Eastern Europe/Ukraine

Ameet · Post by **Ameet** » 18 Jul 2014 02:33

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/mala ... s-us-paper

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that was shot down today runs daily through the same Ukrainian airspace, reports the Washington Post.

The Boeing 777 was carrying 295 on board when it crashed in eastern Ukraine at 1415GMT or 10.15pm Malaysian time.

"The story is developing and moving fast, but data from airline data firm FlightAware shows that particular flight – Malaysian Flight 17 – runs daily and always goes through Ukrainian airspace.

"In other words, today's flight does not appear to have deviated from the paths of previous flights in any significant way," the US newspaper's Wonkblog reported.

It showed the FlightAware tracker for today's flight, "showing where FlightAware lost contact with the plane in Western Ukraine".

"Reports indicate the plane crashed in Eastern Ukraine, so it likely flew a considerable distance through Ukranian territory before the incident," it added. – July 17, 2014.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 18 Jul 2014 02:40

A lot of flights from Asia to Western Europe and North America fly over Ukraine. Perhaps everybody needs to change their flight plans in light of the new situation on the ground there.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 18 Jul 2014 02:40

<snip unit mix-up>

---

Is it possible that the lost (hijacked and stolen?) MH370 control codes and whatever security measures have been installed in this plane and it was diverted by remote control to crash into some installation in Crimea/E. Ukrain?

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 18 Jul 2014 02:44

matrimc wrote:Nachiket: The plane was supposedly flying at 10K altitude. Buk missile's range is about 22K altitude. If true, why was the plane flying so low? It could have easily gained cruise altitude of 30+K by the time it reached eastern Ukrain (or at least higher than the reported 10K) as the distance between Schiphol and where it went down is not small.

Check FlightAware. The flight was at 33k feet which is a standard cruising altitude. Buk's altitude ceiling is a lot more than that AFAIK. Per wiki the 1980's era 9M38 missile from the Buk family can reach 46000 feet. The newest 9M317 can reach 80000.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 18 Jul 2014 02:46

Is the 10K ft claim confirmed ? That's way too low to be called cruise altitude. It's the point where the cabin bell dings and seat belt sign goes off. No chance of any commercial jetliner operating so low. Either that number is wrongly claimed, or the plane was in prior distress or otherwise going out of its normal flightplan for some reason.

Edit: looks like nachiket already found that the 10K number is wrong.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 18 Jul 2014 02:46

The Buk, SA-11 derivative, has an altitude of 72K ft. There is no indication that MH-17 was at 10K at that time.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 18 Jul 2014 02:49

It would appear that the Russians gave the rebels these missiles and they used them. Irresponsible.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 18 Jul 2014 02:49

OK my bad. People are using meters which I am mistaking for feet. Deleting FPS/SI unit confusing post above.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 18 Jul 2014 02:50

From CNN

The United States has concluded the Malaysian airline was shot down, a senior U.S. official told CNN's Barbara Starr. One radar system saw a surface-to-air missile system turn on and track an aircraft right before the plane went down Thursday, according to the official. A second system saw a heat signature at the time the airliner was hit, the official said. The United States is analyzing the trajectory of the missile to try to learn where the attack came from

Hain? That is pretty convincing evidence. I just want to know where are these radars we are talking about here located, which can look inside Ukraine and the US has full access to.

Vashishtha · Post by **Vashishtha** » 18 Jul 2014 02:52

Not to mention the fact that Putin's plane would probably be escorted through Ukrainian airspace as well as carry its own counter-measures...

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 18 Jul 2014 02:53

Suraj wrote:Is the 10K ft claim confirmed ? ... Edit: looks like nachiket already found that the 10K number is wrong.

Looks like 10KM. One of the news articles posted (by Philip?) above states that clearly. That works out to be a little more than 30K ft - normal cruising altitude.

Madhusudhan · Post by **Madhusudhan** » 18 Jul 2014 02:56

A. This was done by Pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine
B. This was done by interests that would like to see Ukraine join EU and NATO eventually. What better motive than to intervene to avenge the murders of NATO citizens?
C. This was done by Ukraine. They screwed up.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 18 Jul 2014 03:05

^^B isn't realistic. Both A & C are possible although since the aircraft was flying from West to East, A seems more likely. Nobody including the rebels would do this on purpose. The thing is more than one military aircraft has been shot down in that area over the past few weeks, including a Ukrainian An-26. It is possible to confuse a 777 for an An-26 on radar I suppose.

No civilian airliner should have been flying anywhere near that area. Gross negligence on part of the European ATC as well as the Airlines who continue to fly through there.

Cosmo_R · Post by **Cosmo_R** » 18 Jul 2014 03:21

When TWA Flight 800 exploded over Long Island, everyone speculated that it was a missile strike. Pierre Salinger, JFK's press secretary was convinced of this and even named names.

