FacebookIn a reference to the disappearance of flight MH370 in March, Cor Pan, believed to be shown in this profile picture, posted a picture, right, on his Facebook page with the message: "If the plane disappears, this is what it looks like."
For Cor Pan, a Dutch holidaymaker heading for Kuala Lumpur with his girlfriend Neeltje Tol, boarding a Malaysia Airlines flight was an irresistible opportunity for black humour.
As he made his way down the sky bridge from gate G03 at Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport, he paused to take a picture of the Boeing 777-200 that he and Ms Tol were about to board.
In a reference to the disappearance of flight MH370 in March, Mr Pan posted the picture on his Facebook page with the message: “If the plane disappears, this is what it looks like.”
His friends responded by wishing him a good holiday and reminding him to send back lots of photos, but within hours their messages would turn to fear, and then despair.
Flight MH17 pushed back from the gate at 11.14 a.m. BST, 14 minutes behind schedule, and took off at 11.30 a.m. for a flight that was scheduled to land at 10.50 p.m. A local plane spotter, Fred Neeleman, photographed the aircraft as it took off, as did another man, Tom Warners.
For the next 110 minutes, the flight was entirely uneventful. With a complement of 280 passengers and 15 crew, MH17 made its way over Germany, Poland and Ukraine, reaching its cruising altitude of 33,000 feet and flying straight and level, but at 1.21 p.m. radar contact was suddenly lost.
On the ground, Igor Strelkov – also known as Igor Girkin – the leader of the pro-Russian separatists fighting the Ukrainian government forces for control of eastern Ukraine, used his page on the social networking site Vkontakte to boast that his men had just shot down an aircraft. In a message posted at 2.50 p.m. BST, he wrote: “In the district of Torez an An-26 was just shot down. It crashed somewhere near the Progress mine.
“We warned them not to fly in ‘our skies.’ Here is video confirmation of the latest ‘fallen bird.’ The bird landed outside the residential zone, no peaceful civilians were injured.”
His post was accompanied by a video of a plume of black smoke rising from the ground, one of several videos that were posted online within two hours of MH17 going missing. It quickly became clear that an aircraft had indeed come down near the village of Grabovo in the Torez area, 25 miles from the Russian border, but the wreckage bore the distinctive white, red and blue livery of Malaysian Airlines.
Emergency crews who raced to the scene found wreckage and bodies strewn over a nine-mile area. Part of the aircraft, including at least one engine, had exploded when it hit the ground, leaving an area of blackened debris once the fires had been put out.
Other parts of the aircraft, and some of its passengers, had landed intact.
The fully dressed, unbloodied bodies of more than 100 passengers lay next to the broken seats in which they had hit the ground still strapped in by their seat belts. Passports and other personal effects were picked out by emergency workers identifying the dead passengers.
A large section of wing had come down within yards of two buildings, though all those living near the crash site appeared unharmed. Elsewhere, a section of the fuselage, its windows undamaged by the impact, lay in the middle of a field.
“I was working in the field on my tractor when I heard the sound of a plane and then a bang and shots. Then I saw the plane hit the ground and break in two. There was thick black smoke,” said an witness who gave his name only as Vladimir.
A separatist rebel from nearby Krasnyi Luch, who gave his name only as Sergei, said: “From my balcony I saw a plane begin to descend from a great height and then heard two explosions.”
The first confirmation that a passenger jet had come down came at 4.04 p.m., when the Reuters news agency reported that a Malaysian airliner had crashed in Ukraine.
Malaysia Airlines said on its Twitter feed that it “has lost contact of MH-17 from Amsterdam. The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace.”
By 4.29 p.m. the Russian Interfax news agency was reporting that the aircraft was “shot down.”
The finger of blame quickly pointed at the pro-Russian rebels, largely because of the earlier claim of shooting down an aircraft but also because a Ukrainian cargo aircraft had been shot down days before by a surface-to-air missile.
Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko described the incident as a “terrorist act,” having earlier said: “We do not exclude that the plane was shot down and confirm that the Ukraine armed forces did not fire at any targets in the sky.”
Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said the aircraft was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher, which can hit targets up to an altitude of 72,000 ft.
Two weeks ago, pro-Russian fighters from the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) boasted that they had captured Buk missiles and launchers when they overran a Ukrainian army garrison on June 29. The DPR posted a Twitter picture at the time of the vehicle-mounted missile system, but last night deleted the picture and denied they possessed such a weapon.
Andrei Purgin, the self-declared deputy prime minister of the DPR, said: “Of course, we do not have such systems. These arms are too heavy and too powerful, we simply have nowhere to get them.”
Meanwhile, another faction, the Lugansk People’s Republic, blamed Ukraine, saying in a statement: “Witnesses watching the flight of the Boeing 777 passenger plane saw it being attacked by a battle plane of the Ukrainian forces.
“After that the passenger plane split in two in the air and fell on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic.” Alexander KHUDOTEPLY/AFP/Getty ImagesA firefighter sprays water to extinguish a fire, on July 17, 2014, amongst the wreckages of the malaysian airliner carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur after it crashed, near the town of Shaktarsk, in rebel-held east Ukraine.
