OH is reading the Dutch news, and it is a very sad day for the NL (154 nationals). Some 88 children, perhaps 3 infants feared to be on board.

Condolences indeed to the family and friends of those people. I just wonder how many people were going back home for summer (some 45 Malaysians were onboard). Man, I have not felt that physically sick for a looong time.

What I find extraordinary is that airlines were flying over the area as they thought it was perfectly safe to do so.

I would have thought that airlines would not fly over any area that is so volatile.

Afterall, airlines that fly to most Arab countries will not fly over Israel, and Israeli airlines will not fly over those Arab countries that do not have peace agreements with Israel.

Do you think the people who shot it down targeted it for being Malaysian? I don't think so either... it could have been anyone. But working for Malaysian Airlines PR department must be the absolute nightmare job of the year...


Short summary of the news I read so far:

Why were they flying there anyway?
The airspace was previously closed up to 30,000 feet due to the ongoing fighting. MH 17 was higher than that and it takes some serious weapon system to shoot down a plane at this altitude. I was on many flights over the last decade going over Iraq or Afghanistan - it's simply normal to do so at this height. Neither the Taliban, Al Quaeda or Isis are close to be able to shoot down airlines like this...

So what happened?
Most experts agree that the most likely thing shooting the plane down would be a Buk missile system. That's not the sort of rocket the Taleban can fire off a donkey but rather large trucks...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system

Who did it?
- the rebels claim they don't have the capabilities to do so...
- Russian state media reported four weeks ago that rebels conquered Ukrainian Buk systems in an airforce installation they won over...
- the rebels shot down an Antonov military transporter with a surface to air missile earlier
- unconfirmed reports in the media claim witnesses have seen the rather obvious rocket trucks being installed in the last couple of days.

I personally don't see any regular army including the Russian and Ukrainian one to be stupid enough to do this - the Ukrainians would lose any support from the West and I don't want to know what Putin would do to some soldiers who cause him that sort of trouble...

Bottom line:
300 people lost their lives. It takes expert knowledge and a serious piece of equipment to do this attack which both sides of the conflict happen to have. All I hope is that these 300 people did not die for nothing but managed to get the global attention for this regional conflict and this incident leads to a diplomatic solution.

The scene description is quite terrible

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/wo...bris.html?_r=2

What would be the score with insurance? As they flew over a war zone I assume the insurance co. Will be washing there hands of it

No, it couldn't have been anyone; only a plane that was flying over this area was at risk. Now, I agree that other airlines were also doing this, but they were all irresponsible.

Quote from the Guardian:

Eurocontrol said Ukrainian authorities had banned aircraft from flying at 32,000ft or below and the doomed aircraft had been cruising at 33,000ft

Do you think that an air zone which isn't considered safe at 32,000ft suddenly becomes safe at 33,000ft? Missiles aren't quite that precise in their limits. The airlines should have taken safety seriously and gone the extra mile (rather horizontally than vertically!).

Indeed, regular military would be more cautious and disciplined..this has all the hallmarks of an over-eager and trigger-happy malitiia. It will be interesting to see if they will man up and take responsibility, or will they simply follow Vladimirs lead of lies and misdirection. I can't see the Ukraine shooting at anything Russian.. that would unleash a maelstrom of hurt.

This deed cAnnot be undone, but the aftermath is concerning: this event has both the potential to neutralise or antagonise the current conflict.

According to flightradar24, few other airliners were on the same route when it went down. Singapore airlines was right behind Malaysia airlines, air India ahead, both within 25km.

Pilots always ask for higher altitudes to save more fuel. If euro control grants you 33,000, what are you supposed to do?

That's where we disagree. The rebels have shot down low flying military transport planes and helicopters before. As a response do you make a no-flight zone to make sure everyone knows not to fly his corporate jet through. 32,000 feet is a VERY high ceiling. It's pretty obvious that anything flying this high is an international airliner and not an Antonov flying soldiers from one side of Ukraine to another. 32k is by far out of reach of normal weapon systems and it takes some pretty high tech rockets that were designed to prevent B52s from bombing the Soviet Union to actually reach that high. Hamas is shooting rockets at Israel the last couple of days. There is no way on earth any of their toys would remotely be able to do this sort of damage.

I find it completely reasonable to not expect the Russian separatists to randomly shoot down airliners - mostly because it has never happened before. After a century of civil aviation and millions of commercial flights can I come up with one example where a Korean one was shot down by some Russians by mistake during the cold war. They mistook it for a strategic nuclear bomber which is similar in size and flight height. I am sure there is a handful of others I am not aware of but in principle do people even at war not shoot down commercial planes by mistake - because it is pretty public which flight is on what route and they are so high that it is pretty impossible to mistake them as a threat. It's just not how war works. Given the amount of conflicts and simply messed-up countries is it pretty impossible to avoid every one horizontally.

Simple example: the plane was supposed to go from Amsterdam to KL. This means it would typically fly over Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Do you seriously suggest for every plane to avoid the entire region as we can never guarantee what Syrian rebels will do, or Isis or maybe the Americans are flying some drone operations in Pakistan beneath? I think this sort of discussion is pointless and blaming the airline is just silly.

You don't fly that route to begin with.

The reason MH was flying there is that it's the great circle (shortest) route between Europe and Malaysia and hence the cheapest. Now, airplanes don't always fly great circle routes; e.g. between Europe and the US, planes normally fly this route out, but come back on a latitude line because of prevailing westerly winds. (The gain from the tailwind outweighs the longer distance). In fact, it's normal for airlines to have a department devoted to realtime checks of the weather and dynamic rerouting for planes already in the air to save every penny on fuel costs (Lufthansa are quite good at this). So MH could have chosen any route they wanted (within airspace constraints).

