, where OTHER AIRPLANES HAVE ALREADY BEEN SHOT DOWN!
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It's not too bad here. I fly mostly transcons and the only war zone I have to fly over is Chicago.
 
mshunter said:
I'm not placing blame on the crews. I'm placing blame on the operation. Me personally, I'd be sick for every flight that involved a flight over a war zone. I'd rather be sick and fired, than dead. And if that excludes me from ever leaving a regional airline, guess I'd probably better get comfortable where I'm at.

I'm not going to bend on how idiotic flying over a war zone is, where OTHER AIRPLANES HAVE ALREADY BEEN SHOT DOWN!
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I don't disagree that the airspace should have been restricted as a precaution. However, lower airspace had already been restricted and I'd wager the attitude at the time was "Oh, Ukraine" with no one aside from Eastern Europe giving the conflict any mind much less fearing for their safety. Surely many crews didn't even blink at the fact they were technically over a war zone. This wasn't Iraq or Syria at the time. This was a rebel conflict where a few military planes below FL230 had been shot down here and there. As such, I have a feeling that if you, I, or any pilot on these forums were flying MH17 that day, we would have flown it just as they did. And I say this as someone who was following the uncensored VICE video reporting of the conflict since it started and saw the shoot down videos before the MH17 crash. In my wildest dreams I wouldn't imagine an airline casualty high in the skies above Ukraine.

Again, no one should have been up there, a war zone is a war zone and you can't put a price on human life and safety. However, we're only human. We tend to learn the hard way.
 
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Stone Cold said:
Is that why you got into flying is to do transcons? If so, more power to ya. I like traveling, and not just seeing JFK, SFO, and LAX (or whatever your normal destinations are)

I was pointing out, some areas of the world are not as nice as flying in the US.
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I wouldn't say I got into flying to do any one specific route, if that's what you meant? I have always gone with the go-to-the-first-airline-that-calls- you technique which where I am today. Of course I love where I work, me doing transcons is just what the business model is here. But I will say it is "easier" to do one long transcon leg versus 4 legs up/down the west coast for the same block time.

That said, I too like traveling and take annual trips to Europe or other places for vacation purposes.
 
How the hell are we still calling these people "rebels" like they are a bunch of dudes who stopped farming and picked up rifles to take on "el presidente."

This was a BUK missile system. They cost several million dollars and take months to train on. The MI-8/17 air assaults weren't a bunch of out of work pilots giving their buddies a ride and the dudes jumping out of them weren't all shopping at the same surplus store. The T-72BMs and T-90s reinforcing them weren't from the local police auction.

The Russian military is in Ukraine. Why we can't say that I have no idea.
 
As others have said, airliners crossing a war zone isn't unheard of. Surface to air-wise, generally the threat has been MANPADS, not strategic SAMs. But, in this case, it was different.

13 years ago, I was providing CAS at an outpost called Lwara on the Afghan/Paki border south of Kabul. Ground battle in progress, am attempting to hit Taliban firing positions that are attacking the outpost, working my formation as needed to make it happen; and the AWACS is giving me traffic calls in-between attacks, of civil airliner traffic overhead descending into Pakistan and capping my flight in altitude in order to avoid their altitude blocks.

As Im coming off my bombing attacks in my recovery climb, Im watching decending 747 traffic crossing over the battle area I'm in. I do wonder what the airliner pax/crew must've been thinking, as they had to have seen the battle raging below, and the A-10s wreaking havoc with bombs, rockets, and strafing runs 10K-15K below them.

Weird as hell having to keep track of the fluid battle situation below while bombing and strafing the enemy, while at the same exact time having to acknowledge a traffic calls from AWACS. "[on VHF to AWACS] Yeah, copy Saxon, visual separation on the Cathay 74 overhead; [followed immediately on UHF to ground FAC] ...Lead's in hot from the west with strafe, hitting the south wall of your perimeter, copy they're inside your wire...."
 
Stone Cold said:
Simferopol radar is now a "dead" zone, no pun intended. Times have changed since you were in the area. ;)
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I meant "at the time".

But generally, you could find yourself over Iran, Iraq, (the scary parts of) Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, all sorts of places like that.

I don't think the average domestic joe realizes how common it is.
 
The supposed pro-Russian separatists got their training, support, supplies, direction, funding, equipment and arms from Russia, which is also the origin of all the lies and massive propaganda about the Ukraine since day one. Russian Military advisers and troops have been in Ukraine ever since things got out of Putin's control and became a thorn in his side. They are are the ones who were photographed hauling the the damn missiles and launcher into Torez, just hours before MH17 was downed and they were seen and photographed hauling them back over the border to Russia hours later. Russia.....er....... the "rebels" had complete physical control of the crash site/area and the wreckage and were seen and photographed hauling off debris and going through the belongings of the crew and pax.


"Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Tuesday (13 October) he had no doubt Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by Russian special forces because "drunken separatists" could not have operated the missile.

Yatseniuk made his charge shortly before publication of the Dutch Safety Board's final report on its investigation into the causes of the downing of MH17 over territory held by pro-Russia rebels on 17 July 2014.

Even at that time, there was enough evidence to believe that pro-Russian separatists had put down the airliner, believing it was a Ukrainian military aircraft.

"In our opinion it was carried out solely from territory controlled by Russian fighters and there is no doubt that drunken separatists are not able to operate Buk systems and this means these systems were operated solely by professional Russian soldiers," Yatseniuk told a government meeting.

Bellingcat, a network of investigative journalists, has published a report based on open sources who seems to corroborate that MH17 was shot by a Buk launcher whose origins are from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile brigade in Kursk, Russia."

http://www.euractiv.com/sections/gl...cuses-russia-shooting-down-flight-mh17-318462
 
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Derg said:
I meant "at the time".

But generally, you could find yourself over Iran, Iraq, (the scary parts of) Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, all sorts of places like that.

I don't think the average domestic joe realizes how common it is.
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"at that time" I was flying over Mali on UL 600, IIRC, on the way to Accra, while an insurgency was raging. Had several notes on the flight plan, "Bamako is not to be used as an alternate/divert airport at this time." Gee, no kidding Bubba.
 
MikeD said:
As others have said, airliners crossing a war zone isn't unheard of. Surface to air-wise, generally the threat has been MANPADS, not strategic SAMs. But, in this case, it was different.

13 years ago, I was providing CAS at an outpost called Lwara on the Afghan/Paki border south of Kabul. Ground battle in progress, am attempting to hit Taliban firing positions that are attacking the outpost, working my formation as needed to make it happen; and the AWACS is giving me traffic calls in-between attacks, of civil airliner traffic overhead descending into Pakistan and capping my flight in altitude in order to avoid their altitude blocks.

As Im coming off my bombing attacks in my recovery climb, Im watching decending 747 traffic crossing over the battle area I'm in. I do wonder what the airliner pax/crew must've been thinking, as they had to have seen the battle raging below, and the A-10s wreaking havoc with bombs, rockets, and strafing runs 10K-15K below them.

Weird as hell having to keep track of the fluid battle situation below while bombing and strafing the enemy, while at the same exact time having to acknowledge a traffic calls from AWACS. "[on VHF to AWACS] Yeah, copy Saxon, visual separation on the Cathay 74 overhead; [followed immediately on UHF to ground FAC] ...Lead's in hot from the west with strafe, hitting the south wall of your perimeter, copy they're inside your wire...."
Click to expand...

The descending 747 traffic probably had no idea you guys were there. They were talking with different people on an IFR flight plan, likely there was some varying degree of task saturation going on for the crew due to being on the SID and the arrival portion of a long flight.

I know to someone that has to keep a battlefield full of SA in his head that may not make any sense.

I must mention that the FAA had stopped N registered aircraft from overflying this area before the shoot down.
 
Derg said:
It's the real world.

I've been over plenty during my international days. The freight guys? Far more.

That's a very busy route in Simferapol's airspace from Europe to the Middle East and Asia.

That's almost like saying "What are passenger airliners doing in airspace that the pirates are flying in". Africa is full of jet traffic, not on flight plans, no transponders, running all sorts of contraband around the skies.

Hell, I remember when the US and Iran were talking smack about one another and here I was taking pictures of the sunset over Tehran.
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Oh you fancy!
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
The descending 747 traffic probably had no idea you guys were there. They were talking with different people on an IFR flight plan, likely there was some varying degree of task saturation going on for the crew due to being on the SID and the arrival portion of a long flight.

I know to someone that has to keep a battlefield full of SA in his head that may not make any sense.

I must mention that the FAA had stopped N registered aircraft from overflying this area before the shoot down.
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Task saturation watching the autopilot fly a STAR? :)

Yeah, they weren't on any freq at all that I would've been monitoring, but I imagine with X center, of whom the AWACS was likely talking to and being the middle man on.
 
Derg said:
I meant "at the time".

But generally, you could find yourself over Iran, Iraq, (the scary parts of) Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, all sorts of places like that.

I don't think the average domestic joe realizes how common it is.
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Yeah, I remember thinking a similar thought when this whole thing went down……i.e. it could have been anyone in my family or me, flying on that flight from a peaceful pt A to another peaceful pt B, not realizing that there was a war zone and an SA-11 with their name on it in between.
 
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