President Barack Obama, who had scheduled a call to the Russian president Vladimir Putin to discuss ongoing sanctions against Russia, briefly discussed the plane crash, though news had only reached Putin minutes before the call.
Later in the evening, as word filtered through that 23 Americans and up to nine Britons were believed to be among the dead, the scale of the diplomatic crisis facing both President Obama and David Cameron was becoming clear.
Andrii Kuzmenko, the Ukrainian charge d’affairs, called on Britain to give his country military support to defeat the “terrorists”.
He said: “We would like to hear from the British government comprehensive support of Ukraine at the economical dimension, and at the military and technical dimensions. The support could help us to respond properly to the aggression we are facing.” Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images A man wearing military fatigues stands next to the wreckage of the Malaysian airliner.
Meanwhile, the friends and family of Mr Pan and Ms Tol had accepted the worst. Messages on his Facebook page, which hours earlier had been so joyful, spoke only of grief.
One wrote: “There are too many things that go wrong … am afraid it is indeed your plane. Rest in peace Cor and Neel. To the family, a lot of strength with this incredible loss.”
Another added: “I don’t want to believe this is true because this is too awful for words.”
In Malaysia, with the loss of another airliner so soon after MH370, there were familiar sentiments of denial. A close family friend of Captain Eugene Choo Jin Leong, the captain of MH17, said: “We are still holding on to hope because, up till now, no official has contacted us to let us know what has happened. All that we know about what happened is from the television.” AP Photo/Dmitry LovetskyPeople inspect the crash site of a passenger plane near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine, Thursday, July 17, 2014. Ukraine said a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday as it flew over the country, and both the government and the pro-Russia separatists fighting in the region denied any responsibility for downing the plane.
Zurab Dzhavakhadze/AFP/Getty ImagesA picture taken near the town of Shaktarsk, in rebel-held east Ukraine, on July 17, 2014 shows the wreckage of the Malaysian airliner.
Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty ImagesWreckage of the Malaysian airliner carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur after it crashed, near the town of Shaktarsk, in rebel-held east Ukraine.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
By By Julie Pace And Lolita C. Baldor July 17, 2014
WASHINGTON (AP) — American intelligence authorities believe a surface-to-air missile took down a passenger jet in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, a U.S. official said, but the Obama administration was still scrambling to confirm who launched the strike and whether there were American citizens killed in the crash.
Vice President Joe Biden said the incident was "not an accident" and described the Malaysia Airlines plane as having been "blown out of the sky."
Among the unanswered questions was whether the missile was launched from the Russian or Ukrainian side of the border they share, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly by name and insisted on anonymity. But the official said U.S. intelligence assessments suggest it is more likely pro-Russian separatists or the Russians rather than Ukrainian government forces shot down the plane. Video: Obama Informed of Malaysia Jet Downing Over Ukraine
The U.S. has sophisticated technologies that can detect missile launches, including the identification of heat from a rocket engine.
President Barack Obama, speaking during a trip to Delaware, made no mention of who might be responsible for the crash of the plane carrying 295 people, and called the incident a "terrible tragedy."
Following the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration said U.S. airlines voluntarily agreed not to operate near the Ukraine-Russia border. The agency said it was monitoring the situation to determine whether further guidance was necessary. Video: Ukraine: Malaysian Jet Shot Down by Rebels
A global air safety group said an international coalition of countries should lead the investigation of the crash. Safety experts say they're concerned that because the plane crashed in area of Ukraine that is in dispute, political considerations could affect the investigation.
Kenneth Quinn of the Flight Safety Foundation said only "an independent, multinational investigation can truly get to the bottom of it without political interference."
The incident came one day after Obama levied broad economic sanctions on Russia as punishment for its threatening moves in Ukraine. Moscow is widely believed to be supporting pro-Russian separatists fomenting instability near the border, though the Kremlin denies those assertions. Video: Ukraine Pres.: Ukraine Army Didn’t Shoot Plane
Obama discussed the new sanctions by phone Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The White House said reports of the downed plane surfaced during that call and Putin mentioned the incident to his American counterpart.
Speaking later during a trip to Delaware, Obama said "the world is watching" the deadly incident.
"It looks like it might be a terrible tragedy," he said. "Right now we're working to determine whether there were American citizens on board. That is our first priority." Video: Who’s Responsible for Shootdown of MH17 in Ukraine?
White House officials said Obama still planned to go ahead with an evening of fundraising in New York.
Officials said Obama called both Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak from Air Force One as he traveled to the events. The White House said Obama and Poroshenko agreed that all evidence from the crash site must remain in Ukraine until international investigators were able to examine it.
The U.S. planned to send a team of experts to Ukraine to assist with the investigation. Video: Ukraine Rebels Reportedly Shot Down Malaysian 777
Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, said on his Facebook page that the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher.