Additional fact: on Monday the rebels shot down an Antonov An-26 with a SA-11 (that huge missile that Treverus showed a picture of) and this was widely reported (I certainly had heard about, I can't believe the airlines hadn't). This missile can hit planes up to 75,000ft and was in in the hands of undisciplined rebels who had shown every inclination to use it.

Now, I sense a bit of polarization on this thread, so I'm going to throw this question out and can anyone give me an honest answer:

Do you think, given the facts I've stated above, that any airline was being responsible in flying within this airspace?

Big difference. In all of those places either the Western powers have air superiority or there's a (at least semi-) responsible government in place which controls such huge SAMs. In this area the government is definitely not in control of the huge SAMs - an undisciplined bunch of rebels are. This is not that large an area to have to avoid and, given the recent (last few days) history that would have made a lot of sense. They're certainly avoiding it now, aren't they?

Rebels or Russian military? I'd bet on the second. Knowing how to set up, arm, target and fire on any potential airplane requires training. Not something that you learn from the back of a pack of Weetos. The SA-11 or SA-17 missile that was fired yesterday was sent up by someone who hadn't finished his coursework in identifying transponder read outs. Maybe he was trying to lock onto a lower flying Ukrainian airplane, maybe he was shadowing the flight on his missile console. Maybe he was just a reckless asshole.

Maybe doesn't really help anyone the second the warhead shattered and sent 298 innocent people into the dark.

__________________
Crash your karma into little bits of happiness

It was in no way widely reported that the rebels shot down the Antonov with a SA11: What was widely reported is that the plane was downed, that the separatists claimed to have done it but that Ukrainian officials and pretty much everyone in the international community blamed the Russians as this would be impossible for a militia to do with Igla rockets. Weather or not the rocket was fired out of Russia or the Antonov entered Russian airspace was far from confirmed. So the state of information was that most likely two governments are having a military conflict and used their weapons for military targets. Till now has nobody addressed how on earth this bunch of rebels know how to operate the system - there is no "BUK for dummies" available... I think it was a more than fair assumption to guess that the AN was either Russian army or Russian army dressed up as militia.

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe...420802306.html

I therefore think it was responsible to fly over the ceiling as long as there was no warning whatsoever that any side would use terrorist tactics. My personal guess is that it was a real mistake by some amateur militia commander - something so rare you cannot be prepared for. Afterwards is it always easy to point fingers and ask "why didn't you?" - the honest response is "how on earth could they foresee this?" and I don't think they could have.

If as you said the rebels were known to have used the weapons would it first of all be the blunder by western intelligence forgetting to tell Eurocontrol about it. At the same time the Ukrainian authorities as they should have blocked the traffic, then Eurocontrol... anyhow: not MH as they simply followed the guidance of the local air traffic and security guys... pointing the finger at an airline who simply does the exact same thing most other airlines do is a bit easy, isn't it?

Actually, it is the other way round. Due to airspace constraints, That is the given route, suggested by well established airways. It would be irresponsible to demand any route they want. Almost any airline would have gone the same route. Immediately before a number of airlines were on the same route, and Singapore was just behind MH. Only after the incident did all airlines issue statement that they are diverting their planes. As a passenger, how would you know not to choose Air India/Singapore/MH? All were flying in the area.

I don't give a monkey's whether western intelligence or Eurocontrol screwed-up on this (in retrospect, we know they did).

What I took away from Monday's report (this was on every news site) was that somebody in that area had access to a SAM much more potent than an Igla and was using it outside of (admitted) government control. Hair bristling on the back of the head time if you're planning to fly a plane over the area.

You know, you don't have to drive at the speed limit; you can go bit slower if you think that's the safer thing to do. There's such a thing in this life as taking responsibility for your actions. That's something that seems somewhat rare among the management of some businesses.

You can file for a different route; it's just going to have a fuel penalty. That's what they're doing right now.

.
Two weeks ago (on June 30) NATO Commander said there was evidence that Russia was supplying the pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine with advanced anti-aircraft weaponry:

http://news.usni.org/2014/06/30/u-s-...an-separatists

If it is verified that this BUK was supplied to the rebels by Russia, Putin is going to be in a tight spot. Looks like he is already pointing the finger elsewhere to take the spotlight off himself:

Rebel commander Igor Strelkow bragging about shooting down another AN-26 with pics showing the downed B-777:



those rebels are just ing idiots.

Ok, I'll take your challenge and go for the A340

The A340 has had 5 hull losses, but only 2 of those were "in service" hull losses, the other 3 were as a result of maintenance accidents, testing accidents and one that was unoccupied was destroyed on the ground as a result of terrorist activities. No lives have been lost in incidents involving the A340.

The 777 on the other hand has suffered 5 "in service" hull losses - flight 370 is considered a hull loss despite the aircraft having never been found. 2 of those hull losses (Heathrow Flight 38 and Egypt Air Cairo) involved no fatalities. 1 hull loss (SF international, flight 214) actually involved 3 fatalities (my memory was wrong in my previous post). The 2 other hull losses (Flight 370 and now Flight 17) resulted in the loss of all on board, making the total number of 777 fatalities 540.

So definitely not a peerless safety record, even before this latest incident.

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...allegedly.

Indeed not very bright it seems, after they shoot it down they call in to report it to the Director of Russian Military Intelligence on a line monitored by Ukrainian Security Services

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnuHxAR01Jo