MH17 down near Donetsk

[tsenis]

May be this smoking gun points to Ukrainian government ?

There are counter claims that the alleged video was shoot in Krasnoarmeysk which is controlled by Ukrainian government since May.

Transport of BUK System to Russia filmed – really?

After some geolocation work I tend to believe this version of the story, although reluctantly since I know both parties are engeaged in a dirty Pr war.

Any way I do not base conclutions on videos & pictures posted here and there without verification

[con-pilot]

Has anybody heard what the makeup of an investigating team will be and when they will arrive?

I'm not sure of the makeup, however, they are on scene and are being blocked from gaining access to the crash site by the Ukrainian rebels.

We have sent at least one NTSB investigator and I'm sure that there are one or two from Boeing.

But if they will be granted access to the crash site by the Ukrainian rebels is anyone's guess.

[rampstalker]

guilt

After following these very sad events in the BBC news and watching the thugs at the site i can only conclude that the guilt for this event is firmly at the door of these guys. Had they been transparent and open from the outset to open the door to an investigation then i might have taken a differing stance.

As it is now my personal veiw is that this bunch killed the entire pax and crew list not to mention the health of an airline. The ramifications of which will affect thousands of lives.

[TRF4EVR]

So the competing theories of the crime seem to be down to:

1) A bunch of mouth-breathing irregulars who've been lighting off anything they can get their hands on at anything moving did it

2) In a carefully orchestrated plot, the Ukranian Government shot down an aircraft which was deviating and had no reason to be where it was with the intention of blaming the whole thing on poor innocent Vlad and his uh Freedom Fighters. (* Woops, almost forgot, then somehow got an SA-11 launcher on a flatbed headed towards Russia in the early hours of the morning the next day to take pictures of for uh "plausible deniability")

Yeah, I dunno, hard to tell. Wheels within wheels!

[JamesT73J]

I expect as usual more intelligence exists, such as the specifics of the shootdown. There's some reticence to come out and say who it was in plain language.

As to how the airframe broke up, I suspect that was inevitable once a large explosion compromised the integrity of the fuselage; a 70lb warhead is so big and a non-evading frontal-quarter 777 such a textbook target that it would have been almost test conditions.

It looks like the wingbox and remnants of the wing and centre fuselage fell in one piece with the engines (unusually for a break-up) attached, where the big fire is in all the photos.

I hope the CVR and DFDR haven't been irreparably damaged by fire as it looked like they didn't have much to control the fire with. Not that they will be that useful.

I still wonder what the hell the shooter was thinking, and it's extremely fortunate they didn't knock down the SQ flight, too, seeing as it must have appeared as a similar return within a couple of minutes of MH17.

[SLFplatine]

Multiple reports indicate that it was known several days prior that the undisciplined irregular separatist/rebel army had acquired control of a SAM system capable of bringing down large aircraft at altitude. Now, if so, and if Kiev was aware (and there are multiple reports indicating they were) why they did not immediately close the airspace over the area within which said undisciplined irregular armed units were operating is a question they need to answer.

[jmjdriver1995]

video

One quick comment about that video that supposedly shows the BUK missile launcher on a truck being returned to Russia. Several of the captions for repeats of this video state that "two missiles are missing" and then speculate that this means two were fired at MH17. Two warheads on the remaining missiles are very evident and if you look closely, you can see the top of the missile body and the stabilization fin on the third missile, farthest from the camera. There definitely is only ONE missile missing on that unit.

[McGinty]

Just wondering ... how would the politics of this mess be playing out if this had been a Lufthansa plane that had been randomly downed instead of a Malaysian plane full of Dutch citizens ...?

[Mahatma Kote]

Chaff Hoax

The video referenced by the various social media is the second better resolution crash video. It shows long streamer like objects falling into the wreck site. By my estimate they are of the order of hundreds of metres long and to be visible at all at that range metres wide.

Here is a typical expose https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUltrf8n_vA

It's complete rubbish of course but is still getting a lot of people exercised.

There is logistical impossibility of fitting a dispenser on a fighter aircraft capable of even dispensing those objects. That plus that size/type of chaff has never been seen before, and there is no known chaff dispenser in the Ukraine/Russian arsenal that could possibly deploy them.

The nearest I can find is a US dispenser that takes a reel of chaff material and cuts it to size in flight to match whatever radar frequency is being jammed. The reel is perhaps 4 inches wide.

[SLFplatine]

Putin doesn't want to escalate this much, an Invitation by the Ukraine for outside forces to secure the area would see the rebels melt away from that area.

rh200 -Not going to happen; inviting outside forces to secure the area would bring 40,000 Russian troops to the Ukraine border very quickly, Ukraine knows this -and so does everybody else.