U.S. officials said Russia has sent a wide range of heavy weaponry into eastern Ukraine in recent months, although it is uncertain whether that includes the Buk air defense system, which is operated by a tracked vehicle. The U.S. suspects that Russian shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons have been provided to the separatists.
According to a Ukrainian state-owned import-export firm that specializes in military technology and weaponry, known as Ukroboronservice, the Ukrainian military operates the Buk-M1 system, which is designated by NATO as the SA-11 Gadfly. It is designed to shoot down military aircraft, including helicopters, as well as cruise missiles.
The Russians also are believed by U.S. officials to have provided the separatists in eastern Ukraine with other heavy weaponry such as artillery, multiple-launch rocket systems, tanks and armored personnel carriers.
The Federal Aviation Administration had previously warned U.S. pilots earlier this year not to fly over portions of the Ukraine in the Crimea region, according to notices posted on the agency's website.
The notices were posted on April 23. The U.N.'s International Civil Aviation Organization and the aviation authorities in most countries issue similar notices for areas where unrest or military conflict creates a risk of being shot down.
___
Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Nedra Pickler, Robert Burns, Joan Lowy and Josh Lederman contributed to this report.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Lolita C. Baldor at http://twitter.com/lbaldor
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
CNN speaks with Fareed Zakaria about the crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine on Thursday. This is an edited version of the interview. Obviously, there's the human horror of this, and that, of course, is primary in our minds. But there are also military implications, political implications, strategic implications, which will largely be determined by who may have fired a missile and why.
If this turns out to be what, frankly, many of us suspect it is – a terrible casualty of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict – then this is huge. What might have happened – and again, there are a lot of caveats – but what might have happened is that the Russian government has been supporting, training, arming rebels, separatists in Ukraine. Essentially teaching them how to do this kind of thing. Those forces have, in the past, shot down helicopters of the Ukrainian army, cargo planes – as has been noted. It wouldn’t be difficult to imagine that they thought this was a Ukrainian cargo plane, because they are poorly trained, ill-equipped. They probably don't have the right kind of radar to figure it out, and they probably don't care. These are not people following safety precautions. In fact, the separatist group, just shortly before this plane went down, had bragged about, on this day, bringing down what they said was a Ukrainian military plane.
Precisely. Which is why, as I say, all the signs suggest that what happened here was that the Russian government has had this strategy of training these rogue elements within Ukraine to make trouble for the Ukrainian government. This thing then went badly awry as a result of that. But frankly, it was in a perfectly predictable way – when you start using these kinds of forces to do your dirty work for you, something like this is bound to happen because these aren’t disciplined forces that are under tight command and control from the Kremlin.
This produces a major international incident because it suggests that what Russia has been doing has not only been destabilizing Ukraine, but destabilizing it on the cheap, in a dangerous way, largely to preserve a kind of plausible deniability. But now we see the consequences. Senator John McCain said – and he was very cautious about who was behind this – but he said if, in fact, this is Russia or separatists, it could be a game changer in terms of U.S. involvement and bolster providing military armaments, weaponry to the Ukrainian government in Kiev.
It would absolutely. It would mean that the United States and presumably Europe would be much more involved and invested in helping. I think world opinion will change. But also, however, it will make the situation much more tense, much more dangerous. More from CNN: Images from crash site
Remember, we were trying to move everybody involved to some kind of negotiated solution here where the Russians would try to stabilize the Ukrainian government because, at the end of the day, they live right next door to them. I think that's going to be impossible. If you think that relations between Russia and Washington are going to get tense, imagine the relations between Russia and Kiev. The Ukrainian government and the Russian government aren’t going to sit down for a negotiation tomorrow if – again, with a big caveat – this turns out to be what some signs suggest it is. The fact that there are more than 10,000 Russian forces on the border, the fact that Russia has been on the ground in eastern Ukraine, that they have been behind events in eastern Ukraine – there will be a lot of fingers pointed at Russia in this, whether or not it was Russian forces who actually pressed the button.
Absolutely. Because this has been the distinctive signature of Russian policy in this region. That's how they took over Crimea. That's how they destabilized and tried to disrupt the elections in Ukraine. That's how they've been disrupting in Ukraine. In all cases, there have been no Russian uniformed personnel present. So this is a method that has been used. And this comes with a big cost because these boots aren't really completely under your control, under Russia's control. And they are also ill-equipped, poorly trained and, of course, can make mistakes. And if you are sending advanced weapons systems into an area like this, you bear responsibility for whose hands it ends up in.
You bear responsibility for it, and you bear responsibility for the overall strategy, which has been disrupt, destabilize this government – including shooting down helicopters.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
A DELETED social media post by a separatist militia leader has led to accusations that pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine are to blame for the Malaysia Airlines crash that has left at least 295 people dead.
Igor Girkin, who also goes by the nom de guerre Strelkov, is reported to have claimed that his forces shot down a plane in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine at 5.50pm (GMT+4), shortly before reports emerged the passenger jet was missing.
