And the Iranians have American-made fighter jets? That's news to me.

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

Indeed, they do!

They're pretty old aircraft though... Like the 747 that Iranian Air was operating until recently - a hangover from before the revolution.

The point is that the buck really stops with whoever was backing the people who actually shot it down. And I was reading today that the crash site has been deliberately trawled to remove any forensic evidence of the missile.

There's not going to be any justice for the families of the victims.

The point is that the buck really stops with whoever was backing the people who actually shot it down. And I was reading today that the crash site has been deliberately trawled to remove any forensic evidence of the missile.

There's not going to be any justice for the families of the victims.

The rouble really stops with whoever was backing the people who actually shot it down, as well as with the accessories before and after the fact...

You cannot really believe that anyone gets justice out of a war???

You cannot really believe that anyone gets justice out of a war???

The people who lost family will be looking for it and our own Prime Minister has been saying words to the affect... today making some strongly-worded statements yet again about Putin's culpability.  

As I said earlier, I think expecting anyone to cop the blame for this is completely unrealistic, it's just not going to happen.

Putin will go down in history for contributing to the loss of MH17 and all soles because he basically started and support the conflict. He has been suppling the bulk of the hardware and allowed soldiers to cross the border. If he had stayed out of the internal issues in Ukraine, this weapon would not have been in the area because the Ukrainians didn't need to use it against the rebels (no planes) and the rebels wouldn't have had it.  There is reportedly footage of the launch truck running back across the border with one missile missing. If true this places the blame in one lap only. Why is it going to Russia? Why has the rebels slowed the access to the site?

Putin had a chance to fix this as much as he could and hasn't. He's not only denied involvement but blames the Ukraine govt. He could have said this has gone too far and simply ordered all his hardware and people back across the border and provided names of individuals that should be contacted and agree to hand over any of interest that hides in Russian territory.

in the fog of war truth is the first casualty

in the fog of war truth is the first casualty

yep and with each passing day the Putin is demonstrating complete lack of leadership and interest in wanting a fair and open investigation

- Removal of bodies from the crash site
- Access to the site is not controlled or rather controlled in a manner that does not preserve the site
- Limited access to site by the investigation team.
- Collection of personal belongings and potentially stealing the belongings.

Reading through other similar crashes where the plane broke up mid air over mostly clean ground like this one. The black boxes are usually recovered quickly, ie 1-2 days because the investigation team is usually on site 24hr a day getting the boxes and the bodies but more importantly the condition and location of the bodies.  Its now day 3 and the reported strong data collection they have is photos taken by Jurno's. There is now rising concern the black boxes have been removed from the site. Do we put it out there now that they will not recovered or if they are they have been damaged?

The UN should have gathered in force in Kiev and just gone out there behind the Ukraine military to taken the site.

The Travel Insurance companies will all probably refuse any claims for this, and will cite "Act of War" as their excuse.

As to the black boxes, there are in fact two - one is the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) which collects lots of technical data and will probably show all normal until everything suddenly disintegrated. The other is the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) which records sound from within the Cockpit and will probably be normal as well until maybe a loud noise at the end. There was no distress call, things would have happened very fast.

Finding bits of the missile would be more important, though it seems that both Russia and Ukraine both have the type in question - it more a matter of which side fired it.

They just said on CNN under the Montreal convention the airline is accountable for the first I think they said $100k each person, after that, if blame can lie with others for which the airline can also claim for the first part.

A couple of points, just being the devils advocate............

Why should anyone be held accountable, if there was the world would be working to a double standard. Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down by the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes on 3rd of July 1988 with the loss of 290 people including 66 children. The US finally apologized in 1996 but never admitted liabilty. It appears no one was ever punished, in fact the captain of the Vincennes was given the Legion of Merit decoration in 1990. White caucasian people are not more human or more deserving than arab people, where all part of the human race.

If one enters a war zone , you take a more or less great risk, if one wishes the best safety stay out of the war zone. At least some airlines including Qantas considered it prudent to stay out of the way. We were safely flying over war zones for years is not a valid response in my opinion.

woodford

A picture is worth a thousand words. From the London Times.

