A "Duh" Moment. It's Official — MH17 Downed by Russian-Made Missile

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

They aren't gonna get a damn thing.

You can sue another country in some international court and it will mean nothing.

Short of Russia coming out, accepting blame, and paying money (like we do whenever this stuff happens) those people will get nothing.


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Well then I wouldn't be surprised if a family member decided to take matters into his own hands and attack someone higher up in Russia.

Like Vitaly who lost his wife and two children in the Uberlingen collision and knifed to death the controller Peter Nielsen.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Except for b.s., subterfuge, and lies. Pretty much what they have gotten all along thus far. Putin wouldn't/won't even bother to hang it on someone and make them take the fall for it. He washed his hands of the incident as soon as it was confirmed that his idiot soldiers had shot down a passenger jet.

My next question is, are these people even alive? Online rumors of course that Russia would have very quickly "silenced" those involved with the BUK missile launch.

 

[A Life Aloft]

My next question is, are these people even alive? Online rumors of course that Russia would have very quickly "silenced" those involved with the BUK missile launch.

Who knows? Only Putin and a few others at the Kremlin most likely. And who under them if they knew anything would dare to speak and suffer the same fate? Could be dead, could be in some prison/prison camp in the middle of nowhere. You can bet they were dealt with in some fashion, very quickly and it wasn't pretty.

 

[A Life Aloft]

Well then I wouldn't be surprised if a family member decided to take matters into his own hands and attack someone higher up in Russia.

Like Vitaly who lost his wife and two children in the Uberlingen collision and knifed to death the controller Peter Nielsen.

A then retired Air Traffic Controller is a hell of a lot easier to get to than anyone in the Kremlin.

 

[NovemberEcho]

Does anyone else wonder why the hell commercial flights were allowed to overfly an active war zone in the first place? I mean it just seems like common sense to me to fly around the places where people are shooting eachother, especially when they have SAM's. It's not like this was the first plane shot down over Ukraine. The seperatists had already downed a large number of Ukrainian Air Force jets and fighters with missiles.

 

[Lawman]

Does anyone else wonder why the hell commercial flights were allowed to overfly an active war zone in the first place? I mean it just seems like common sense to me to fly around the places where people are shooting eachother, especially when they have SAM's. It's not like this was the first plane shot down over Ukraine. The seperatists had already downed a large number of Ukrainian Air Force jets and fighters with missiles.

You've got flights going in an out of Iraq every day. There is no shortage of surface to air systems over there and it's a pretty active war zone.

Ukraine was an anomaly. If air lines and freight want to avoid any potential region of conflict where a group of crazy may intentionally or accidentally take a shot at them, there's a whole lot of airports that are suddenly going to be very closed.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Yeah but in Iraq there aren't any known active SAM sites capable of hitting jets in the Flight Levels? That's the difference. Shoulder/manpads type weapons with a vertical range of ~10-15k feet is one thing. But to hit one in the FL350 range would take a sophisticated weapon, which I don't believe is active in Iraq. And if it was a SAM site/battery, I can't imagine the west not taking it out.

The Ukraine threat got very real July 13 (I think?) when they shot down an Antonov from about FL230. If the missile could reach FL230, it sure as hell could reach anything in the 30 thousands. Ukraine responded only by closing the airspace below FL320. Including and above FL330 it was all open. I read Ukraine gets overflight fees so it was in their financial interest to keep their airspace open.

 

[derg]

Does anyone else wonder why the hell commercial flights were allowed to overfly an active war zone in the first place? I mean it just seems like common sense to me to fly around the places where people are shooting eachother, especially when they have SAM's. It's not like this was the first plane shot down over Ukraine. The seperatists had already downed a large number of Ukrainian Air Force jets and fighters with missiles.

It goes on daily and there are a lot more "war zones" than would be readily apparent.

You literally wouldn't be able to fly from western Europe to Asia. Generally Simferopol and the Ukraine were pretty regular occurences, but then you're choosing between Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan but you're generally always going to penetrate Pakistan on the way to Europe. You can route over the Gulf States, burn a crap ton of gas but then, guess what? You're flying over the Persian Gulf and even we have blasted a A310 on those heavily traveled airways.