"We have issued warnings not to fly in our airspace. We have video confirming. The bird fell on a waste heap. Residential areas were not hit. Civilians were not injured," he reportedly said.
Fisher: Moscow has a lot of explaining to do in wake of plane crash
U.S. satellite technology will be able to identify missile that downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17
People walk amongst the debris, at the crash site of a passenger plane near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine, Thursday, July 17, 2014. Photo: AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky
Matthew FisherPublished: July 17, 2014, 7:09 pm
Updated: 8 mins ago
A A A
Moscow has a lot of explaining to do about Thursday’s crash of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 civilian airliner near the Russian-Ukrainian border.
Ukraine has called what happened to MH17 early in its journey from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur “a terrorist attack.”
Mass murder is another term that accurately describes the sudden deaths of 295 passengers and crew, whose bodies are now strewn across more than 20 kilometres of the eastern Ukrainian countryside.
It takes an advanced surface-to-air missile (SAM) and technical know-how to bring down a jumbo jet flying, as the aircraft was, at 10,000 metres. Pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine are not believed to possess such a weapon. Their shoulder-fired SAMs, which have been used in recent weeks to shoot down several Ukrainian helicopters and low-flying military transport, can only strike targets flying lower than about 3,000 metres.
Ukraine possesses Soviet-era missiles — the Buk missile system — that could have carried out such an attack. But there has not been a single previous report that Ukrainian forces have fired any missiles and it is highly improbable that they would have done so now as the rebels do not have any aircraft for them to shoot at. This image taken from video, Thursday July 17, 2014, shows a guidebook found in the wreckage of a passenger plane carrying 295 people after it was shot down Thursday as it flew over Ukraine, near the village of Hrabove, in eastern Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines tweeted that it lost contact with one of its flights as it was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur over Ukrainian airspace. AP Photo/Channel 1
If this was a missile strike, which is what Malaysia, western governments and the U.S. intelligence community believes, there are only three logical explanations as to who launched the attack. Either rebels led by Russian citizens captured such a weapon system from the Ukrainians, as they claimed last week, or Russia supplied the missile to the rebels or Russian forces were directly responsible for firing it either from rebel-controlled territory or from just across the border.
Whatever happened, the U.S. will know where it came from and what it was. The U.S. has satellites designed to track the heat signature of the rocket engines of such missiles with pinpoint accuracy. So, presumably, do the Russians.
If forensic experts get access to the crash sight, they should also be able to get an understanding of exactly what struck the aircraft. Ominously, however, early indications are that aircraft went down in separatist-held territory, amid reports on the BBC and elsewhere, rebels there intend to send whatever data they find to Russia for analysis.
Pro-Russian rebels have already denied any part in this crime. Russian President Vladimir Putin was reported to have said late Thursday that the country where the attack took place is responsible because it was engaged in a war there. In this image taken from video, Thursday July 17, 2014, people walk among the debris at the crash site after a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday as it flew over Ukraine, near the village of Hrabove, in eastern Ukraine. AP Photo / Channel 1
But the conflict in Ukraine has been fed by the Kremlin since the Russian parliament authorized the use of Russian forces there after a coup in late February overthrew their ally, Viktor Yanukovych.
I was in the Crimean port of Balaklava the night that Russian troops wearing black ski masks arrived there. It was easy to tell that they were not locally based Russian sailors and Marines because the vehicles carried license plates from southern and central Russia and the troops had vehicles, communications gear, body armour and uniforms that had not previously been seen in Crimea.
One young soldier guarding the airport in Simferopol used the Russian words for “of course,” when I asked him if he had come from Russia.
Putin denied, at the time, Russia sent forces into Crimea. But in a television interview a few weeks later he breezily acknowledged that he had ordered Russian troops to go there.
At about the same time I saw identically dressed ‘little green men,’ as these soldiers came to be known, in eastern Ukraine as separatists seized government buildings. Within a few days the ‘little green men’ had totally disappeared. But some rebels acknowledged that Russian military advisers were quietly helping them. In this image taken from video, Thursday July 17, 2014, showing part of the wreckage of a passenger plane carrying 295 people after it was shot down Thursday as it flew over Ukraine, near the village of Hrabove, in eastern Ukraine. AP Photo / Channel 1
There is also the mystery of how the rebels have ended up with tanks and armoured personnel carriers with lots of evidence that they have brazenly crossed the border from Russia in long columns.
Russia has vehemently denied any involvement in any of this. However, over time they have become harder and harder to believe. Moscow is up to its eyeballs in the Ukrainian debacle. In fact, the two most senior rebels are Russian citizens with no obvious previous ties to Ukraine.
The military leader of the insurgency in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic is Igor Girkin, a Russian national who according to the BBC once worked for Russian military intelligence and whose nom de guerre is Strelkov. The Donetsk republic’s “president” is another Russian, Alexander Borodai, who briefly worked as an adviser to the new Russian regime in Crimea.