The politicians will strut their stuff, but apart from maybe (hopefully) getting the Back Boxes (which wont show much more than is already known) and the bodies, nothing much else will happen.

The UN will procrastinate, as they usually do (and with Russia having Veto power, they cant do much), and the Lawyers will sue all and sundry - MAS, Boeing, ICAO and everyone else remotely involved.

Russia will stonewall, as they did with KAL007, and the US did with Iran Air, maybe they will admit in 10 years time that the militias had a case of mistaken identity. The Europeans wont get tough with sanctions, else Russia will cut off their gas again and they will all freeze next winter.

Ukraine can't stand blameless either - this happened in their airspace and the wreckage is on their soil -  and their politicians should have known better than to intimidate Russia over the past couple of years and expect others (UN and EU) to bail them out when the inevitable happened.

Apart from the event itself, what disturbs me most is the apparent looting of the crash site - apparently not one wallet has been located!!!

A couple of points, just being the devils advocate............

Why should anyone be held accountable, if there was the world would be working to a double standard. Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down by the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes on 3rd of July 1988 with the loss of 290 people including 66 children. The US finally apologized in 1996 but never admitted liabilty. It appears no one was ever punished, in fact the captain of the Vincennes was given the Legion of Merit decoration in 1990. White caucasian people are not more human or more deserving than arab people, where all part of the human race.

If one enters a war zone , you take a more or less great risk, if one wishes the best safety stay out of the war zone. At least some airlines including Qantas considered it prudent to stay out of the way. We were safely flying over war zones for years is not a valid response in my opinion.

woodford

The Captain of the USS Vincennes should have been court-martialled, as should the crewman who erroneously reported the 767 was descending as though on an attack run - when it was still in the climb... Just because nothing happened to those responsible doesn't mean they weren't responsible. That the US never formally admitted guilt - despite paying out the families - shows just how gutless they are as a people and Government. IF you cock up, admit it.

Let's be quite clear on the airway this flight was on...IT was not through an active warzone. The restricted airspace extended to FL320 - 32000' AMSL. MH017 was planned to, and was, cruising at FL330, 1000' above the restricted airspace. Not through it.

Now, whether or not this was prudent remains to be seen, certainly a 1000' buffer doesn't sit well with me, but the fact remains the flight was operating in accordance with ICAO requirements, as best we can determine at this point in time. The airway was open, the flight was cleared to use it and did. If there was any suspicion that a commercial flight had been lit up by a SAM radar, yet alone actually being fired upon, you can bet the route would have been closed before the incident aircraft landed. But no one expected an unarmed, civilian airliner, squaking mode C and in full contact with ATC to be fired upon as though an enemy combatant in what is essentially a civil conflict. It's one of the simplest rules of engagement - don't shoot at what you can't identify as hostile.

That such an event ha occurred will result in a major rethink in what happens with future conflicts though...

Furthermore, Qantas didn't alter their routing as a result of the Ukraine conflict - despite what the media are saying. "Qantas hasn't flown this route for months" - while factually correct, is grossly misleading, as their Australian-European flights now go via Dubai, not via Singapore, resulting in a much more Southerly routing in any event, not as a response to the conflict.

I heard said on TV that the flight should have been at 35000' and was in Russian airspace rather than Ukranian, which is contrary to what had been said previously. It seems again that nobody knows what is going on!

Let's be quite clear on the airway this flight was on...IT was not through an active warzone. The restricted airspace extended to FL320 - 32000' AMSL. MH017 was planned to, and was, cruising at FL330, 1000' above the restricted airspace. Not through it.

The airline industry operates with defined buffers for vertical and horizontal separation. The actual altitude is also determined by which direction you go, ie East maybe 31,0000, 35,0000 etc. IT IS NOT UP TO INDIVIDUAL PILOTS OR COMPANIES TO ADD THEIR OWN BUFFERS OR USE THEIR OWN STANDARDS IN DETERMINING AIRCRAFT SEPERATION. The 31,000ft ceiling is likely to already had its own buffer determined by the appropriate people.

