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MH17 Report

bbc.co.uk

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Re: MH17 Report

#91

Post by alkonaut »

jakobdabo wrote: post #83
tptacek wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are full of it. There are pictures of Putin at Russian military bases standing in front of 9M38M1 missiles!

Obviously, I don't know who shot the missile. But when trying to use logic here, I don't see why would Russia shoot the plane. They had nothing to gain. Ukraine? I don't know, I refuse to believe they would deliberately kill hundreds for some advantage. My bet is on the rebels who did it mistakenly. The question is whose BUK they used. One provided by Russia or one taken from an abandoned Ukrainian base.

Most evidence point in a single direction: The separatists got the BUK somehow from Russia (Stolen/Supplied/Holiday...), and that the downing of the aircraft was a mistake (As you say neither part in this conflict has any interest in downing a civilian jet).

What we should remember here is that "who did it" in this matter is more a matter of who was in command and who provided the hardware, rather than who pushed the button.

This is the most likely hypothesis but there are others. Apart from the craft being downed by Ukraine (Nothing in the report points in that direction), another hypothesis one would be actual Russian personnel, rather than Ukrainian separatists, operating from inside Donetsk. That would be hugely controversial, but hard to prove.

Re: MH17 Report

#92

Post by Const-me »

cstross wrote: post #56
ptaipale wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on your destination, you will find out that you'll fly over Pakistani tribal regions, Iraq or other unstable areas. Or the Gobi desert or the Arctic ocean. Places where you would not wish to land. There was nothing particularly strange about flying over Ukrainian airspace, because you don't really expect civilian planes to be shot down, even by rogue militias that are in power in some areas. The very fact t…

The BUK-M isn't something where "someone was drunk and decided to give a lesson" -- it's the Russian equivalent of a Patriot missile battery, with a platoon-sized crew and several support vehicles (radar and command trucks) needed to fire the thing. Other variants have anti-ballistic missile capability and/or nuclear warheads! It's quite likely the operators mistook the Boeing 777 for a large Ukrainian military trans…

“with a platoon-sized crew and several support vehicles (radar and command trucks) needed to fire the thing” — not really. That Russian thing is actually autonomous: http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-9K37-Buk.html#mozTocId210497 You see? Transporter Erector Launcher _And Radar_. Wikipedia says:

A transporter erector launcher and radar (TELAR) is the same as a TEL but also incorporates part or all of the radar system necessary for firing the missile(s). Such vehicles have the capability of being autonomous, greatly enhancing their effectiveness. With this type of system, each vehicle can fight regardless of the state or presence of support vehicles.

“quite likely the operators mistook the Boeing 777 for a large Ukrainian military transport aircraft” — yeah, I also think so. The important difference with Flight 655 and MH17 is USS Vincennes was there legally. The cruiser wasn’t smuggled to some international terrorists who say they’re independent freedom fighters, like it happened with Buk M1 which downed MH-17.

Re: MH17 Report

#93

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #90
tptacek wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how to respond to this comment. Your earlier comment parroted a line that is apparently popular in the Russian media, that Russia no longer uses the 9M38M1 SAM. But that missile is distinctive, and can been seen in recent photographs at Russian military installations. I didn't say that Russia shot down MH17. I said that if they're claiming not to use that missile, they're lying. Why? What a weird thing t…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: MH17 Report

#94

Post by TeMPOraL »

tfgg wrote: post #33
Shivetya wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the take away is, do not fly over areas of conflict. why the international community allowed it, let alone individual airlines did not take their own action, is beyond me. On second thought, I wonder if an airline can elect to not fly on certain corridors because they declare a risk?

I think it's just so unlikely that a group that couldn't be held properly responsible would have AA missiles capable of reaching to normal cruising altitude that it's not normally considered a problem and why MH17 was exceptional. Or, at least, that's how it was explained to me by the captain of a 747 while we were flying over Afghanistan.

That's probably how he rationalized it to himself, given that opposing the airline over this would probably cost him his job. People generally take risks and then tell themselves stories to justify them.

Re: MH17 Report

#95

Post by zbyte64 »

ed_blackburn wrote: post #6

I anticipate lot of bluster. The perpetrators perhaps being named but ultimately nothing happening. A lot of nations do not recognise courts higher than their own sovereignty so will not extradite. Especially if they deem the charge to be politically motivated. Right or wrong. Russia will contest this report, and any other. Basically someone messed up with a borrowed bit of heavy kit and a tragedy ensued. There will…

Russian soldiers on vacation also borrowed surface to air missiles?