As we all know, it turned out to be a fuel tank vapor issue.

People see explosion but do not mention smoke trails that would follow a missile heading towards the plane. With TWA 800, people actually said they saw missile smoke plumes.

The chances are much higher for a fuel tank or some such event or an explosive device.

The really worrisome aspect is that it could have also been the same issue in different degree with MH370.

All I know is No MAS!

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 18 Jul 2014 03:32

who will benefit from the tragic killing of innocent passengers who are not involved in the european conflict.

what will Putin gain by killing the innocent passenegers --> in fact the plane was in ukrainian airspace going eastwards. Doubt Russia will do it. Also putin plane was in the near vicinity. the safety will be for Putin plane and not the pasenger plane from Russina security angle.

Now it leaves Russian backed rebels or ukrainian backed ones.

Russian backed ones- will get abad name will be in more difficultiesa s they have only Russia to back anyway. why would they lose support.
Pro ukrainian ones at leats on paper likley to gain most--> with ukrainian and western press and govts going against Russia and its backers.
unkil piling on more sanctions --. wanting more and more evdinece to sanction putin.
smarting under putin-->creating difficulties to their attemptts to rise ukraine away from Russia. In fact thumbing his nose to unkil.
EU is efemmete needs unkil's tetsosterone for its actions.

----------------------------------------
SHQ commented what is wrong with Malayasian airlines. felt bad some many people including children died for no fault of theirs.

IndraD · Post by **IndraD** » 18 Jul 2014 04:09

Acc to Htimes several SM posts removed in haste by pro Russia insurgents indicates they shot the plane down mistaking it for Ukraine military plane

Y. Kanan · Post by **Y. Kanan** » 18 Jul 2014 04:13

I wouldn't over think this. Seems pretty straight forward; an accidental shootdown by the Russian-backed rebels. They screwed up.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if the Ukrainian gov't has been intentionally flying large transports in the same flight path that airliners use. This makes sense for two reasons; it discourages rebels from shooting at Ukrainian military aircraft, and it increases the chances of a civilian airliner getting blown out of the sky.

This is just the sort of underhanded behavior the US engages in all over the world. They'll happily sacrifice an airliner full of innocent people if it advances their geopolitical goals. The Ukrainians have had months to reroute civilian air traffic away from the conflict zone, but I'm convinced they deliberately held off on doing so, hoping for just this sort of incident. Maybe the Americans gave them the idea; or maybe the Kiev junta came up with that on their own. These are both very nasty and underhanded players, whether you're talking about the people in charge at Kiev or Washington.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 18 Jul 2014 04:29

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 18 Jul 2014 04:37

East Ukraine no-fly zone after Malaysian crash

European and US airlines rerouted their flights as Kiev said the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down in a "terrorist" attack and a US official said intelligence analysts "strongly believe" it was downed by a surface-to-air missile.

"Since the crash, the Ukrainian authorities have informed Eurocontrol of the closure of routes from the ground to unlimited (altitude) in Eastern Ukraine," a statement said.

"All flight plans that are filed using these routes are now being rejected by Eurocontrol. The routes will remain closed until further notice," it added.

According to Eurocontrol's information, the doomed plane was flying at a level known as "330", or approximately 10,000 metres or 33,000 feet, when it disappeared from radar screens.

The route itself had been closed to level "320" but was cleared for those flying at the Malaysian plane's altitude.

disha · Post by **disha** » 18 Jul 2014 04:40

Do people remember the Korean air plane which was shot down by Soviets? It was flying close to certain airbases and US has used civilian flights to spy on sensitive areas.

Ukraine is a conflict zone - what were MAS officials doing? Sucking thumbs? They could have easily avoided that path., instead of putting a civilian plane right dab in the middle of a conflict. Why take chances when it is not cleared for aircraft below certain altitude! Are you waiting for the plan to be shot down and the other guy says - "oops - I read the altitude as 23k instead of 33k and did mizzile fire" or the pilot makes an error and dips below 30k or hits an air pocket and goes down by few 1000 ft!

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 18 Jul 2014 04:50

Most of the passengers were Dutch

Nationalities of Passengers identified so far

"There were 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board the plane," Malaysian Airlines vice president Huib Gorter told reporters at a press conference at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport from where the doomed flight had taken off.

He gave a preliminary breakdown of the passenger's nationalities, saying: "154 were Dutch, 27 were Australian."

In addition, 23 others were from Malaysia, 11 were Indonesian, six were British, four were German, another four were from Belgium, three were from the Philippines and one was Canadian.