I cannot remember from my ATC days where it starts, but there is 2000 feet of separation above lets say 25,0000'. MH17 rose from 31,000 to 32,000 feet as required prior to entering Ukraine, this means the opposing traffic need to be at 34,000 feet, which means MH17 if it wanted to go higher would have had to be at 36,000ft. Considering the distance of the flight and starting point, ie 4-5hr behind, this maybe have been physically impossible until it burnt off more fuel.

At least some airlines including Qantas considered it prudent to stay out of the way. We were safely flying over war zones for years is not a valid response in my opinion.

Qantas never flew that way.


Dubai to London barely nips the western side of Ukraine - Amsterdam to KL flies straight over Ukraine.


Fact is, to get anywhere fast between SE Asia and Europe, you need to fly over any number of dodgy countries (Syria, Iran, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.).

I heard said on TV that the flight should have been at 35000' and was in Russian airspace rather than Ukranian, which is contrary to what had been said previously. It seems again that nobody knows what is going on!

Just more media BS.  The flight could not have been in Russian airspace.

Qantas never flew that way.

Never?

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=sin-fra

Never?

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=sin-fra

He should have said since moving from Singapore to Dubai for the stop over

I love that link though

PS and before anyone goes me for typing in his quotes, I'm not. I'm typing below the quote box, I cannot see DTMW's sig and I've tried to fix 3 times now.

Regards
shane

I heard said on TV that the flight should have been at 35000' and was in Russian airspace rather than Ukrainian, which is contrary to what had been said previously. It seems again that nobody knows what is going on!

Graham,
There are numerous websites that you can use to monitor a flight or just all planes anywhere in real time or play back right around the world. These sites get data from both govt supplied links which collect the transponder data, or if you are keen you can buy your own box and hook it up for the area around your house. Some sites may pay individuals who do this when they live in a area far from a commercial airport. When the plane is away from radar, ie flying across the Indian Ocean, they just use the calculated position.

I watched my boys EK flight going direct from Dubai to Sydney jump about 300km when it came on radar west of Perth because the pilot flew further south to get a strong tail wind. Across the Bight the A380 was doing +1050km/hr relative to the ground thanks to that tail wind.

My personal favorite website is flightradar24.com, but there maybe better ones. A few hours after the crash of MH17, I was able to use the history feature to track the flight to where it disappeared from radar, still within Ukraine. Normally you can rewind the live feed and view all flights, but due to the number of people using the website they disabled that feature shortly after MH17 crashed. When the press published the two flights that were also in the area at the same time, less than 25km away (Sing Air and Indian Air), you could track those individually across the same area (those people should count themselves very lucky).

You can also see MH17 was cleared from 31,000 to 32,000ft prior to entering Ukraine airspace. One thing that should not be in dispute is that the flight was at the minimum correct altitude prior to entering Ukraine airspace.

Just looking at the site now, you can see the large number of planes now taking the dogs leg around Ukraine East side. This also includes the numerous flights to/from Crimea to/from various parts of Russia. With one exception, appears to be a Windrose flight with no published to/from coming up Turkey did a loop over Kiev and now headed into Eastern Ukraine, probably Dneproprovsk (spelling) which is half way to Donesk.

The flights from the Gulf (including Qantas) to/from Europe are now going around Syria but straight over the middle of Iraq including Bagdad.

As this is a Railway related forum, it's best not to go too deep into how Aircraft navigate from A to B at high altitude. But, don't take Great Circle Routes as being the exact route that is flown between two airports, even though it is the shortest distance. There are a number of variations due to winds, political issues and some airlines might well use a common route for a large portion of the trip and peel off to various destinations. In addition, there are what is known as Airways - Highway Corridors in the Sky - where flights follow a set route from waypoint to waypoint. The waypoint can be a designated beacon/airport, or simply a Latitude/Longitude point. In more congested Airspace (ie - over Western Europe, North America, SE Asia etc) an Aircraft will have to follow a given Airway when at cruising altitude.

