Malaysian airline MH-17 discussion thread

Bob24

jelenka wrote: »

oh , I am not really , there is way to much propaganda to believe anything , if pro russians are proven to be the ones that pressed the button I hope that they answer for it . I wonder who gets the black box in this situation , if Kiev gets it , I for one won't believe their investigation as they could have tampered with it.

For sure both sides will be trying control and influence the information coming from that area.

But I am not sure black boxes would tell much anyway. They would help if the crash was due to an issue with what happened in the plane, a technical failure with the plane, a mistake from the crew or that kind of stuff. But in the case I guess they will just confirm that it was shot down suddenly by a missile - which we are already pretty sure about.

SpaceTime

You'd really have to feel very sorry for the Malaysian Airlines staff too. Losing two aircraft, including colleagues and having to deal with this all over again in the space of a few months must be absolutely devastating.

These organisations aren't all that big in reality.

The political fallout could be quite serous for Russia too.

To me it looks like a bunch of amateurs had access to extremely powerful missile systems.

gandalf

goat2 wrote: »

you are right about the many videos, and also that we cannot hear anyone speak on them, make it look like they were on standby for something happening and waiting to capture it on video,

I saw one of the videos with speech on it translated this morning on Sky.

http://news.sky.com/story/1303268/it-was-hit-by-a-rocket-mh17s-final-moments

Bob24

SpaceTime wrote: »

To me it looks like a bunch of amateurs had access to extremely powerful missile systems.

I think that's a fair summary of what the situation looks like at the moment yes ...

Peregrine

jelenka wrote: »

I wonder who gets the black box in this situation , if Kiev gets it , I for one won't believe their investigation as they could have tampered with it.

My post from Aviation and Aircraft:

Nimr wrote: »

As far as I remember, the State of Occurance is responsible for the investigation and the State of Occurance is also responsible for preserving the evidence.

See Annex 13 of the Chicago Convention of International Civil Aviation.

I don't think the recorders are going to be much use anyway if it was shot down by a missile.

Lord Trollington

The real sickening thing about all this is that Russia, Ukraine and probably the USA and EU will use this incident to further thier own agendas.

Russia have already released claims they picked up radar activity to suggest Ukraine was behind it.

Ukraine release a statement claiming they intercepted a phonecall between the pro Russian militants and a Russian General.

298 People dead. And everyone is points scoring. The corruption in the World as a whole is absolutely astounding.

Lord Trollington

Nimr wrote: »

My post from Aviation and Aircraft:



See Annex 13 of the Chicago Convention of International Civil Aviation.

I don't think the recorders are going to be much use anyway if it was shot down by a missile.

As far as I'm aware the country of manufacture of the Aircraft can also get involved in the investigation.

SpaceTime

Can you imagine the issues if they'd taken down an aircraft from a country with a big military.

Various Chinese airlines use that corridor for example.

Bob24

Lord Trollington wrote: »

The real sickening thing about all this is that Russia, Ukraine and probably the USA and EU will use this incident to further thier own agendas.

I am not sure how much of an agency the EU and the US have though ... Until now they have pretty much been staying on the side of the crisis in Ukraine hoping for things to settle down on their own. Especially the EU which could (and possibly should) legitimately be concerned about these things happening on European soil hasn't really done anything.

SpaceTime

Lord Trollington wrote: »

As far as I'm aware the country of manufacture of the Aircraft can also get involved in the investigation.

That's probably more useful where there's a potential technical issue that caused a crash though. There's very little Boeing could do really.

Bob24

SpaceTime wrote: »

Can you imagine the issues if they'd taken down an aircraft from a country with a big military.

Various Chinese airlines use that corridor for example.

I guess in a way whoever did this got "lucky" they hit a Malaysian plane yes ...

But at this stage aside from pressing harder for an inquiry and trying to gather their own intelligence, I am not sure what China would be doing differently?

Peregrine

Lord Trollington wrote: »

As far as I'm aware the country of manufacture of the Aircraft can also get involved in the investigation.

The States of Registration, Design and Manufacture are all entitled to have a representative present

Banjo String

Don't know how reliable this is, but the pro Russian rebel apparently claiming responsibility.

Meanwhile in a chilling message, the leader of a pro-Russian separatist group fighting the Ukrainian government forces for control of eastern Ukraine appears to claim responsibility for downing the civilian airliner.