Around 50 passengers remained unidentified, Gorter said.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 18 Jul 2014 05:20

RAW: Moment of MH17 Malaysia Airlines plane crash in Ukraine caught on camera

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQXaCqLO ... xB7g4USKpg

Cosmo_R · Post by **Cosmo_R** » 18 Jul 2014 05:29

To shoot an airliner at 30K + feet requires an industrial strength SAM like the Buk. It's not a jump in the line and fire off senora kind of op.

Ukraine itself is an operator of the Buk

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 18 Jul 2014 05:33

This is from Retd. US Army Col. W.P. Lang, at 3:37 PM US EST:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semp ... shtml.html

The lunatic "yellow" US media has immediatedly leapt into pursuit of the theory of a missile shootdown by rebel forces aligned with Russia. Like Obama and the R2P Harpies they seem to have no concept of the risk of provoking Russia into an irrationally hostile act towards the US. US DoD has stated that in spite of continuous surveillence of the scene they have no indications of the cause of this event. I will observe that we now have seen two Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft that have come to an ill end at approximately the same altitude. pl

member_22733 · Post by **member_22733** » 18 Jul 2014 05:38

From the pics of the wreckage and of the explosion on ground and the absence of any trails, it looks like it came down in one piece. I am not well versed with AAMs, but usually dont they explode with sufficient power to destroy part of the airframe of a military aircraft? i.e. Fragmentation - High Explosive warhead (?)

Now this being a civilian aircraft the missile exploding nearby should have ruptured the airframe and broken the aircraft into many pieces, especially due to this being a high altitude flight with a large pressurized compartments. Unless this missile has a non HE warhead that sends out shrapnel directed at the target that causes system failure, there is no way that the aircraft would have come down in one piece.

TSJones · Post by **TSJones** » 18 Jul 2014 05:44

nachiket wrote:From CNN

The United States has concluded the Malaysian airline was shot down, a senior U.S. official told CNN's Barbara Starr. One radar system saw a surface-to-air missile system turn on and track an aircraft right before the plane went down Thursday, according to the official. A second system saw a heat signature at the time the airliner was hit, the official said. The United States is analyzing the trajectory of the missile to try to learn where the attack came from
Hain? That is pretty convincing evidence. I just want to know where are these radars we are talking about here located, which can look inside Ukraine and the US has full access to.

eastern Ukraine is under US 24x7 real time surveillance and monitoring from multiple assets down to less than one square foot. includes full spectrum. the area has also been under US air travel warning since January or February of this year.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 18 Jul 2014 05:54

The Missile That Likely Shot Down MH17

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Jul 2014 05:56

The buk might not have the ceiling and slant range for it. But Ukraine also has the s200 which does. ukraine has this model.
S-200V "Vega" (SA-5b), with the V-860PV/5V21P missile, introduced in 1970, range 250 km (160 mi), ceiling 29 km (18 mi)
few yrs back a errant s200 took out a Israel bound Russian plane in the crimea.

question is how many of such heavy weapons and associated radars were captured by the east ukraine militias. surely they must have looted all armouries and bases vacated by the retreating govt troops. it cannot be simple to operate this weapon, so former Ukr military units trained for the job must also have deserted.

with Govt airplanes bombing rebel positions and installations in their own country, this is the only defence they have, and manpads with their limited range and power.

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 18 Jul 2014 07:19

Two things could point to Ukrainians:
* Operating BUK type missile requires the kind of expertise that isn't compatible with the inability to ID the plane as a civilian airliner. Pro Russian militia most likely won't have either.
* If a jet flying at 600 mph at 33,000 ft was hit above East Ukraine, it would seem that it would hit the ground well inside Russia. Falling near Donetsk could mean it was shot much farther West over Ukraine proper.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Jul 2014 07:29

the alacrity with which western lawmakers are using this as a stick to call for more sanctions on russia and increase in military aid to ukr is indeed commendable.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 18 Jul 2014 07:36

Victor: Can the spread of the debris and body part field determine the altitude, velocity, and distance of the point the plane got hit/exploded from a fixed origin, say Kiev? The field distribution can give an accurate picture of the point of disintegration within some error (without a need to solve the inverse problem).

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 18 Jul 2014 07:53

It is surprising that Ukraine has allowed the Airspace to be used for Civil airlines even when their Military Aircraft flying over the area was shot down multiple times over.

Its silly to say dont fly till 30K Feet but above that it is safe to fly , if Ukraine didn't have control over the airspace then they should have stopped all flight over the area.

Indeed US and Europe official have told airlines not to fly over those areas.

Wonder so far in 3 months why no civilian aircraft was ever shot when there was Air Defence activity going on ....strange it happened this time.