I have flown Singapore to Zurich 3 times with Singapore Airlines. Each time there has been a few left and right turns over Afghanistan, exiting over Turkmenistan, then it splits two ways (presumably at a waypoint somewhere over Turkmenistan)  - one being across Azerbaijan and Georgia, then across to Black Sea to Romania, the other following close to the GC across southern Ukraine. In each case, the return trip was across Azerbaijan.

Singapore Airlines (and others) were also using that Airway across Ukraine as late as last Thursday as they had a flight (SQ351 - Copenhagen to Singapore - which is way south of the GC route between those two cities) just 25km from the Malaysian Aircraft - we could just as easily be reading about SQ351 instead of MH17.

He should have said since moving from Singapore to Dubai for the stop over

I love that link though

PS and before anyone goes me for typing in his quotes, I'm not. I'm typing below the quote box, I cannot see DTMW's sig and I've tried to fix 3 times now.

Regards
shane

Shane,

Put lots of carriage returns after your post that fixes it.

MILW has the right idea - the reaction of some is a little too two minute hate for my liking.

That and simply taking any opinions or messages from the media or those with vested interests as fact, without critical analysis.

One of the things that struck me about initial media reports was the typical abundance of carefully presented uncertainties and qualifiers in the language used. You could say that was just because the story was new and little was known, but I think it went beyond that to the point of psychological manipulation, i.e. presenting unconfirmed and unverified data in such a manner that audiences will assume it is fact, and with a strong emotional impact, unless they carefully dissect the sentences and preferably do a bit of their own research. I'm always suspicious when I'm being told whom I should hate five minutes after something like this has happened when there are hardly any established facts available. It's irresponsible journalism (and disrespectful to the victims and their families), if not thought control.

I wrote above that I thought mainstream coverage was pretty narrow, but have found a couple of minor exceptions, including:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2698823/Beness-Aijo-Putins-British-disciple-UK-student-29-linked-pro-Russian-rebels-blamed-shooting-MH17-arrested-Latvia-leaving-UK-fight-Crazy-Ukrainians.html

It looked like comments weren't allowed on that "pro Russia" article, which I found very convenient, but no matter because on articles like this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2699477/DOMINIC-LAWSON-Conspiracy-theories-useful-idiots-happy-believe-Putins-lies.html
which were supposed to be "anti-Russia", there were over 500 comments, many of which - shock, horror - were very dismissive of Western media coverage and suspicious of US/UK/EU motives in Ukraine. That doesn't make their alternative views true, but at least some people are trying to think for themselves.

And some media sources were crying foul about local Ukrainians collecting passports for identification purposes (because we have so much wartime experience) or that wallets were apparently stripped of cash (because we have just as much experience of incredible poverty).

Just dumb.

Couldn't be because of all those people running around with guns now could it?

Well, that and the arrogance of the western belief that they are even entitled to be there, which surely wouldn't esteem them to the rebels.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who thinks it through that the recovery operation and investigation called a "garden cleanup" by Abbott was always going to be a nightmare in a disputed territory like this. Again it looks like the media were maximizing emotional manipulation by repeatedly complaining about the trouble journalists and the observers/investigators were having in gaining access to the site. Since there are now pictures of foreign journalists standing beside the wreckage being beamed across the world, it can't have been that hard, or else we wouldn't be seeing that footage at all. Those reporters need to remember they aren't in their home countries, they're not in the freest country in the world which also happens to be a virtual warzone and the guys in charge of the area have no reason to trust anyone, especially western cameramen trying to barge in or foreign investigators who are coming via Kiev, home of the Ukrainian government they are fighting against (on top of that I don't believe some of the main investigative teams have even arrived yet). Despite the access foreigners do appear to be getting, removing parts of the aircraft to foreign laboratories for proper examination may not be easy, but let's see.

It's interesting to see on the likes of the ABC where they add five second snippets of footage from the rebels who claim it was not them but Ukrainian government forces stationed in the area who shot down MH17.

Reports of looting are unfortunate, but without meaning to sound insensitive, I think if Australia was in the same political and economic boat as Donetsk and the plane crashed here, I doubt the outcome would be much better. It's just a smeg situation. Apparently some bodies crashed through roofs into houses. I saw footage of one body covered with a cloth on the floor of a plebeian kitchen.

