From Crimea, or from the abandoned Ukraine bases in the East? I thought that was (vaguely) proved?

I seriously doubt Putin would have been stupid and imported them from Mother Russia.

One good reason for recovering it from the scene of the crime so that nobody knows, of course ... unless that was the Separatists trying to hide the evidence of their crime.

The system may have been Ukranian originally, but has been removed to hide evidence of Russian servicing/repairs which may have been carried out, and to hide the fact that the rebels ever had it. There were claims by the rebels that such servicing was expected, and that they had such systems which was then denied after the shootdown.

To " A Van"
 

Thank you for pointing this out. I can confirm, that since Russia and the Ukraine used to have the same military tools not too long ago, they still do now. So whatever Russian (Soviet) weaponry used by Ukranians, this is not recently smuggled - they've always had it.
Secondly, Russia would not have any interest in shooting down a commercial plane. The Korean ones in the 70s and 80s had tresspassed a no-fly zone, this is a (sad) different story.
I'm shocked how the media are jumping to Hollywood-style movie teasers, we are just missing Schwarzenegger and Co. to be the heros of a cold-war movie!
People, firstly this is a tragedy, as human lives have been lost. Secondly, just because you are filled with anti-Russian thoughts, do not use it as a scapegoat for everything and anything. Only when and if there is true evidence, then you may speak.

released today

UK C4 News footage: Buk launcher minus 2 missiles
 

This evening C4 News (consistently one of the best) showed what appeared to be covert but clear cellphone video footage of one of the Buk launchers, minus 2 of its complement of missiles. The commentary said that it was filmed heading out of Ukraine toward the Russian border. Somehow this had a quality of authenticity about it - get the evidence out of the area quickly.

A slightly more credible input, albeit from POTUS ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...d23_story.html

Purported footage of Buk (Gadfly?) being transported
 

Here is a link to the Channel 4 article with two videos of a BUK being transported (referenced elsewhere in this thread):

http://www.channel4.com/news/did-rus...hoot-down-mh17

You'd assume there would be a fair few Academi/Greystone boys on the ground around there, just wonder if they're contracted to the US or the Ukrainian government?

Originally posted by MPN11:Ehhh, Putin is Russian. I think you have a few things mixed up here.

For the rest, I have to agree with Frequent_Flyer and A_Van.

The anti-Russian sentiment here is mind boggling. Are professional pilots so easily brainwashed into jumping to conclusions?

When there's a 'regular' airplane crash, people here fall over each other to "wait for the investigation to be complete" but when politics is involved it seems to be quite okay to 'shoot from the hips' and 'take no prisoners.'

Perhaps rideforever's remarks were a bit tongue in cheek, but why is the US main stream media so determined to point the finger towards Russia? Watching CNN nowadays is absolutely sickening and it IMHO very little to do anymore with objective and investigative journalism.

The main stream media brainwashing has been going on for quite some time, starting with the hype about Putin's anti-gay laws, the arrest of Pussy Riot, the Sochy Olympic Games and now the Ukraine.

It seems like everybody is taking the bait, like good obedient slaves, in order to relaunch the good ol' Cold War.

Let's please stick to the facts and leave politics out of it. Remember:

People need to calm down. This is more like criminal negligence than an act of war, and the response needs to be on that level.

Like most disasters, this is most likely the result of an accumulation of unrelated but serious mistakes by multiple parties. The obvious culprits are the Kremlin, for not understanding the risks of having sophisticated weaponry like this in the hands of irregulars, and the ICAO, for allowing civil aviation anywhere near that area.

COMMERCIAL GREED STRIKES AGAIN?
 

SOME airlines took the cautious and financially disadvantageous decision to fly AROUND the allegedly promulgated hazard area weeks ago, before the cargo shootdowns.

SOME airlines, including MH, decided it was an acceptable risk to overfly by 1,000ft, the 32,000ft "lid" atop a hot war zone in order to maximise profits.

Commercial pressure again a contributary cause of a major fatal civil hull loss, but not much about WHY MH17 was flight-planned on such a track?

I doubt if the (allegedly heavy) crew were totally aware of the risk at briefing, bearing in mind the much complained about inadequate reporting times pre-flight and the difficulty of picking out the wheat from all the chaff in modern briefing material and its presentation.

I trust the MH management and flight planning staff can sleep easy in their beds, aware of the consequences of this decision.

And how many of the other airlines who callously sent their crews through this wasps' nest are breathing a sigh of relief it wasn't THEIR beancounting habits which dropped them in it?

Whilst we speculate about missiles, WW3, Vincennes et al, let's just remember the routeing was a normal COMMERCIAL decision which contributed to this awful tragedy.

What part of the word HAZARD does modern airline management NOT understand?! :ugh:

- remember the 'lid' WAS 24,000' with a 33% buffer. It has probably changed...................