 

[BigZ]

Meh, there's still enough bits and pieces that don't quite fit together.
While I have no doubt in my mind that someone with a capable piece of equipment could take out a blip on the radar screen without a hint of desire to go reading NOTAMs first (after all, there's active enemy airforce in the sky and the pace of events wasn't particularly leisurely at the time), the timing of the ukrainian response is very interesting.
Watched a video last night, the dude's a ukrainian journalist, sought asylum in EU after prosecution by the previous administration over there. He isn't pro-russian, but he's very anti-present--ukie-administration-propaganda-BS.
He pieced together a timeline of all the news outlet announcements for prior aircraft downings (An-30, An-26, Il-76) - changing details, confusion as for what's been shot down, how, when etc - usual lag was from 2-4 hrs for the initial info to days for the details to emerge, updates as info became available etc. When the IL-76 was brought down, figuring out how many people were in it took a couple of days. Ukie politicians were quiet about it too. Come MH17 - within half an hour every mass media knew what, where, how, how many pax, BUK involvement etc*. Bunch of loud mouth politicians had outraged briefs on their FB pages - while the smoke was still billowing.

*couple of days prior to MH17 a Su-25 was brought down while at 22k feet. The official statement was "either BUK from the Russian territory or an air to air missile fired from the Russian side of the border". That later changed to "the air to air missile fired by a russian jet from their side of the border". Then it became "They've been shooting our airplanes with BUK" and later just went off the air once the working theory of the equipment being brought in just before the MH17 going down came up. Speaking of, the Dutch proposed route of the BUK being towed back into Russia makes very little sense when superimposed onto the battlefield map of the time. It's like a scenic route going through every major flashpoint was taken.

 

[derg]

That was all in… English?

 

[BigZ]

That was all in… English?

Unfortunately no
But here it is anyway

Also from wiki

On 14 June 2014, an Air Force Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft was shot down on approach to Luhansk International Airport; all 49 people on board died.[29]:183 On 29 June, Russian news agencies reported (with old photos) that insurgents had gained access to a Buk missile system after having taken control of a Ukrainian air defence base (possibly the former location of the 156th Anti-Aircraft Rocket Regiment [156 zrp] of the Ukrainian Air Force).[47][48][49] On the same day, the Donetsk People's Republic claimed possession of such a system in a since-deleted tweet.[48][50]

On 14 July 2014, a Ukrainian Air Force An-26 transport plane flying at 6,500 m (21,300 ft) was shot down.[29]:183 Militia reportedly claimed via social media that a Buk missile launcher had been used to bring down the aircraft.[51] American officials later said evidence suggested the aircraft had been shot down from Russian territory.[52] On 16 July, a Sukhoi Su-25 close air support aircraft was also shot down. The Ukrainian government said the Russian military had shot down the aircraft with an air-to-air missile fired by a MiG-29jet in Russia; a spokesman for the Russian defence ministry rejected that report as "absurd".[53][54]

....
On 23 July 2014, two Ukrainian military jets were hit by missiles at the altitude of 17,000 feet (5,200 m) close to the area of the MH17 crash. According to the Ukrainian Security Council, preliminary information indicated that the missiles came from Russia.[84]

 

[NickH]

That was all in… English?

It makes sense if you chant 'jet fuel can't melt steel beams', while rocking gently back and forth.

 

[derg]

Unfortunately no
But here it is anyway

Also from wiki

I'm a little too "40 Something" to have my opinion steered by YouTube and Wiki but thanks for the effort, bro!

 

[BigZ]

I'm a little too "40 Something" to have my opinion steered by YouTube and Wiki but thanks for the effort, bro!

I'd offer something better if it existed, but the reality lies somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the way between CNN and RT

As someone who's local to that specific part of the work and someone who worked for the US of A in the field of politics in Ukraine, my opinion is only worth that much

 

[derg]

Nah, no worries, you don't need to find anything.

The problem with internet debate is that we'll often dig and dig and dig until we collect things that match our narrative.

Not saying it's parallel to this discussion but if I said "Dinosaurs walked with MAN!" I could find online sources to back up that statement in about five minutes.

Personally, I don't know what happened.

But dabbling in some of the Dutch findings, having been through the area and memories of when this has happened before, KAL 007, the IranAir flight and the pressure to blame it on someone else, I can't help but not think the Russians are just doing their college best to shirk responsibility. Mistakes happen, but they're going to happen again unless we actually forensically dissect how decisions were made.