Re: MH17 Report

#96

Post by arprocter »

davidw wrote: post #38
outworlder wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, going to Japan from Los Angeles involves flying over the Pacific Ocean for 12 hours or so. Nothing but water.

Flights from places like Amsterdam or Frankfurt to Portland or Seattle go about halfway up Greenland. Same sensation of "it would really suck to have a problem here", but there's nothing to do other than grip the armrests even harder than normal to keep the plane in the air.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_21

"The airline had installed special lockers on the aircraft to store the corpses of any passengers that died en route, since the flight's routing over the Pacific Ocean and North Pole meant that there were few if any possible unscheduled stops"

Re: MH17 Report

#97

Post by istvan__ »

tptacek wrote: post #72
istvan__ wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This still does not prove anything, it could have been the Ukraine military as well, they have (just like any other ex-Soviet country) plenty of BUK missiles.

First, no, they do not have "plenty" of BUK missile launchers, second, the launchers they do have are not parked in the middle of separatist strongholds, and third, it's not the SBU spinning wild stories of fighter jets flying alongside MH17 and sudden course changes by MH17 --- it's the separatists and the Russian Ministry of Defense saying those things, which have been conclusively debunked now by the Dutch report.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Ground_Forces#Army_A...

"Surface-to-air missile systems and complexes of division level are characterized by their long range and firepower and are equipped with surface-to-air missile complexes;S-300V,Osa, Buk, Buk-M1 and Tor."

2. No they did not need to do that, it was enough to park it closer to the zone

3. I am not sure what is this gibberish about, I did not mention anything about SBU or anybody else saying anything.

Thanks for the downvotes, even when you are obviously wrong. It is just showing how much HN lost its way.

Re: MH17 Report

#98

Post by powertower »

tptacek wrote: post #73
jakobdabo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Russian media it's quite the opposite. They say Russia doesn't use the 9M38 missiles any more, Ukraine does.

They are full of it. There are pictures of Putin at Russian military bases standing in front of 9M38M1 missiles!

Those pictures are of Putin on a military base in Armenia that runs joint operations. Both Armenia and Ukraine use 9M38M1, Russia stopped production in 1999 and begin phasing it out.

I'm sure there are a few of these still around here and there, but no one is lying about the production stop that happened 16 years ago (that can be verified many ways).

Those pictures are sourced from - http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/19731

And they are still up.

It's not much of proof of anything.

As far as the other 2 whole pictures at parades, etc, well, that's proof of itself that these missile models are dwindling in numbers and are a rare sight.

Re: MH17 Report

#99

Post by trhway »

nns wrote: post #4

Video Reconstruction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDiLEyT9spI At the 10.30 mark you can see the missile impact on the plane.

the reconstruction is wrong as they depict the missile coming from the front-right and crossing the flight path of the plane. In reality the missile came from the front-left, from the rebels positions much north of the Torez/Snezhnoe (that the report strangely insists on as the point of launch).

The BUK missile shrapnel flies perpendicular to the missile's direction. It is a simple geometric task to show how that shrapnel has also hit the left engine and clipped the left wing with the direction of the shrapnel damage there matching the direction of the damage to the pilot cabin.

Re: MH17 Report

#100

Post by trhway »

tremon wrote: post #40
armabiz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Officially Ukrainian govt call that Civil War happening in the country as "Anti-Terror Operation". To be clear, rebels occupy territory of 15K square kilometers with population 4M people. Closing the air space would look like sign of loosing control over situation in country from the official govt side. So this looks like not "too busy with other things", but more like miserable politics.

Actually, the airspace was closed. Up to 20,000ft, that is. The cruising lanes (10km, 30,000ft) were still open because up to then, the rebels did not have surface-to-air missiles with that range. Which, of course, is why Russia have been spinning this since day 1. Where did the missile system come from, and who operated it? On that day, both the Russian News and the rebels' twitter account reported downing a (what t…

>the rebels did not have surface-to-air missiles with that range.

they had it since end of June when Donetsk BUK battery was captured. Using those BUKs during the first half of July before the MH-17 the rebels dawned 2 Ukrainian AN-26 transport planes which were flying at about 7km height, much beyond the reach of MANPADs. The MH-17 was flying much north of the civil corridor and the rebels thought that they got another AN-26.

June 29, 2014

Russian source http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=1741703

(In English http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussia/news/2014_06_29/Donetsk...)

Pro-Ukranian source http://www.unian.net/politics/934238-boeviki-chastichno-zahv...

Somebody's personal twitter mentioning capturing of the BUK systems in Donetsk https://twitter.com/lennutrajektoor/status/48328116547931340...

Read the tweets, people were clearly saying that airlines need to stop flying over Ukraine now.

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