Hard questions must also be asked of European civilian air authorities. Why on earth was a passenger aircraft flying a track over air space in eastern Ukraine only one day after a Ukrainian aircraft was shot down in the same air space? Photo shows Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 leaving Schiphol Airport in Schiphol, the Netherlands, on July 17, 2014. Malaysia Airlines said on July 17 that it had “lost contact” with one of its passenger planes whose last known position was over eastern Ukraine, amid speculation it had been shot down. Fred Neeleman/AFP/Getty Images
But most of the attention must focus on Russian involvement in this incident and the larger question of what Moscow has been doing for months now to destabilize Central Europe.
This tragic fate of the passengers and crew may finally get the attention of craven western European leaders who have avoided facing what Russia has been up to in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, lest any response interfere with imports of natural gas and exports of luxury cars and high-end European real estate values that have become highly dependent on Russian money of dubious provenance.
The deaths of 154 Dutch nationals as well as many Australians, Malaysians, Indonesians, Britons, Germans and Belgians, as well as one Canadian and dozens of American, British and French citizens may finally compel dramatic punitive economic sanctions to try to force Russia to behave like a responsible member of the European and global community. A young girl places her head on a teddy bear as people light candles and place flowers in front of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Kyiv on July 17, 2014, to commemorate passengers of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur which crashed in eastern Ukraine. SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Russian rebels in Ukraine shot it down. The shit will flow down on them from UK, wait and see. And the Aussies. If Amerika can't and won't do shit, they will
Ukraine: Recordings show rebels shot down plane
PETER LEONARD, Associated Press MSTYSLAV CHERNOV, Associated Press 3:25 p.m. CDT July 17, 2014
HRABOVE, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's security services produced what they said were two intercepted telephone conversations that they said showed rebels were responsible for downing a Malaysian airliner.
In the first call, the security services said, rebel commander Igor Bezler tells a Russian military intelligence officer that rebel forces shot down a plane Thursday.
In the second, two rebel fighters — one of them at the scene of the crash — say the rocket attack was carried out by a unit of insurgents about 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of the crash site.
Neither recording could be independently verified.
One of the fighters, who states he is at the site of where the plane came to the ground, describes seeing scattered debris. He later describes finding the documents of somebody he identifies as an Indonesian national studying at "Thompson University."
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
HRABOVE, Ukraine — Ukraine accused pro-Russian separatists of shooting down a Malaysian jetliner with 295 people aboard Thursday, sharply escalating the crisis and threatening to draw both East and West deeper into the conflict. The rebels denied downing the aircraft.
American intelligence authorities believe a surface-to-air missile brought the plane down but were still working on who fired the missile and whether it came from the Russian or Ukrainian side of the border, a U.S. official said.
Bodies, debris and burning wreckage of the Boeing 777 were strewn over a field near the rebel-held village of Hrabove in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Russian border, where fighting has raged for months.
The aircraft appeared to have broken up before impact, and there were large pieces of the plane that bore the red, white and blue markings of Malaysia Airlines — now familiar worldwide because of the still-missing jetliner from earlier this year.
The cockpit and one of the turbines lay at a distance of one 1 kilometer (more than a half-mile) from one another. Residents said the tail had landed around 10 kilometers (six miles) farther away. Rescue workers planted sticks with white flags in spots where they found human remains.
There was no indication there were any survivors from Flight 17, which took off shortly after noon Thursday from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur with 280 passengers and a crew of 15. Malaysia's prime minister said there was no distress call before the plane went down and that the flight route was declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organization.
President Petro Poroshenko called it an "act of terrorism" and demanded an international investigation. He insisted that his forces did not shoot down the plane.
Ukraine's security services produced what they said were two intercepted telephone conversations that showed rebels were responsible. In the first call, the security services said, rebel commander Igor Bezler tells a Russian military intelligence officer that rebel forces shot down a plane. In the second, two rebel fighters — one of them at the crash scene — say the rocket attack was carried out by a unit of insurgents about 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of the site.
Neither recording could be independently verified.
Earlier in the week, the rebels had claimed responsibility for shooting down two Ukrainian military planes.
President Barack Obama called the crash a "terrible tragedy" and spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Britain asked for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Ukraine.
Later, Putin said Ukraine bore responsibility for the crash, but he didn't address the question of who might have shot it down and didn't accuse Ukraine of doing so.
"This tragedy would not have happened if there were peace on this land, if the military actions had not been renewed in southeast Ukraine," Putin said, according to a Kremlin statement issued early Friday. And, certainly, the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy."
Officials said more than half of those aboard the plane were Dutch citizens, along with passengers from Australia, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, the Philippines and Canada. The home countries of nearly 50 were not confirmed.
The different nationalities of the dead would bring Ukraine's conflict to parts of the globe that were never touched by it before.
Ukraine's crisis began after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych was driven from office in February by a protest movement among citizens wanting closer ties with the European Union. Russia later annexed the Crimean Peninsula in southern Ukraine, and pro-Russians in the country's eastern regions began occupying government buildings and pressing for independence. Moscow denies Western charges it is supporting the separatists or sowing unrest.
