Ukrainian Il-76 shot down killing 49
 

Pro-Russian rebels have downed a military transport plane
 

Not good

Ukrainian Aircraft Shot Down By Separatists

there is video of the moment the 'object' hit the il-76. it appears to carry on in a straight tajectory after impact. this seems odd for a manpad. lucky unguided rocket? some reports say it was gunfire, so all bases covered so far.

Edit: latest sources saying two empty Igla launchers found. that may explain one hitting, one missing - the latter being the bright object that carried straight on.

BBC News - Ukraine footage 'shows burning plane wreckage'

not a good escalation however it was brought down.

Registration
 

Rumoured to be UR-76777, can anyone confirm?

Photo: UR-76777 ATI Airlines Ilyushin IL-76 by DAVID KENNEDY Photoid: 255401 - JetPhotos.Net

Ukrainian officials should close whole airspace over eastern part. now is closed up to fl260. Russian terrorists can easily hit passenger a/c.

I hope you and your family are safe, not good things happening in your country

isnt cargo aircraft "off limits" ? unarmed ?

Sad, hope this situation gets resolved

Wouldn't have thought so. Unless carrying medical markings or something along those lines. What ever the convention says.

Mind you, the convention also says we can do lots of nasty things if the enemy does particular things, but we don't as the media and the lefty's don't like it.

So these "rebels" are not in receipt of Russian weapons...

Yeah right.

In a war situation I dont think that has ever been the case. I once researched a wartime Beaufighter pilot, a DFC and an accredited "ace". Three of the kills in his tally consisted of a flight of unescorted JU 52s which he encountered over the Med. They could have been carrying vital war supplies or troops to North Africa - either way he had no choice but to shoot them down, although I don't suppose he took much pleasure in doing so.

Here however we have an undeclared war, and I doubt if the pro-Russian "troops" who shot this aircraft down give much thought to the Geneva convention.

All the participants are in receipt of lots of Russian weapons -what's your point, mini?

There's a nice set of satellite shots from a commercial operator now being published, which sort of make it obvious that the tanks the rebels got came from Russia.

Putin is stokeing this for all he's worth. Until the west gets serious, it will just keep going and getting worse.

Couldn't the Ukrainians just use the Chechnya solution, after all thats a Russian approved method? Oh wait the Ukrainians are civilized.

"Use the Chechnya solution..." Even if you're being ironic that's exactly the thinking that propagated this dire situation. When the elected President was chased from office by a murderous mob we applauded the end result, if not necessarily the violence. And now our best "solution" on offer is genocide?

Only a matter of time before a civilian a/c is shot down. The terrorist scum did it during the war in Rhodesia, the Hunyani and the Umniati, murdering over 100 innocent civilians, mostly holidaymakers.

As reported by all the media the start was the President sending troops to shoot down unarmed protesters when he went back on his promises re the EU. (Why the Ukrainians are keen on the EU is another question).


There was also no looting or destruction of government buildings after the President fled.


Where does your 'murderous mob' come from?

Fitter2, I remember seeing footage of police being set on fire in the street with petrol bombs.


The correct way to act would have been for the people to wait until the next Presidential election in 2015 and then vote him out of office. All of what is happening in Ukraine now could then likely have been avoided.

All of what is happening in Ukraine now could likely have been avoided if the Russians hadn't decided they couldn't undermine the Ukraine with their patsy and resorted to terrorism.

IL-76MD 76777 c/n 0083482490

The people of Eastern Ukraine want independence, if Kiev recognise this and stop attacking them then the war will stop and there will be no more loss of life.