RIP to the Dead , Condolence to the Family.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 18 Jul 2014 08:01

nachiket wrote:From CNN

The United States has concluded the Malaysian airline was shot down, a senior U.S. official told CNN's Barbara Starr. One radar system saw a surface-to-air missile system turn on and track an aircraft right before the plane went down Thursday, according to the official. A second system saw a heat signature at the time the airliner was hit, the official said. The United States is analyzing the trajectory of the missile to try to learn where the attack came from
Hain? That is pretty convincing evidence. I just want to know where are these radars we are talking about here located, which can look inside Ukraine and the US has full access to.

CNN doesn't explain it well but this is how it is done.

1. It isn't so much a radar, but a satellite with an RF and radio receiver, with a low noise floor, that is tuned to look for the frequencies of the SAM battery radar. If you tune an RF receiver in the same wavelength of the radar transmission, very narrowly say within a few KHz, and have a directional antenna, you will indeed detect the SAM radar as it is pointed up in the sky and which is transmitting at fairly high power for the missile to lock on to target.
2. A second satellite, or the same one, using infrared and video detection sensors locks on to the position given by the first satellite with the RF receiver.
3. Now the first satellite need not be in space, it could have been on airborne platform. What I find amazing is the ability to distinguish the signal from ground clutter, but as the SAM battery radar is pointing upward, it is very possible to make the detection.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 18 Jul 2014 08:05

Austin wrote:It is surprising that Ukraine has allowed the Airspace to be used for Civil airlines even when their Military Aircraft flying over the area was shot down multiple times over.

Its silly to say dont fly till 30K Feet but above that it is safe to fly , if Ukraine didn't have control over the airspace then they should have stopped all flight over the area.

Indeed US and Europe official have told airlines not to fly over those areas.

Wonder so far in 3 months why no civilian aircraft was ever shot when there was Air Defence activity going on ....strange it happened this time.

RIP to the Dead , Condolence to the Family.

As said, before, there was no NOTAM issued by ICAO, EU or US civil aviation authorities. It was NOT a war zone for air traffic purposes until today. My family and I flew that route in the last week and month to and from India. The Russians gave a SAM system to a bunch of goondas and the a$$holes used it like a bunch of thugs that they are.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 18 Jul 2014 08:11

Mort Walker wrote:As said, before, there was no NOTAM issued by ICAO, EU or US civil aviation authorities. It was NOT a war zone for air traffic purposes until today. My family and I flew that route in the last week and month to and from India. The Russians gave a SAM system to a bunch of goondas and the a$$holes used it like a bunch of thugs that they are.

Thats the surprise part NOTAM in an area where since past 2 month many Aircraft and Helicopter was shot down. Most of them were flying high.

This should have been a No Go Zone 2 months back and not since yesterday.

While Crimea and Black Sea where there is no fight going on at all was declared a No Go Zone while Ukraine area where the fight is going on had no such warning except not to fly below 30K Feet , Strange isnt it ?

The SAM even if it were to be BUK are operated by Ukraine Armed Forces and the Rebels just took it from the fleeing Ukraine Army Base.

A tweet from BBC

03:13:

Data on MH17's flight route by flightradar24 suggests the plane had deviated slightly from its usual route and flew across the length of Ukraine.

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 18 Jul 2014 08:16

matrimc wrote:Victor: Can the spread of the debris and body part field determine the altitude, velocity, and distance of the point the plane got hit/exploded from a fixed origin, say Kiev? The field distribution can give an accurate picture of the point of disintegration within some error (without a need to solve the inverse problem).

Definitely and distance would depend on the initial damage. All the details will be uncovered in time.

It's hard to imagine a large jet blowing up in pieces right on impact unless a wing was blown off immediately. More likely it 'flew' on after being disabled, then broke up and rained down. BUK has a proximity fuse so there was no direct impact, just blast and shrapnel.

Most important fact is that even a kid can tell the difference between a jet flying at high altitude and the military planes that were shot down at lower altitudes recently. Why would anyone 'assume' it was a military target at that altitude? That's a busy airspace and I myself flew over it recently en route to AMS from India. Also the Ukrainian military now includes fascist nutjobs that have already proved themselves to be brutal maniacs.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 18 Jul 2014 08:16

It deviated as a storm system was moving south to north over the Black Sea. Many aircraft changed their flight plan, MH-17 was most unlucky. The only consolation is that they didn't shoot down more than 1 airliner.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 18 Jul 2014 08:18

Boeing is just doing nautanki through GoTUS to deflect the blame me thinks. US confirms the plane shot down, and there are WMDs in Iraq. Yuk yuk.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 18 Jul 2014 08:21

^^^I don't think so. The 777 has many many hours of operational time on it with many airlines. It's been in service since the 1990s as a reliable long range aircraft.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 18 Jul 2014 08:22

So is it the Ukrain mil or the separatists? Answer to that changes the world opinion drastically oin favor of one or the other (barring the possibility of double games).