Media Statement : MH17 Incident

Released at 12:30am/18 July 2014

Malaysia Airlines confirms it received notification from Ukrainian ATC that it had lost contact with flight MH17 at 1415 (GMT) at 30km from Tamak waypoint, approximately 50km from the Russia-Ukraine border.

Flight MH17 operated on a Boeing 777 departed Amsterdam at 12.15pm (Amsterdam local time) and was estimated to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6.10 am (Malaysia local time) the next day.

The flight was carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew onboard.

Travel Advisory - Media Statement 1 : MH17 Incident | Malaysia Airlines

The separatists have been boasting for weeks that they have captured Ukrainian SA-11 Buk systems. The SA-11 can be guided without radar using an optical tracker and laser ranging.

Donetsk militia takes control of Ukrainian anti-air installation - News - World - The Voice of Russia: News, Breaking news, Politics, Economics, Business, Russia, International current events, Expert opinion, podcasts, Video

In April, US flights were warned not to fly over conflict-ridden regions of eastern Ukraine by the FAA earlier this year. (Reported in the Guardian Malaysia Airlines plane MH17 'crashes in Ukraine' - live updates | World news | theguardian.com which is maintaining updates.)

Russian airlines to avoid the Ukrainian airspace starting immediately
 

Russian airlines Aeroflot and Transaero ordered not to fly over the Ukraine effective immediately

I don't go there often, admittedly, but I do remember most of my CDG/LHR/FRA trips to go back through Ukraine. It might have been a jetstream/seasonal thing.

It is increasingly likely now that the separatists did shoot it down, with equally increasing likelihood that they used a BUK system either stolen from the Ukrainian military or, and I fear that's the case, on a courtesy loan from Putin.

Theories abound already, including one which seems to indicate an Ukrainian military transport was flying nearby bringing relief to ground troops and which the separatists might have thought they were targeting.
That, of course, entails a certain level of intelligence which, by any definition of the word, this hodgepodge group of russophiles is clearly unable to provide on their own...

I have $10 saying they never find the CVR/FDR.

This is absolutely, shockingly, disastrous. There is no excuse for any of this.

photo of a BUK launcher supposedly taken in a town 75k E of Donetsk:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bswxl1_IIAEyI8S.jpg

Reuters tweets: #BREAKING: Number of dead from crash of #MH17 more than 300, includes 23 U.S. citizen: Interior Ministry adviser, quoted by Interfax



Which means the US now has involvement in the investigation.

All our arrivals come in much further north via St Petersburg, the Baltics and Scandinavia.

Our returns either go via Belarus (Minsk) / Moscow or much further south via the Black Sea / Georgia.

Been that way for at least 10 years.

Could it have been a bomb?
 

What do you guys think about the possibility of it being a bomb?

Could mean a massive security breach at AMS...

That is what it looks like to me.

The BBC reporting that the aircraft appears to have broken up before impact with debris scattered over a wide area.

Ukrainian airforce, tons of BUK-M1, S-200 and S-300 systems: Ukrainian Air Force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Naturally this doesn't indicate who did it, or even if it was in fact shoot down with a missile, even less with a Russian made.

This debris is a proof of catastrophic structural damage inflight obviously.
The debris seem to be falling near the main impact site, implying that the aircraft might have disintegrated and was not controlled in any way after the damage occured. ( same forward velocity of all parts).

As the crashsite is in Rebel controlled territory, it will be another battle on who is responsible for the investigation...

As saturated with hypocrisy as possible, n'est-ce pas? Regardless of which forces actually knocked the plane out of the sky, isn't somebody who ignited the entire conflict morally responsible for what happens thereafter? Of course one should first be able to comprehend what the moral responsibility actually means.

eurocontrol?
 

regardless of what caused this sad and terrible event - I wonder when ECTRL will be mentioned on the news reports? given they have flight plan and actual route data etc - also wonder why they haven't been coordinating flight plan alternatives to avoid conflict area?

I mean risk assessment? I know there has been no official evidence of deployment of sophisticated AA - but separatists situation + russians possibly supplying weapons + russian supported rebels being at risk from Ukrainian Govt air superiority + recent effective rebel anti-aircraft deployment (even if at low altitude) = no risk? I don't think so! :oh:

Looking at the feed the BBC is showing, you can see the lighter Debris still falling where the smoke is rising. Can see the multiple long,white streaming items falling as well as metalic parts.

The impact does not indicate a nose heavy impact, so its unlikely that the floating debris is a side effect of that.

This was definately breaking up before impact with the ground.

Well if the missile came from the "rebel" side (read: Putin's merry band of rascals...), then Ukraine needs to be a NATO member next week..

If it came from the Ukrainian side, which I doubt, then the bunch in power in. Kiev need to go, pronto! And that's going to get complicated..

Whatever the outcome, it will not be a good one, but taking civil air trafic hostage to regional conflicts cannot be tolerated, and I will support whoever gets this point across! Too bad all the big players have already lost the moral high ground on this particular subject...

screenshot of the rebel post claiming a cargo plane shootdown. He even posted a photo of the smoke plume which matches the current crash site imagery:

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/...sbqz5y3r6l.jpg

no fire trail after missile strike?
 

Looking at the video posted at CNN showing MH17 impacting the ground then bursting into flames the moment of ground impact, I could not see any sort of trail showing signs of burning debris as it strikes the ground. Its quite strange :uhoh:

You are absolutely right, quad. The wee hour and half a bottle of wine got the best of my geographical perspective already.
Well, if CX's own brand of training managed to teach me one thing, it's how to swallow my pride.