The first things of interest are the examination of the wreckage by skilled investigators

lomapaseo -not going to happen anytime soon. A.) it is a war zone and B.) inasmuch as those in control of the zone are not being cooperative here it is very likely that such an investigation is not in their best interest.

[FLCHG]

Gary Powers:

"Gary Powers: U2 SpyPlane Incident 1960" Shot down over Russia at FL650

A lesson from the history books re missiles:

I quote: " The incident showed that even high altitude aircraft were vulnerable to missiles."

Who decided that above FL320 was safe? Were the experts from the military consulted?

[dc10guy]

Agree with post #481...This will be long forgotten by the time Russia enjoys hosting the next World Cup including many national teams whose citizens are now lying in a dark farm field as we speak...Not one country left with a moral compass...U.N. typically useless.

[Oakape]

not be much use pressing Putin to get cooperation in an investigation from the separatists, because he might not have much influence with them

All he has to do is announce that if the separatists will not do as he requests, they will never be welcomed in Russia & the area they are claiming will never be considered part of Russia. Then he will get their attention!

[Tom/PER]

Over at the airliners.... post 51 in part 3 MH17 crashes in Ukraine has an unauthenticated TV screen shoot of the remains of the SAM.

Apologies if this has been posted before.

[Passenger 389]

@SLFplatine said:

Multiple reports indicate that it was known several days prior that the undisciplined irregular separatist/rebel army had acquired control of a SAM system capable of bringing down large aircraft at altitude. Now, if so, and if Kiev was aware (and there are multiple reports indicating they were) why they did not immediately close the airspace over the area within which said undisciplined irregular armed units were operating is a question they need to answer.

One possible answer (according to the Wall Street Journal):

[The counterintelligence chief at Ukraine's national security service, Vitaly Nayda,] said that his agency became aware that the rebels possessed three Buk-M1 antiaircraft systems, as of July 14. On that day, a Ukrainian military Antonov An-26 transport plane was shot by a surface-to-air missile, killing two crew members.

* * * *
Another Ukrainian official with oversight over civil aviation matters said that the government never considered closing off the entire airspace of the eastern region because they never dreamed that the Russians or separatists would target civilian air traffic.

U.S. Points to Russian Missile Connection in Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Crash - WSJ


Translation - inertia, perhaps busy with other matters, coupled with absence of imagination, no sense of urgency, and neither contemplating nor understanding how a Buk-M1 system potentially might be used by "undisciplined irregular armed units" (as opposed to how the system was designed to be used by a well trained, disciplined team.) Maybe some compartmentalization of information as well.

We are talking about government work, after all.

[guestofguest]

Russia radar must be monitoring that area closely at the time the plane was down.

So Russia would have evidence if it was NOT shot down by pro Russia folks.

Now Russia said nothing about the radar records.

They must have known who shot the plane down.

[Capvermell]

Possibly the only evidential proof of a missile strike will be shrapnel recovered from the victims at autopsy.

Isn't there any chance that ATC Radar will have captured the missile's path from launch to impact with its target. Of course as the Ukrainians have not so far come up with anything then perhaps not. No doubt ATC monitoring facilities in that region are still primitive in the extreme.

However this is unlikely to be tried in any court of law for a long time but the unofficial trial of the rebel separatists will come in terms of the sanctions and other pressure imposed on Russia by the West. Since the separatists and the Russians (who quite unbelievably gave them these weapons without providing the supervisory personnel to ensure that a mistake like this dd not take place) are blatantly guilty unless they can prove otherwise the same rules of evidence as a court needs to send someone to prison are not going to be required to impose sanctions on Russia or cancel the 2018 World Cup in order to punish Putin personally.

[Green Guard]

Ukraine responsible for airspace safety: IATA

[rottenray]

Over at the airliners.... post 51 in part 3 MH17 crashes in Ukraine has an unauthenticated TV screen shoot of the remains of the SAM.

If you view the full-size image, it's obviously a photoshop job.

The base picture is a photo of a CNN screen, with heavy edits:

1 The perspective of the screen and the top
"bug" vary greatly - "sneider" panel vs. bottom graphics.

2 Is there really an anti-aircraft missile out there that has exposed bolts in the slipstream? Looks more like a buoy.

3 The shadow from the fin does not match any other shadow angle in the rest of the image.

(view full at http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BsxabpVIAAALK9c.jpg:large)

[Lone_Ranger]

Once again, as a NTSB trained aircraft accident investigator I am appalled by the treatment of this crash site.

This was not an accident, it was murder

As this is not an accident, but a deliberate shoot down of a civil airliner

Oh righto, as an NTSB trained accident investigator, (if that's actually true) tell me, do you conclude all your cases from stuff you've seen/heard on the TV/Internet and without being anywhere near the accident?

Propoaganda feeds off the weak minded and their ill informed reinforcement