The RIA-Novosti agency on Thursday quoted rebel leader Alexander Borodai as saying discussions were underway with Ukrainian authorities on calling a short truce for humanitarian reasons. He said international organizations would be allowed into the conflict-plagued region.
Some journalists trying to reach the crash site were detained briefly by rebel militiamen, who were nervous and aggressive.
Aviation authorities in several countries, including the FAA in the United States, had issued warnings not to fly over parts of Ukraine prior to Thursday's crash, but many airliners had continued to use the route because "it is a shorter route, which means less fuel and therefore less money," said aviation expert Norman Shanks.
Within hours of Thursday's crash, several airlines said they were avoiding parts of Ukrainian airspace.
Malaysia Airlines said Ukrainian aviation authorities told the company they had lost contact with Flight 17 at 1415 GMT (10 a.m. EDT) about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Tamak waypoint, which is 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Russia-Ukraine border.
A U.S. official said American intelligence authorities believe the plane was brought down by a surface-to-air missile but were still working to determine additional details about the crash, including who fired the missile and whether it came from the Russian or Ukraine side of the border.
But U.S. intelligence assessments suggest it is more likely pro-Russian separatists or the Russians rather than Ukrainian government forces shot down the plane, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The U.S. has sophisticated technologies that can detect missile launches, including the identification of heat from the rocket engine.
Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at about 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile from a Buk launcher, which can fire up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet). He said only that his information was based on "intelligence."
Igor Sutyagin, a research fellow in Russian studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said both Ukrainian and Russian forces have SA-17 missile systems — also known as Buk ground-to-air launcher systems.
Rebels had bragged recently about having acquired Buk systems.
Sutyagin said Russia had supplied separatists with military hardware but had seen no evidence "of the transfer of that type of system from Russia." The weapons that the rebels are known to have do not have the capacity to reach beyond 4,500 meters. (14,750 feet)
A launcher similar to the Buk missile system was seen by AP journalists earlier Thursday near the eastern town of Snizhne, which is held by the rebels.
Poroshenko said his country's armed forces didn't shoot at any airborne targets.
"We do not exclude that this plane was shot down, and we stress that the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not take action against any airborne targets," he said.
The Kremlin said Putin "informed the U.S. president of the report from air traffic controllers that the Malaysian plane had crashed on Ukrainian territory" without giving further details about their call. The White House confirmed the call.
Separatist leader Andrei Purgin told the AP he was certain that Ukrainian troops had shot the plane down, but gave no explanation or proof.
Purgin said he did not know whether rebel forces owned Buk missile launchers, but said even if they did, they had no fighters capable of operating them.
In Kuala Lumpur, several relatives of those aboard the jet came to the international airport.
A distraught Akmar Mohamad Noor, 67, said her older sister was coming to visit the family for the first time in five years. "She called me just before she boarded the plane and said 'see you soon,'" Akmar said.
It was the second time a Malaysia Airlines plane was lost in less than six months. Flight 370 disappeared in March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It has not been found, but the search has been concentrated in the Indian Ocean far west of Australia.
There have been several disputes over planes being shot down over eastern Ukraine in recent days.
A Ukrainian fighter jet was shot down Wednesday by an air-to-air missile from a Russian plane, Ukrainian authorities said, adding to what Kiev says is mounting evidence that Moscow is directly supporting the insurgents. Ukraine Security Council spokesman Andrei Lysenko said the pilot of the Sukhoi-25 jet hit by the missile bailed out after his jet was hit.
Moscow's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin denied Russia shot down the Ukrainian fighter jet.
Pro-Russia rebels claimed responsibility for strikes on two Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 jets Wednesday.
Ukraine's Defense Ministry said the second jet was hit by a portable surface-to-air missile but the pilot landed safely.
Earlier this week, Ukraine said a military transport plane was shot down Monday over eastern Ukraine by a missile from Russian territory.
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
McCain: 'Profound repercussions' if plane shot down
4
Ashley Killough CNN
If the Malaysia airliner in Ukraine was shot down, then the United States will need to take action against the assailants, two Republican senators argued Thursday.
"If it is the case, then we're going to have to act and act in the most stringent fashions, including real sanctions, including giving the Ukrainians the ability to defend themselves, which we have not done so far," Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper.
While early speculation about the crash has focused on the possibility of the plane being shot down, it's still unclear exactly what caused the tragedy.
McCain emphasized that he doesn't know how the plane crashed, but also argued that if the incident was caused by pro-Russian separatists, as Ukrainian officials have claimed, then the violent situation on the Ukrainian-Russian border could require heightened intervention by the U.S.
"If, if - I keep emphasizing if - it was a missile that was launched, either by Russia, or the quote separatists which in my view are indivisible, it would have the most profound repercussions," said McCain, who serves as the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"It would open the gates for us assisting, finally, giving the Ukrainians some defensive weapons (and) sanctions that would be imposed as a result of that. That would be the beginning."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, told CNN's Lisa Desjardins that if the plane was shot down by Russians or pro-Russian separatists, it would be a "game changer."