 

[BigZ]

Not trying to prove any points, just stating my observations as someone who was watching it closely even before the MH17
- if the BUK was there, i can absolutely see how the seps could have been shooting at anything flying and not reading the NOTAMs
- I do agree that the ukie media timing and reaction were uncharacteristic
- some things that are presented as factual information are not.
-- wiki and a number of western media claims that the sep leader at the time posted about what he thought was An-26 being brought down. I have personally seen that post while it was still up - that was a news blog not affiliated with that sep leader and the said guy never posted anything there
- the "powers that are not there" and the said guy have been running unrelated shows from early on (his involvement wasnt sanctioned, approved, welcomed etc by the "powers"). Throw in couple more independent players, capable of procuring equipment that "fell off the truck" and "was just standing there, must have rusted to dust" and you'll get the picture.
- there was a very good bit of fabrication from the ukie "cia" early on to fit the now accepted theory of the BUK movement. Photos of the ukrainian BUK #312 were used as proof (that unit had an electric failure and was being towed to repairs) of the russian unit of the same number being used, that later changed to #332, but the blurred out pics are still in circulation etc.
- there were ukrainian BUKs captured by seps. Ukrainians claimed they were destroyed, seps claimed that they could be repaired. After MH17 ukraine claimed that there were never any captured BUKs (even though their statement to the contrary was made less than a week prior) ans seps claimed that they never saw one up close and personal.

Overall, I don't think that we are the only ones who hasnt a slightest on what really happened. Being fairly up to speed on whats going on in there, it doesnt strike me as a "everyone knows, but noone is going to say anything" deals

 

[Stone Cold]

@BigZ, what's your background? I'm just curious because you said something about being over there but your profile says you're in Florida. I know you said you were working in politics in Ukraine*; are you Donald Trumps validating manager? I'm not going to go line by line or dispute what you said at this time, but I will agree with your last statement about nobody knows with absolute certainty everything going on over there.

I will add this though...the "separatists" had more reason to shoot at planes than the Ukrainians. The "rebels" didn't have any planes flying to shoot down.

Edited to reflect what you said and not what I read.

 

[BigZ]

@BigZ, what's your background? I'm just curious because you said something about being over there but your profile says you're in Florida. I know you said you were working in politics for the ousted president of Ukraine; are you Donald Trumps validating manager? I'm not going to go line by line or dispute what you said at this time, but I will agree with your last statement about nobody knows with absolute certainty everything going on over there.

I will add this though...the "separatists" had more reason to shoot at planes than the Ukrainians. The "rebels" didn't have any planes flying to shoot down.

Strengthening electoral administration in Ukraine on US taxpayers money during the previous revolution. Got so used to the oranges that figured I'd move to Florida

True on the seps not having anything flying at the time, but ukrainian BUKs were still up and running in the area due to "Russian MiGs shooting our airplanes down". Also have a look at how the battle was going before the MH17 and how it all got bogged down afterwards. Sad reality is the ukies gained from the situation.

Hence my educated "I dunno"

 

[Stone Cold]

Strengthening electoral administration in Ukraine on US taxpayers money during the previous revolution. Got so used to the oranges that figured I'd move to Florida

True on the seps not having anything flying at the time, but ukrainian BUKs were still up and running in the area due to "Russian MiGs shooting our airplanes down". Also have a look at how the battle was going before the MH17 and how it all got bogged down afterwards. Sad reality is the ukies gained from the situation.

Hence my educated "I dunno"

I am very familiar with how everything has been going and watch both sides with morbid curiosity. You can say I work in the lion's den. I fly with a Russian CP and a Ukrainian-Russian with a mom still living in the Donetsk region.

My big problem with the way the Russians were putting out lie after lie, whether they intended to or not, they assumed a guilty posture when it comes to information about what happened. Sorry for the long run-on sentence.

When were you in Kiev? I was there from Sep 08 - Dec 10 flying Lear 60's.

 

[BigZ]

I am very familiar with how everything has been going and watch both sides with morbid curiosity. You can say I work in the lion's den. I fly with a Russian CP and a Ukrainian-Russian with a mom still living in the Donetsk region.

My big problem with the way the Russians were putting out lie after lie, whether they intended to or not, they assumed a guilty posture when it comes to information about what happened. Sorry for the long run-on sentence.

When were you in Kiev? I was there from Sep 08 - Dec 10 flying Lear 60's.

2004-end of 2006. Came to visit couple of times since, but haven't been there in a while, not a fan of where it's going.

Ditto on the Russian treatment of the news. Useful things get lost in the chaos of random pulled out of the you know where theories (although to be fair some are somewhat justified, like the Indian iirc airliner contrails being mistaken for a ukie fighter flying westbound by some witness).
Recent treatment of the Syrian Mi-25 that was shot down by a TOW and ended up being a not-so-Syrian Mi-35 brought down by a misfired HVAR is the prime example of how not to do things, but isnt an automatic proof of foul play in MH17

My grandpa, a retired VDV, made a good point - "No point arguing about it, all sides classified the information for the next 25-30 years anyway"

Russian-Ukrainian here too.