Malaysian plane shot down, crashes in Ukraine

[slowstream]

its very early, but some sad news in on another Malaysian jet down,


KYIV, Ukraine – A Ukrainian official said a Malaysian passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday over a town in the east of the country.

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 metres (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher. A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday.

Malaysia Airlines said in a tweet it lost contact with Flight MH17 over Ukrainian airspace:

The Boeing plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Boeing tweeted they were aware of reports:

Business Insider quoted a military expert as telling Ukrainian journalist Myroslava the Malaysia Airlines plane crashed in the Donetsk region.

Flightradar24, a flight tracker that shows live air traffic from around the world, tweeted a map of where the plane was “just before it disappeared”:

[Crusty]

Absolutely speechless, so sad.

[swordfish]

Let's hope & pray that it's NOT a Malaysian Airlines problem, and that it was beyond their control.

i.e. no prior warnings that this would occur if they continued flight on a certain locus, and ignored the warning.

[halfmilevis]

If the reports are true, these are the kinds of things that make me want to quit life...

HMV

[grimey]

Let's hope & pray that it's NOT a Malaysian Airlines problem, and that it was beyond their control.

i.e. no prior warnings that this would occur if they continued flight on a certain locus, and ignored the warning.

Honestly, I'm hoping it was just that. If it was a shootdown, the consequences could be a lot worse than if it was a MH screwup.

I don't wish the crew or the company any ill, and I'm certainly not saying it was their fault, but if I had to choose between the fallout of a case of pilot error like Air France 447, or a shootdown like Iran Air 655 or Korean Air 007, I'd choose the former every time.

[Leafs]

So sad.

[Learning2Fly]

According to UK reports (and others), a NOTAM was issued early in the day about military activity in "that" airspace.

Do any of you know where/how to check the NOTAM, and the source of it?

[TheCheez]

According to UK reports (and others), a NOTAM was issued early in the day about military activity in "that" airspace.

Do any of you know where/how to check the NOTAM, and the source of it?

https://www.notams.faa.gov/dinsQueryWeb ... mit=NOTAMs

If that doesn't work, pull the notams for the ukfv/ukdv FIR. I didn't plot those areas, but I'm guessing one of them applies. There is a new notam now issued at 0030Z that prohibits US carriers from flying in ukfv and ukdv FIRs.

[CarbHeat]

This is the NOTAM, I pulled it off https://pilotweb.nas.faa.gov/PilotWeb/

Apparently the A87 airway was in the flight's flight plan. But: 1. The flight never reached it; and 2. The last known altitude was FL330 - above the FL320 closure.

V6158/14 NOTAMN
Q) URRV/QARLC/IV/NBO/E/000/530/4818N04023E095
A) URRV B) 1407170000 C) 1408312359 EST
E) DUE TO COMBAT ACTIONS ON THE TERRITORY OF THE UKRAINE NEAR THE
STATE BORDER WITH THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND THE FACTS OF FIRING
FROM THE TERRITORY OF THE UKRAINE TOWARDS THE TERRITORY OF
RUSSIAN FEDERATION, TO ENSURE INTL FLT SAFETY, ATS RTE SEGMENTS
CLSD AS FLW:
A100 MIMRA - ROSTOV-NA-DONU VOR/DME (RND) ,
B145 KANON - ASMIL,
G247 MIMRA - BAGAYEVSKIY NDB (BA),
A87 TAMAK - SARNA,
A102 PENEG - NALEM,
A225 GUKOL - ODETA,
A712 TAMAK - SAMBEK NDB (SB),
B493 FASAD - ROSTOV-NA-DONU VOR/DME (RND),
B947 TAMAK - ROSTOV-NA-DONU VOR/DME (RND),
G118 LATRI - BAGAYEVSKIY NDB (BA),
G534 MIMRA - TOROS,
G904 FASAD - SUTAG,
R114 BAGAYEVSKIY NDB (BA)-NALEM.
SFC - FL320

[B52]

I've listened to enough Russian profanities and the recording played by the
Ukrainian Intelligence sounds and looks authentic.