"If they are responsible -- and I have no idea they are -- you would take the sanctions we've unilaterally imposed, toughen them and get the world behind them," he said. "Start arming the Ukrainian military is what I would do."
Graham also sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Meanwhile, McCain argued there would be no strategic reason for either side to intentionally bring down a passenger jet, saying it must have been a mistake, if in fact it was hit by fire.
"It's impossible for me to imagine this thing being - if it is a shoot down - nothing but a tragic mistake on their part," he said.
"I just cannot believe that no one in their right mind would want to shoot down an airliner."
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
SAN ANTONIO - Jeffrey Addicott, the director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University, talked about the missile strike that shot down a Malaysian Airlines jet that crashed in eastern Ukraine killing all 295 people on board.
Addicott believes separatists in Ukraine fired the fatal missile.
"They realize they cannot win without the support of the Russian military," he said. "The Russian military has been reluctant to intervene further so the separatists are using this opportunity to force the Russians to show their hand."
Addicott added that while the attackers' intent may not have been to bring down a civilian aircraft, the attack was not an accident.
"This is not an oops," he said. "It's an intentional downing of an aircraft. Whether they knew it was a jetliner or they imagined it was a military aircraft, we don't know. They intentionally wanted to shoot down an aircraft and they did."
He said recent sanctions imposed by President Obama on banks and other officials in the area were little more than political theater. This incident not only forces Russia's hand, but America's as well.
"It puts the President in a very tight position. He has been criticized as being far too weak in Ukraine. His response to Crimea being annexed by Russia was basically nothing."
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Consider the fog of war please when reading all of the stories tonight as Russia, the Ukraine, the US and NATO all have their own interests in tilting world opinion and the story of this unfortunate incident to their propagandist favor.
However, if this story tonight which just broker via Russia’s ITAR-TASS news service verifies, then the Ukrainian government is guilty of endangering this flight by trying to sneak two fighters into combat by hiding behind the commercial passenger airliner.
MOSCOW, July 18, /ITAR-TASS/. Two Ukrainian fighters were following the passenger Boeing-777 of Malaysian Airlines several minutes before the crash, Russia’s television Channel One said on Friday, citing a tweet made a Spanish air traffic controller of Kiev’s airport Borispol.
According to the Spanish air traffic controller, two Ukrainian fighters had been seen near the Malaysian jet three minutes before it disappeared from radars.
This information is confirmed by eyewitnesses in the Donetsk region who saw Ukrainian warplanes near the passenger jet. They say they heard sounds of powerful blasts and saw a Ukraine warplane shortly before the crash.
A Boeing-777 of the Malaysian Airlines that was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, disappeared from the radars and crashed on Thursday evening near the settlement of Grabovo in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. All those who were onboard the plane – 280 passengers and 15 crew members – died. According to preliminary data, passengers included citizens of the Netherlands, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Malaysia. According to Russian Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov, there were no Russians among the passengers.
If confirmed, President Poroshenko has some serious explaining to do.
The video below is purported to be of the 777 shoot down in Ukraine. Note that @11 seconds into the video Chaff streamers are floating down on to the wreckage site. Chaff is dispensed from military aircraft to obscure an aircraft from RADAR and RADAR guided missiles. The presence of the Chaff indicates something is not right about the story being told.
IF this is video of the 777 shoot down in Ukraine, it indicates that a military aircraft was involved in the shoot down. This could be anything from a fighter actually shooting down the 777, to a fighter shadowing the 777 and having to launch Chaff to avoid a missile.
What ever the case, the glittering streamers and specs in the video show that the official story being told is not correct.
UPDATE:
Based on video we've seen of bodies at the crash site, its clear that it was a lower speed crash as the bodies have limbs intact. This means that when MH17 went down there were some controllable lifting surfaces. The fact that there was a large fireball indicates fuel tanks were mostly intact before impact.
The above information leads us to the following scenarios:
1. The 777 engines were FODded by the Chaff fired from a fighter jet shadowing it; resulting in the crash.
2. The Ukrainian fighter jets we're shadowing the B777 thinking the Russians would not shoot at them.
3. Shooting down a commercial airliner and being able to site the detection of a Ukrainian fighter jet as the reason fits right up Russia's propaganda alley.
4. Russian aircraft intercepted the B777 and were targeted by a fire control RADAR resulting in CHAFF dispersal.
Having the cockpit voice and data recorder would give a lot more insight, but given the pretty obvious nature of what has happened and the lack of reporting on the CHAFF, it seems clear all sides have something to hide.
Source Video:
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Nikita Khrushchev:"We will bury you"
"Your grandchildren will live under communism."
“You Americans are so gullible.
No, you won’t accept To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism.
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. ."
We’ll so weaken your To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. until you’ll To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. like overripe fruit into our hands."
Events are fast-moving, but it is important to be clear about what we, in the public domain, know so far about MH17 and the surrounding circumstances. This post will be updated throughout the day (LAST UPDATED 9:47 AM EST, 18 July). Please alert us to new information as well as any errors.
