Airliner Shot Down over Ukraine

[Cdnwolf]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/17/world/...html?hpt=hp_t1

Any thoughts?

[kato13]

Been following it since the first hour of the story.

98+% sure it was the separatists. The tweet claiming they had shot down the AN-26 (which they later removed) and the intercepted radio/cell communication where the person on the ground pretty much said "It was 100% a civie" and "There are seats everywhere" all hit the web too quickly to be non planned fakes.

The other 2-% being that it was a planned action to shame the separatists.

The fact that the black boxes were collected and sent to Moscow also does not bode well for the truth coming out of that data source.

This is not what Putin wanted, and when he is disappointed bad things can happen.

[schnickelfritz]

Supposedly shot down at normal cruising altitude of 33,000ft. That narrows it down to the latest incarnation of the SA-8, or to the SA-10/11/12. The claim is a SA-11 fired by pro-Russia separatists.

If true, my guess is that they wanted to shoot down something after shooting down an Ukrainian An-26 over the weekend. How they did not see the IFF transponder code is a mystery. I'll give them the credit that this was a horrible accident...targeting the wrong plane because it was through to be, what, an IL-76?

I'd say the crew needs to hand themselves over to authorities and that the launcher(s) need to be scoured from the Earth, but I'm not about to believe either will happen.

I find it unlikely that a Ukrainian Gov't crew would do this....it's not like the seperatists would have attack aircraft of any kind, nor would they fly at that altitude, deaf and dumb. It makes no sense for any potential target (say Russian aircraft) wouldn't be flying at anything but NOE.

My $.05

Dave

[schnickelfritz]

Black boxes sent to Moscow, for what, "safekeeping?" I'm glad the old USSR era playbook wasn't lost, good God.

I mean, Holy crap, the souls of the ones slain and those who are left to grieve those lost deserve so much better I am at a loss for words.

-Dave

[Targan]

The Russian government and military have blood on their hands, no doubt about it. Maybe, just maybe, the pro-Russian rebels managed to take a self propelled SAM launcher from the Ukrainian armed forces. I guess it's possible they might have been able to comb their ranks for people with all the necessary skills and training to maintain and operate all those complex systems. But I think it most likely that the Russians handed the rebels several launcher vehicles and a bunch of missiles, spares and probably even trained personnel a couple of months ago, and now they're thinking "whoops".

It's a shocking, entirely preventable tragedy but in terms of the outcome of the insurgency in Ukraine, it doesn't matter anyway. The Russians are just waiting for Ukraine to be conflict-ravaged failed state and then they can roll in as "peacekeepers" and take those parts of Ukraine that they want. And in terms of military intervention, nobody will do a damned thing, and we all know why.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

There's no atrocity Putin won't sign off on.

[Targan]

This is what you get when you put a former KGB colonel in charge of a country like Russia. Putin is a fair dinkum nasty piece of work. A pox on his house and his junk.