Those voices appear to be Russian accents rather than Ukrainian which
sounds like a typical Moscow accent but, in some parts, its hard to tell
a Moscow accent from those who live in Eastern Ukraine as they inter-marry
and migrate in all directions.

It will interesting to see if there are further information as to the authenticity of the recordings.

The Moscow Times has gone into full blown diversionary mode and a very high level
of censorship that I've not seen for years.

The Moscow Times is usually one of the few sources of objective news and on this occasion
it looks like the press release was written for them and ordered to print it.
The language is very different from their regular writers.

Now watch the propaganda go nuts on RT, if you watch it.
I gave up watching RT years ago. It's generally pure propaganda.

And what are Russians being told.
Here is what "Pravda.RU" ( truth ) says

UPDATE: The eyewitnesses, who could see the crash of the airliner, say that it was a fighter jet of the Ukrainian Air Force that downed the plane. As a result of the attack, the aircraft split into two and crashed on the territory of the breakaway Donetsk region, the press service of the People's Republic of Luhansk said.

[Jerz]

Very tragic, but hardly surprising. Not very responsible of Malaysia Airlines to send a jet that close to NOTAMed airspace over that part of the world. Russian response is typical. My question is, was it done intentionally, or was it a mistake? Doesn't anybody learn history anymore?

[Strobes]

Most probably a huge mistake. Interesting that TWA800 was also on July 17th...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA800

I really hope this accident does not lead to further bloodshed, and that all sides work out their differences. 100 years ago roughly...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassinat ... of_Austria

RIP

[CpnCrunch]

Very tragic, but hardly surprising. Not very responsible of Malaysia Airlines to send a jet that close to NOTAMed airspace over that part of the world. Russian response is typical. My question is, was it done intentionally, or was it a mistake? Doesn't anybody learn history anymore?

They were 1000m above the NOTAMed airspace. Perhaps the question should be: why was there an upper limit to the NOTAM?

[7dirty7]

They were 1000m above the NOTAMed airspace. Perhaps the question should be: why was there an upper limit to the NOTAM?[/quote]

no. fl320-fl330 is 1000 feet

[pdw]

Who's responsible here, that this NOTAM doesn't isolate the threat as planned ?

[Jerz]

It was well known that pro Russian rebels had BUK anti aircraft systems, stolen from the Ukrainian military, in their hands. Even the older models are capable of reaching targets at over 70000ft. Not sure how the NOTAM altitude was chosen. Probably based on MANPADS threat.

[AuxBatOn]

I don't know what kind of MANPADS you're thinking of but 32 000' is a bit excessive for strictly MANPADS don't you think?

[AirFrame]

On the news last night some talking head said that Air Traffic Control advised against the route the 777 was taking, but obviously couldn't force them to chose another.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

I checked Flightradar24 as soon as the flight was shot down. Many other eastbound flights went through the same area around the same time MAS17 was shot down and others, probabably unaware of what had just occured, continued overflying the area several hours after the incident.

[Jerz]

AuxBatOn.

I don't know what kind of MANPADS you're thinking of but 32 000' is a bit excessive for strictly MANPADS don't you think?

Agreed, but please read my post. I speculated that NOTAM "safe" altitude of FL320 was selected based on MANPADS effective ceiling + safety buffer.

IIRC the highest flying target lost to Russian MANPADS reported over Vietnam, was a slow flying Bronco at around 20000ft. That was 40 years ago. One could assume technology improved some since. The advertised effective ceiling of MANPANDS (around 15000ft IIRC) is against fast movers, not relatively slow airliner. You can trade effective range for altitude to some extend, against a slow target.

My point is that ICAO , or whoever published the NOTAM, disregarded available info about rebels having medium range system like BUK and are therefore partially responsible.