Flight MH17

[angry.bob]

Video and high-res pictures from the wreckage are starting to show up in the regular places. It's just bad. Little kids still buckled into seats that came lose from the plane bad. Adults I don't give two shits about normally, but kids always bug me. Going back and forth between that dutch girls passport photo and the chairlump really bothered me. Not that it changes anything, I just needed to say that and my wife doesn't want me talking about stuff like that in front of the kids.

[Tale]

Video and high-res pictures from the wreckage are starting to show up in the regular places. It's just bad. Little kids still buckled into seats that came lose from the plane bad. Adults I don't give two shits about normally, but kids always bug me. Going back and forth between that dutch girls passport photo and the chairlump really bothered me. Not that it changes anything, I just needed to say that and my wife doesn't want me talking about stuff like that in front of the kids.

To prepare us for what we would have to deal with as journalists, my university lecturer showed unedited video of Lockerbie after the Pan Am crash.

It still haunts me despite having seen other gruesome stuff online. I wouldn't go seeking out unedited MH17 vision. I've seen too many horrific photos already today in the course of my work.

[Tale]

I can't say that flying over a war zone is exactly the smartest thing they could be doing. The airline has bad luck, but also seems to be run be complete incompetents. Bankrupt and either absorbed by another airline or just tits up by 2016.

My flight went over the Balkans en route from Sydney to London during the Kosovo crisis, when NATO was bombing Belgrade. Could see Harriers flying below us. I did wonder about it, but we were considered safely out of range of the action.

[NowhereMan]

The response from Russia/separatists to this has been the only (very darkly) humorous thing in Ukraine in a while. The separatists have been deleting all tweets with pictures or mention of their 'capturing' BUK AA systems and vehicles (it's not totally clear if they really captured it or got something from Russia they then pretended to have captured) and boasts about shooting down a 'Ukranian' plane. RT has been either making accusations it was an attempt on Putin's life or posting articles blaming incompetent Ukranians for hitting the wrong thing while arguing that the Separatists don't have the competence to use these systems so it couldn't be them.

Still I really hope this gets a more significant reaction from the West about the situation. It's such a fucking clear indication of why pushing instability and providing offensive capabilities to groups in a region fucks everyone and why countries shouldn't be doing that much of it.

[NowhereMan]

Commercial flights were cleared to fly above 32k feet if going over that area.  It might just be no one took it seriously that the rebels may have some deadly anti-aircraft missiles that could hit up that far. 

From what I've read, they only had those missiles because of a very recent takover, as it was military gear left over from taking over that particular city.

There's some questions over whether it was captured equipment from the Ukrainians or a Russian hand-me-down they were parading as captured. Either way they've since deleted all their tweets boasting about it and started claiming it could only have been the Ukrainian government since they don't have any kind of anti-air capacity.

[Teleku]

Its interesting how every little ground conflicts like this change airline paths.  I flew from Warsaw to Doha at the start of the year.  The path took us right over northern Syria and through the heart of the combat zone.  I mean like, we almost flew right over Aleppo, and I had just been reading the news the day before about a major battle raging around the city.  Made me kind of nervious, but figured if they were allowed to do it, must be safe, so stopped worrying.

Not anymore.   

[Teleku]

Posted this in the Ukraine thread, but actually meant to post it here:

Its interesting how every little ground conflicts like this change airline paths.  I flew from Warsaw to Doha at the start of the year.  The path took us right over northern Syria and through the heart of the combat zone.  I mean like, we almost flew right over Aleppo, and I had just been reading the news the day before about a major battle raging around the city.  Made me kind of nervious, but figured if they were allowed to do it, must be safe, so stopped worrying.

Not anymore.   ACK!

[SurfD]

And that hand on the clock that counts down the time when that area of the world turns itself into one giant mushroom cloud just ticked a little closer to midnight.   This is not going to end well....

[IainC]

There are some shoulder-fired missiles designed for attacking helicopters and ground-attack airplanes that don't have much range.  But the separatists have already shot down an AN-26, so they have something with better ranges.

They have at least one BUK system. A SAM system specifically designed to counter B-52 bombers - which are big and fly very high.

[Fabricated]

Large number of high level AIDs researchers on the plane headed to international conference in Australia.

Ugh.

I'm sure they'd be glad to know that the people who shot them down and the people behind those people won't have so much as "Boo" said to them because of reasons.

[K9]

[Speedy Cerviche]

Pretty damning

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

Meanwhile rt.com still blaming Ukraine for shooting it down.

Gonna be some big lawsuits for both Malay Air for their reckless path, and Russia for pulling the trigger.

[WayAbvPar]

Can we pull some Israelis out of Gaza and point them at Putin, Syriana style?

[angry.bob]

Gonna be some big lawsuits for both Malay Air for their reckless path, and Russia for pulling the trigger.

They were a thousand feet above the no fly zone so they had the right to be there. I doubt that they'd be liable. And god luck getting money out of the Russians, or the Provisional Government of Ruspuppetstan.

That Russian Internet Defense Force someone was talking about a few pages back is throwing up shit in comment sections and message boards all over the place. Ukrainian AA shot it down, Ukrainian airplane was flying between the airliner and the AA battery to make the AA launch, then sidestepped out of the way making the missile hit the passenger jet, CIA hacked the missile battery, Ukrainian plot to kill Putin and thought it was his plane , etc. All saying it was Ukraine to get NATO involved. Just trying a bit of everything and seeing what might stick.

[Wizgar]

Can we pull some Israelis out of Gaza and point them at Putin, Syriana style?

Reminds me of Dune. I'm down.

[KallDrexx]

Top aids official says 6 colleagues headed to AIDS conference instead of the previously reported 100.

[Tale]

Another passenger worth reading about, sadly.

[Abagadro]

She comes off as a character in a sci-fi novel. I don't mean that in the pejorative sense at all.

[Tale]

Expert's opinion from photos, for what it's worth. Probably very little, but anyway...

[MahrinSkel]

Expert's opinion from photos, for what it's worth. Probably very little, but anyway...

His credentials seem to check out, and although I am *not* an expert on explosives or aircraft crashes, photos from several sources, especially of the port side cockpit shell, will look obvious to anyone who has ever fired shotguns or played around with explosives as being the result of a shrapnel cloud:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/photo-of-mh17-wreckage-proves-missile-attack-claims-report-20140722-zvjur.html

But no-one is denying that it was shot down by a BUK-fired SA11.  The latest version from the Russian keyboard brigade is that the Ukrainians planted a nonfunctional BUK for the separatists to capture, then redirected the plane for a false flag attack.

--Dave

[NowhereMan]

It would however suggest the missile came from the direction the plane was heading towards, which was SE, the same area the separatist's were located and where that BUK that was photographed was. It's another fact that matches up with all the various open source evidence that points to the plane being shot down by separatist AA artillery.