"We warned them not to fly in 'our skies'. Here is video confirmation of the latest 'fallen bird'. The bird landed outside the residential zone, no peaceful civilians were injured ", he says.

The rebel, known as Igor Strelkov, used his page on a social networking site to boast that his men had just shot down an aircraft.

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/entire-family-of-four-among-victims-as-face-of-man-thought-to-be-responsible-for-downing-of-mh17-revealed-30441184.html

"no peaceful civilians were injured "

WTF about the 298 on board the plane?

Thoie

It's a side note, but by a sad coincidence, a steward who had swapped shifts to be on MH017 was married to another employee who had swapped shifts to not be on MH370.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-28361428

comongethappy

Banjo String wrote: »

Don't know how reliable this is, but the pro Russian rebel apparently claiming responsibility.


http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/entire-family-of-four-among-victims-as-face-of-man-thought-to-be-responsible-for-downing-of-mh17-revealed-30441184.html

"no peaceful civilians were injured "

WTF about the 298 on board the plane?

That was part of their messages the rebels hurriedly deleted yesterday when they seen their error.
... That and their boasts about capturing the missile systems have been deleted, though are viral by now.

Irishcrx

Banjo String wrote: »

Don't know how reliable this is, but the pro Russian rebel apparently claiming responsibility.


http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/entire-family-of-four-among-victims-as-face-of-man-thought-to-be-responsible-for-downing-of-mh17-revealed-30441184.html

"no peaceful civilians were injured "

WTF about the 298 on board the plane?

Absolute psychopath. I'm sure he and his men are devoid of any wrong doing as well.

bear1

Irishcrx wrote: »

Absolute psychopath. I'm sure he and his men are devoid of any wrong doing as well.

Judging by the recordings, they don't seem so concerned about what they have done.

Mint Sauce

skeg16 wrote: »

True but what were they doing flying over that airspace??? Bit of a dodgy move.

I would gladly fly an extra couple of hours if it meant avoiding that route

Maybe doing the same as nearly every other airline doing the Europe to Asia Route.

who_me

It seems incredibly implausible that a 777 could be mistaken for an An-26. The An-26 is so much smaller, and a turboprop, and can't reach 25,000ft never mind 33,000ft. I know it's not a piston-engined aircraft, but surely a turbo-prop would sound very different to a turbofan, even to a relative amateur?

I really can't see how anyone reasonably competent could mistake one for the other. I think it's a bit of a red herring.

loughside

Now why did Russia do this? Did they know anything beforehand???

"Hours before the crash, Russia closed four airways near the Ukrainian border, including one that was a continuation of Flight 17’s route."


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/17/world/europe/maps-of-the-crash-of-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17.html?_r=2#aviation

danniemcq

Irishcrx wrote: »

Absolute psychopath. I'm sure he and his men are devoid of any wrong doing as well.

bear1 wrote: »

Judging by the recordings, they don't seem so concerned about what they have done.

They didn't know it was a passanger jet.

They had been targetting Ukrainain military transports over the last while. Thats what they had thought they had hit.

At 32000 ft the appearence of a large plane in the sky is hard to tell apart and unless they knew exactly the ins and outs of how the radar on the BUK worked they might not have been able to tell the difference in the radar imagery.

The fact that all tweets about the BUK and the comments about the shooting down has been removed from twitter and other sources show that this seems to have been a complete mess on their part and they are looking for any way to deny their involvement.

If they had planned on downing a passanger plane then they would not go to these lengths to hide their actions

Ash.J.Williams

who_me wrote: »

It seems incredibly implausible that a 777 could be mistaken for an An-26. The An-26 is so much smaller, and a turboprop, and can't reach 25,000ft never mind 33,000ft. I know it's not a piston-engined aircraft, but surely a turbo-prop would sound very different to a turbofan, even to a relative amateur?

I really can't see how anyone reasonably competent could mistake one for the other. I think it's a bit of a red herring.

was it just a case of a f**ing idiot with a big gun shooting a dot on a radar?

conorhal

bear1 wrote: »

Judging by the recordings, they don't seem so concerned about what they have done.

They should be, they should be very concerned since the seperatists have just lost their little war over this blunder.

In an age when the media agenda is as powerful a weapon as military might, the separatists have placed their allies in an awkward position, Russia can no longer afford to supply them with surface to air missiles, the blowback for them should any be traced to Russia would be too politically damaging and embarrassing for them. Thus the separatists have just ceded the skies to the Ukrainian government. With no air power, no air defenses and no allies that can afford the stench of mass murder to attach to them, the separatists are screwed.

muddypaws

loughside wrote: »

Now why did Russia do this? Did they know anything beforehand???