Bokkenrijder - you used the word 'regular'. Well that sums it up doesn't it. This is highly irregular.

Get this into your head. A peaceful, civilian plane is proceeding about it's normal, lawful business and is shot from the sky. Separatist rebels in the Ukraine claim to have shot down an AN26 at the same time.

Realisation dawns and they remove any references to the downing from their sites (which they do use A_Van and you know it).

A Buk launcher has been seen in the locality from where the missile was fired. Look back on this thread, there are pictures, one from a reputable news agency AP), also video. Today a Buk launcher, minus at least one missile, is seen being driven from the vicinity towards the Russian border along a route Russians have used before. See my earlier post.

The Russians have been providing the rebels with MANPADS and other weapons and only yesterday a Grad attack on Ukraine has been determined to have been launched from Russia.

There are a couple of options here. The Ukraine authorities have cobbled together a marvellous deception which has fooled not only me and my sources in Ukraine but intelligence agencies.

The other option is that all the available evidence point to the Russians.

Does that answer your question?

BOAC - it has changed. the airspace is now closed

hf40 - yes, I didn't bother with the smilie as I thought it not appropriate in the circumstances. I was just making the point that 330 over that area was not OBVIOUSLY stupid as some have implied. I come back to my original point that it was essentially an 'intelligence' failure here. Several int bodies would have known the SA11 was 'loose' and should have reacted. LH, MH and several others did not know, I guess.

Barking Mad, I agree with your comments.

But to an extent is this also an indication of the "dumbing down" of the authority of the aircraft commander?

Decades ago the Captain would have said "There's no f*****g way I'm taking my a/c on that route" and ordered a refile and it would have been done without question. These days Captains with some companies are aware of the fact that a "witch hunt" by management might follow and feel reluctant to rock the boat.

Don't get me wrong am not saying that's the case with all companies or even this one but over the last few decades I see crews being "given" less authority but they still have the ultimate responsibility.

as far as I'm aware SQ, EK, TG, LH, CA, EY were all using the corridor up until yesterday.

Just when you think this disaster cannot get any worse or more bizarre.

AOL.com Article - Rebel leader gives bizarre account of plane crash

With a lie of this magnitude, any doubt about the Ukrainian rebels shooting down MH17 has been removed.

Ah, US intelligence says.

Must be true, then.

It doesn't really matter whodunnit. The facts are that Russia & The West are fighting a proxy war in East Ukraine, in the midst of which an airliner full of civilians has been shot down. If we're not careful, we'll all fingerwag our way into WWIII.

Here is a video showing how an engagement looks like for operators of a Buk-M1 Launcher:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSXMhaFntrU

At 1.19 we see the operator's consoles, horizontal situation being displayed on the larger, circular orange display. I'm not sure what the right retangular orange display is for - vertical situation, precise target tracking, missile tracking ?
There is also a green oscilloscop-like display - not sure what it does, and a TV display for targeting using a visual channel.

From 1.24 to 1.29 we see a target engagement on the circular display - first the radar is scanning wide 120deg horizontal sector (7deg in elevation), we see a blip of a target detected. As the target is selected, the scanning is quickly reduced to 10deg zone, and just after that - target is locked on and the beam is tracking it.

All this looks quite "analog" - no syntetic situation display with computer generated target markers tagged with speed and altitude data - only analog "blips" on radar, the range is determined by the radar display grid, the speed - probably by the rate of movement on the display, and the altitude of the target - well, I have no idea if it's displayed anywhere ? Maybe after the target is locked on, some numerical or at least analog data about speed, course and altitude is calculated and displayed... somwhere....

The target detection, identification and selection is usually done by the battery's command center vehicle (which have data from the big search radar, with digital displays and syntetic computer-generated target symbols on them) - operators in command center would easily see difference between Su-25, An-26 or a B777 crusing at 33k. The radar on the TELAR Buk launcher vehicle is a simple one, used mainly for for locking on target, tracking and illlumination. It does have some target detection capability, but is very simple and gives little data about the targets - they are just "blips".
A calm and experienced operator could probably say the target is too high to be a Su-25 or An-26, but an inexperienced one in a rush ? I imagine that with such displays they could easily lock-on the MH17 thinking it's a lower flying ukrainian plane. Target speed, size or altitude just doesn't show on those displays, or this kind of data is not easily accesible and interpreted.

Didn't they know there is a commercial passenger traffic high overheads ? They could see the contrails with their naked eye.... Maybe the operators just arrived at the scene (with the vehicle) and just didn't happen to think about it.... That capabilities of their SAM system reaches to heights of civilian traffic and they can detect/engage a civilian plane mistakenly... Seems that in their minds a detected target just had to be military ukrainian one....

Well, in my language there is a proverb about giving a razor to a monkee...

Someone who gave a SAM system with such capabilities to a group of rebels, should be brought to justice....