Now Abbott seems to be exercising a little more care in his references to Putin.

I would like to clarify a point from my post. It is being said that the flight was oK is it was in "safe" airspace.
In the end one cannot define a war zone by drawing an arbitrary line on a map (or a particular height). The boundry of a war zone will be at the limit of the range of any weapons used. The Buk/SA11-SA17 (if that was used) has a horizontal range of 45 kilometres and a vertical range of 25,000 metres.
Flying withing that zone will put an aircraft at risk.

Its not to difficult to dig up neutral/innocent aircraft being destroyed due to being to within range of the launch vehicle within a war zone. Another point I will make is one cannot expect a military force to worry to much about what happens to any projectiles that miss there target. In modern battlefields as soon as one fires an missile or artillery piece one has attracted attention and if the your enemy is organised at all, within 20 to 30 seconds of firing such a weapon one will have a missile/shell already on its way to your position. Its for this reason nearly all modern artillery are on vehicles that can be set up and moved quickly.

Note: By the end of the FIRST world war the british had an electronic sound ranging system that could locate an artlillery piece to within 25 metres from the sound of its muzzle blast. the various technologies have of course advanced very greatly since then.

On the Buk Missile system.
This is now an old system having been introduced in the late 1970's. All my research on it shows it requires considerable expertise to use (unlike man portable systems such as the Stinger). The actual complete system comprises 4 vehicles, Command and control, Acquistion and identifing radar, Launch vehicle and firecontrol radar and finally logistics vehicle (loads the launch vehicle).
The missile used is the NATO code named SA11 or SA17, these are what is known as Semi-Active homing, that is the missile uses radar energy reflected off the target to track the target. Semi active systems these days are VERY vunerable to missiles such as the AGM-88 Harm, the HARM having been specficly designed to destroy radars.
The Buk Launch vehicle has no IFF at all relying on the Acquistion and identifying radar vehicle for that.

The latter paragraph strongly implies an expert crew must have been used for the Buk system in the case of MH17, all military experts saying the Buk launch vehicle being well beyond the expertise of most people to operate. This in turn strongly implies the crew was either of Russian or Ukranian military origin.

woodford

It's irresponsible journalism, if not thought control.

Which sadly is what the mainstream media are best at...

The latter paragraph strongly implies an expert crew must have been used for the Buk system in the case of MH17, all military experts saying the Buk launch vehicle being well beyond the expertise of most people to operate. This in turn strongly implies the crew was either of Russian or Ukranian military origin.

woodford

Good comments,
I would add, why would the Ukraine Military be using such a weapon against the pro-Russian activists if they don't have and are not using fighter jets?

Perhaps the reason they hit MH17 is because the operators were not sufficiently trained?

Which sadly is what the mainstream media are best at...

I watched 45min of RT TV last night, mostly on MH17. RT TV is the Russian TV equivalent of CNN and broadcast in English.

I'd read the Russian Media would propagandising the hell out of this. Normally RT TV is mostly just good for a perve as typically young very attractive English speaking jurno's who couldn't get a job at a half decent network at home try and sell their independent sole while spinning Putin's BS wearing big heels and short skirts to make the new at least attractive to watch.

They (Hot looking busty blonde, so must be true) started with the new Russian theory of a 2nd plane that was in the area that had no identification which according to them only could be a military plane of unknown type or origin. So really what she has saying in the 21st century, 25 years after they couldn't tell the difference between an AWAK and a Korean Airlines B747, nothing has changed? She couldn't even sound convincing and the limited image they used of the so called radar looked like they were using a 1980's radar. I think flightradar24 could give me more details.

They then claimed MH17 was on an unusual course, however a 5min check on any Flight tracker website that has history shows that it followed pretty much the same path as previous flights. Again they stumbled through the explanation on this.

The western media critised one of the militas for holding up the monkey soft toy. Then the RT claimed to show the full footage which shows the guy then kissing the toy and placing on the ground gently and making sign of cross. I could be wrong, but I don't think the footage was taken on same day. Comment: Sky News has apologised for one of its jurno's going through a suitcase.