"Hours before the crash, Russia closed four airways near the Ukrainian border, including one that was a continuation of Flight 17’s route."


http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/17/world/europe/maps-of-the-crash-of-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17.html?_r=2#aviation

So where was it supposed to go then, once it got to the border? Did air traffic control know about the closed airways?

seamus

who_me wrote: »

It seems incredibly implausible that a 777 could be mistaken for an An-26. The An-26 is so much smaller, and a turboprop, and can't reach 25,000ft never mind 33,000ft. I know it's not a piston-engined aircraft, but surely a turbo-prop would sound very different to a turbofan, even to a relative amateur?

I really can't see how anyone reasonably competent could mistake one for the other. I think it's a bit of a red herring.

An amateur would have difficulty telling two aircraft apart at 5,000m, never mind 10,000. Would you even hear an aircraft travelling overhead @ 10,000m? I don't think so.

The operator in any case I'm guessing is looking at blips on a radar screen and not guiding the missiles by looking up into the sky. Radar operation is highly technical and requires many many hours of experience to do even competently, never mind do well.

Even a highly experienced ATC operator would need a few hundred hours of training before they could properly operate radar-based SAMs.

So it is highly plausible, nay damn near certain that this was operator error.

danniemcq

who_me wrote: »

It seems incredibly implausible that a 777 could be mistaken for an An-26. The An-26 is so much smaller, and a turboprop, and can't reach 25,000ft never mind 33,000ft. I know it's not a piston-engined aircraft, but surely a turbo-prop would sound very different to a turbofan, even to a relative amateur?

I really can't see how anyone reasonably competent could mistake one for the other. I think it's a bit of a red herring.

Its not a case of aiming through crosshairs though

The BUK works off radar and the AN26 and the 777 would have similar radar signatures at least to someone who isn't fully trained and experienced.

If you are told that your target plane (limitary transport) is gonna be in the area and then you pick up a dot on the radar you are gonna assume that this is the one you are looking for.

The plane flying so low would also maybe have meant that the rebels thought it wasn't civilian

miss no stars

conorhal wrote: »

They should be, they should be very concerned since the seperatists have just lost their little war over this blunder.

In an age when the media agenda is as powerful a weapon as military might, the separatists have placed their allies in an awkward position, Russia can no longer afford to supply them with surface to air missiles, the blowback for them should any be traced to Russia would be too politically damaging and embarrassing for them. Thus the separatists have just ceded the skies to the Ukrainian government. With no air power, no air defenses and no allies that can afford the stench of mass murder to attach to them, the separatists are screwed.

Plus it seems like their comments all came before they realised what they'd actually done. I would imagine they're now bricking themselves.

Whether or not they're concerned about the morality of what they've done is another matter, but they seemed keen to avoid civilian casualties.

josip

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

was it just a case of a f**ing idiot with a big gun shooting a dot on a radar?

Big gun? Check
Radar? Check
Idiot? Check

bear1

danniemcq wrote: »

They didn't know it was a passanger jet.

They had been targetting Ukrainain military transports over the last while. Thats what they had thought they had hit.

At 32000 ft the appearence of a large plane in the sky is hard to tell apart and unless they knew exactly the ins and outs of how the radar on the BUK worked they might not have been able to tell the difference in the radar imagery.

The fact that all tweets about the BUK and the comments about the shooting down has been removed from twitter and other sources show that this seems to have been a complete mess on their part and they are looking for any way to deny their involvement.

If they had planned on downing a passanger plane then they would not go to these lengths to hide their actions

The main issue there is the altitude and the proximity to Russian airspace.
33k feet would make the plane look quite small, in the recording I heard the person reporting the shot down plane says the Ukrainians were probably trying to get spies to jump out.
When the guy finally reports from the site that they found normal passengers with no weapons the other guy (the Greek?) didn't seem very concerned.
Anyway, your sentence I agree with - it just seems to be a massive fcuk up by the separatists. Which unfortunately will get away with it.

just reading now that a lot of the passengers were heading to an AIDS conference.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/07/17/around-100-aids-researchers-heading-to-melbourne-conference-aboard-malaysia-airlines-flight-ukraine-russia-aircraft-crash-victims-australia/

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-18/flight-17-crash-casts-shadow-over-melbourne-aids-meeting.html