OT - Malaysia airline shot down over Ukraine
Multiple other sources confirmed.
RIP victims of this tragedy and God bless their families. That's about all I have to say about that.
Unreal that something like this could happen in 2014.
it happened in 1996, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800
I tend to not believe the official TWA 800 story. Traces of PETN were found among the plane wreckage.
Bill Clinton and Louis Freeh (and a few select others) likely take that secret to their graves.
And they say Penn State fans are conspiratorial...
One downvote for you for going off on an unrelated tangent.
(1) I think Freeh covered up TWA 800's true cause (why was PETN found in the wreckage?).
(2) I do not believe Freeh was involved in any cover-up re: Penn State.
Those 2 events have nothing to do with each other.
THIS was real:
http://gawker.com/kal-007-the-korea-airlines-flight-everyone-is-thinking-1606631954
The Soviets in 1983 shot down a Korea Airlines Flight even after confirming it was a civilian airliner.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
2014? Every new human brought into this world has a brain comprised entirely of moldable ignorance and nothing else. Doubt that will change any time soon. Toss in need, limited resources and egocentrism and our species is a collective mess with no end in sight.
Hopefully a thousand years from now, if man makes it that far without either destroying the planet or itself, people will look back at just how pathetically primitive man was around the 21st century in mitigating the fallacies of human nature. All of these nuclear weapons and incredible scientific and technological breakthroughs, but not the first concept about how to grapple with the egocentrism and ignorance behind all evil and ruin.
Eff Penn State, eff Ohio and then eff humans in that order.
Not much to say, just silent consideration and a bit of reflection. A terrible tragedy.
I'm trying to read between the lines, and keeping this unclassified, its interesting to read that rebels may have shot down this airplane while it was at 33,000 feet. Things afforded to that type of group typically don't have that sort of capability. I'll be interested to hear more as they get details in a few days.
As a general note for the thread, the Telegraph is updating its coverage and what is known / confirmed here - LINK
According to reports coming from the area where this happened, local residents apparently reported two loud bangs before the crash. Further, there has already been an effort to divert flights around this area and, according to the Telegrph, there is some confusion on whether or not this was an unsecured area for aviation given the conflict on the ground.
Regarding what has been said above, I wondered about this - it seems like the typical "out-there" group in the world would not have this sort of sophistication to shoot down a commercial aircraft (having a trasponder signal which would identify it as such, of course) at cruising altitude. I could be wrong here, of course.
I'm sure that getting their hands on that type of weapon, powerful but not terribly accurate, would be relatively easy depending on the group's skill. The weapons that reach that high aren't as easy as a shoulder launched missile, so the logistics are a bit more complicated.
The only way these guys got that weapon system is through the Russian government.
It's early, but there were some reports in the last few days that the rebels had gotten ahold of a BUK.
I would assume they "got a hold of" it like they got a hold of a lot of their weapons and gear... i.e. they were supplied by Russia to forment unrest.
They (the separatists) actually tweeted earlier that they had captured a Buk surface to air missile system, then after the crash they deleted the tweet.
There have been half a dozen Ukrainian military planes shot down over the last weeks. While it's possible it was all done with the same captured battery, it's more likely this is a more concerted effort to arm rebels by Russia. Also, there's the matter of where they learned to operate the weapons. It's not like these are RPGs, they're state of the art radar equipped AA stations, I doubt your average angry local separatist can just figure out how to operate these without some training.
of Russian, and Ukranian, men were one time conscripts. It is well within the relm of possibilities that many of the seperatists have formal military training, some of whom no doubt have training on the SA-11 system. A system that has been in the Russian/Soviet arsenal since the 1970s.
As technology advances it gets cheaper. I am not any weapons expert but there were people on the ground with quite powerful anti aircraft "stuff" they could carry around on their shoulder even 10 years ago. So I can only imagine it is getting cheaper, and more powerful every 5 years. It makes one worry what is going to be around in 20 years.
All that said I wouldn't think anything out there that a "rebel" could haul around would be so easy to get at, at 33K feet.
In fact, I did predict that when I heard about it earlier this afternoon. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people? I know the US shot down an Iranian passenger plane in the Gulf back in the 80s, but at least the combatants or would-be combatants in that region were using planes for something. Is there any element of air war in the Ukraine fight, especially as large as an airliner that travels at that altitude?
Ukrainian fighter and cargo planes have been shot down in recent days. I haven't seen any mention of how big the cargo plane was or how high they were flying when hit.
edit - another link from BBC in case the WSJ paywalls you (it let me in from google, but not from mgoblog..)
Although I was in diapers, this has shades of 1983 with the Korean Air disaster where the Soviets shot down the airliner after it strayed into Russian air space, killing everyone on board.
That all said, my only comment for this disaster can be summed up by Admiral Josh Painter from The Hunt for Red October.
but Bo's pic (your avatar) looks a bit like Tom Clancy. Coincidence?
Usually I don't believe in coincidences, but this for this purpose it is...especially since I didn't make the connection that Bo indeed looks like Clancy here. I love those photos of Bo wearing those sunglasses in the 80s. Heck, I wish I owned a pair.
for Hunt for Red October reference
I was a Soph at Michigan at the time! Us older guys had to grow up with the threat of thermal nuclear war between the USSR and US from grade school right through college. Events like that scared the hell out of us! Luckily the MAD scenario scared the hell out of the USSR as well.
Just a sad sad day... Wonder if we will ever know the truth of what happened instead of a potential cover up
There's a lot of imagery that will be available along with, presumably, black boxes. Assuming an investigation is allowed to occur, there will be identification of substances that would pinpoint the type of missle.
Unless, as you noted, the whole mess is covered up.
The mudslinging should get pretty furious between Russia and Ukraine with this one. Preliminary reports also stating 23 Americans on board. (EDIT: Perhaps still being confirmed)
Russian rebel posted this on Facebook, don't know how legit it is...
Translation: "
"AN-26 airplane was shot down near Torez, it fell somewhere behind the mine "Progress".
We warned - do not fly in "our sky".
And here is the video proof of another "bird-fall" (bird = slang for an airplane).
Another bird fell behind the spoil tip, residential areas were not affected.
No civilians were harmed."
295 on board the plane. I guess they don't count.
I'd venture to guess they're not the 'right type' of civilians
Treading pretty close to the political realm there.
because the real world is 100% appalling to me. I can't wrap my mind around deliberately murdering civilians (and don't want to) so I'd rather spend my days stressing about things like 27-for-27 and pretend that's the worst thing ever.
Head, meet sand. Sand, meet head. Jeebus.
From what I gather, it sounds like it might be a case of mistaken identites. There has been a lot of warfare going on in that area. Various groups attempting to shoot down cargo planes filled with supplies. Looks like the pilot chose to fly through that airspace even through commercial airplanes are advised not to, and was shot down by someone who thought it was a hostile aircraft.
Mistakes all around coalescing into a tragedy.
I don't know why anyone would be allowing commercial flights over a war zone where they are trying to shoot down planes in the first place, but that seems like a good decision.
and yet I am not sure if this blog is the proper forum to discuss it in, even in the off topic season
People here generally do a decent job of not getting political with these type of things.
The discussions are always pretty good as long as it does not go into the blame X politician or religion. Actually the rules against that allows for some good points and conversations.