It appears the separatists did indeed steal a SAM battery from the Ukrainian army during the conflict...

I'll go to bed now.

Phazes

If it's a catastrophic structural failure at cruising altitude the cause is immaterial. It could be a SAM, a bomb or a hundred other reasons, but the spread of debris from that height will still be the same.

Reported - Flight recorders found and are being sent to Moscow.

Apparently almost 50% on board are NL originating (not necessarily citizens). This is from a source whose information should be reliable (but I'm only the messenger so don't have a go at me if incorrect.)

There were European passengers on the flight -- four French citizens have so far been identified. It is yet unclear if other European passengers were on the flight.

Locals apparently looting the crash site:

'Mensen plunderen brokstukken vliegtuig' | Binnenland | Telegraaf.nl

Incredible that they fly directly over war area with several planes being shot down already....

Who knows what?
 

At this point in time, and given the systems in place and level of interest in current events in eastern Ukraine, it would be reasonable to assume that the Russians know exactly what happened, the Ukrainians have a good idea and the USA is also well informed.

The pro-Russian commander's FB post is obviously the boast about the smoking gun.

This is Putin's nightmare.

The airlines were all playing Russian Roulette - not just Malasian
 

The people on that aircraft were badly let down. Not only by the lunatic in East Ukraine who pulled the trigger, but by the airline industry. It could have been ANY airlines aircraft... It could have been ANY of us...

All airlines say that safety is their number one priority. Flying over or to/from war zones could scarcely be more clear cut.

It took a long time to close southern Ukrainian airspace, following the Russian invasion. To begin with the Ukrainians controlled the airspace from a different control centre and pretended everything was normal down below. The airlines lapped it up because it meant keeping direct routings open, to and from Europe.

The airlines should have been proactive - it was nothing less than their duty, but they weren't - in the case of Simferopol but also elsewhere in Ukraine. It needed common sense and a bit less greed. The threat was so obvious.

@500N

here it is...

"Flight recorders being sent to Moscow". Well that's ok then, I have complete confidence in the accident investigation!!

vk.com
 

I copied the page of the pro-Russian commander, and this is the translated version:

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...ps1b8448da.gif

The British Guardian newspaper has 'chapter & verse' on the rebel website which, according to that newspaper, initially claimed responsibility for shooting down an aeroplane violating its airspace. Apparently that site has since been taken down, but not before it was copied by the Western media. If correctly copied and translated, the rebels thought they were shooting down a Ukrainian transport plane, and that Ukraine had been warned not to invade the rebels' airspace.

Malaysia Airlines plane MH17 crashes in Ukraine - live updates | World news | theguardian.com

There is at least one other thread running, can I politely suggest that the mods merge all threads into one?

Thank you.

"Ukrainian rebel commander posted something about shooting down a Antonov at about the same time MH flight crasht......I can see it happening that way, rebel crew with a missile system of what they are not exact sure how to handle it, let alone being able to recognize plane types on FL 33."

I also think this is what happened, however if you are ATC(or FAA or whatever authority) you simply don't allow planes to fly over a warzone, it's stupid and sooner or later has to result with this...

Lockerbie was completely different
 

@Planespeaking

If it's a catastrophic structural failure at cruising altitude the cause is immaterial. It could be a SAM, a bomb or a hundred other reasons, but the spread of debris from that height will still be the same.

For PanAm 103, the bomb made a small hole in the fuselage, breaking off the nose cone and an engine. The bulk of the plane continued intact until the plane reached 19,000 feet, at which point it went vertical. The main parts of the fuselage were within 2.4 km.

If this plane was hit mid-section by a SA-11 missile with a 70kg fragmentation high explosive warhead (as claimed), I would imagine glide of any kind would be highly improbable, and debris would therefore be far more concentrated.

We don't even know that they have been found, let alone where they have been sent! :confused:

According to channel 4 news Putin has called the Malaysian PM and asked if Russian specialists can help with the investigation!!

I wonder why?

Just saw a live feed from Russian TV, they showed the tail section largely intact with a section of the leading edge and the rudder missing. Seems any impact would not have been near the tail section.

I'm wondering who is currently at the crash site? The Ukrainian army? Rebels? If so, which rebels? This might have considerable influence on the on the on-site investigation, the question of where to send flightrecorders (if found) and so on...

If indeed this proves to be a shooting down of a civilian airliner by military or para military forces, then I am afraid the words "What Have We Learned" of the Aviation Crisis Management workshop held in Brussels, 22-23 May 2012 ring hollow. See below for further particulars:

http://www.eurocontrol.int/sites/def...us-sultana.pdf

Surely the Balkan Wars had tought us something. Those of us who were around then remember the airspace closures over the area.
To allow civilian flights over a known area of escalating hostilities on the ground and in the air would be tantamount to criminal negligence. I expect soon airspace closures and restrictions will follow, but sadly it will be all too late for all those innocent lives lost in yet in another mans war.

Russian ITAR-TASS informing about an An-26 being shot down by a missile.
????-????: ????????????? ???????? - ????????? ??????????????? ??? ????? ??????? ??-26 ?????????? ???

But it wasn't an An-26.

Planespeaking,

MAK, the Russian Aviation Investigation Bureau is known to be one of the best if not THE best in its field and is absolutely independent and professional!

Get your facts straight first and do not believe all they say in the biassed Western media.