Among the dead are 189 people from the Netherlands, 44 from Malaysia, 27 from Australia, 12 from Indonesia, 9 from the UK, 4 each from Belgium and Germany, 3 from the Philippines, and 1 each from Canada and New Zealand. That still leaves the nationalities of 4 passengers/crew unreported.
About a third of the passengers were traveling to a major AIDS conference in Melbourne, Australia. Joep Lange, a famous AIDS researcher and former president of the International Aids Society, was on the plane. Many other famous researchers who were working on an anti-AIDS vaccine may have also been on the plane.
Right before reports of the crash were announced, separatist leader Igor Girkin claimed “we just downed a plane, an AN-26…We have issued warnings not to fly in our airspace.” The AN-26 is a turboprop military and civilian transport plane. This claim was made on a social media site and was removed once reports on MH17 came out. Girkin is a Russian citizen from Moscow and the Ukrainian government alleges he is a Russian intelligence asset.
On the day of the crash, an Associated Press reporter claimed to have seen a Buk missile system in Snizhne, a rebel held town in Ukraine’s east. Snizhne is very close to the area where MH17 crashed.
On the morning of the crash, Pentagon Spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said, “We are concerned about the build-up we see along the Russia-Ukraine border. Overall, the increase in Russian presence along the Ukrainian border is concerning.”
The night before the crash, White House officials held a conference call with reporters during which officials claimed that Russia continues to supply Ukrainian seapratists with weapons, including heavy weapons.
A Ukrainian Su-25 jet was shot down over the Donetsk region on 16 July. The Ukrainian government blamed a Russian warplane. Separatists claimed responsibility. Russia denied responsibility.
On 14 July, a Ukrainian military An-26 transport jet was shot down from an altitude of 21,000 feet with eight crew on board. Ukraine Security Service chief Valentin Nalivaychenko said the plane was hit by a Russian missile fired from the Russian side of the border. Two members of the crew were taken prisoner by rebels.
Alexander Boraday, the “prime minister” of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, said he might be open to a two to three day truce to allow the remains of the airliner and its passengers to be recovered.
Ukrainian officials claim that the separatist rebels have taken the plane’s black box and plan to hand it over to Russian authorities.
Many world leaders are calling for a truce in the budding Ukrainian civil war.
Ryan Evans is the editor-in-chief of War on the Rocks
Libertatem Prius!
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 15 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Re: World War Three Thread....
Republish Reprint
FacebookIn a reference to the disappearance of flight MH370 in March, Cor Pan, believed to be shown in this profile picture, posted a picture, right, on his Facebook page with the message: "If the plane disappears, this is what it looks like."
Alexander KHUDOTEPLY/AFP/Getty ImagesA firefighter sprays water to extinguish a fire, on July 17, 2014, amongst the wreckages of the malaysian airliner carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur after it crashed, near the town of Shaktarsk, in rebel-held east Ukraine.
Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images A man wearing military fatigues stands next to the wreckage of the Malaysian airliner.
AP Photo/Dmitry LovetskyPeople inspect the crash site of a passenger plane near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine, Thursday, July 17, 2014. Ukraine said a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday as it flew over the country, and both the government and the pro-Russia separatists fighting in the region denied any responsibility for downing the plane.
Zurab Dzhavakhadze/AFP/Getty ImagesA picture taken near the town of Shaktarsk, in rebel-held east Ukraine, on July 17, 2014 shows the wreckage of the Malaysian airliner.
Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty ImagesWreckage of the Malaysian airliner carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur after it crashed, near the town of Shaktarsk, in rebel-held east Ukraine.
Matthew FisherPublished: July 17, 2014, 7:09 pm
This image taken from video, Thursday July 17, 2014, shows a guidebook found in the wreckage of a passenger plane carrying 295 people after it was shot down Thursday as it flew over Ukraine, near the village of Hrabove, in eastern Ukraine. Malaysia Airlines tweeted that it lost contact with one of its flights as it was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur over Ukrainian airspace. AP Photo/Channel 1
In this image taken from video, Thursday July 17, 2014, people walk among the debris at the crash site after a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday as it flew over Ukraine, near the village of Hrabove, in eastern Ukraine. AP Photo / Channel 1
In this image taken from video, Thursday July 17, 2014, showing part of the wreckage of a passenger plane carrying 295 people after it was shot down Thursday as it flew over Ukraine, near the village of Hrabove, in eastern Ukraine. AP Photo / Channel 1
Photo shows Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 leaving Schiphol Airport in Schiphol, the Netherlands, on July 17, 2014. Malaysia Airlines said on July 17 that it had “lost contact” with one of its passenger planes whose last known position was over eastern Ukraine, amid speculation it had been shot down. Fred Neeleman/AFP/Getty Images
A young girl places her head on a teddy bear as people light candles and place flowers in front of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Kyiv on July 17, 2014, to commemorate passengers of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 carrying 295 people from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur which crashed in eastern Ukraine. SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images
#MH17: What we know so far – UPDATED
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks