Why was MH17 Flying Over The Conflict Region?

Perhaps criminal negligence?
But the fact of the matter is the International Civil Aviation Organisation had given the green light for aircraft to fly over that airspace above 32,000ft and other airlines were doing so. There were a number of airlines that added 20 minutes to their flight plans to avoid the corridor, and there were a handful of others that still flew this path. Singapore Airlines was 2 minutes behinds MH-17. Let's also keep in mind that the set ceiling was supposed to be 32000 ft, and MH-17 was flying at 33000 ft. So they were technically in a safe flight path according to the International Civil Aviation Org..
 
if you directly pay them to protect you then yeah those areas should be closed for you,
You do realize how ridiculous this notion is don't you?

There have been countless planes that have flown over war or conflict zones and not been shot down by accident. But in this country, if you make a wrong turn, it can cost you big time. Maybe we should just build walls around those parts? Seems like something the Nazi's would have done.

But I fear this is drifting OT.
 
Yeah I guess, certainly unexpected. There's no reason to think they would deliberately target a civilian flight.
This is the main arguing point here. A modern, properly trained military would most likely not have made this mistake. Or it probably would have already happened before.
 
It was their denying that rebels possess BUK and their conspiracies that those planes were actually shot down by misterious russian stealth plane using air-to-air missile that endangered commercial traffic,
Don't know if they denied the BUK's being in their hands, can you back that up?
There were two incidents, one was a BUK, the other was air to air missile. (alleged)
14 July 2014: A Ukrainian military An-26 transport aircraft flying at 21,000 feet (6,400 m) was shot down (confirmed to be shot using Buk).[56][57] U.S. officials later said evidence suggested the aircraft had been fired on from inside Russian territory.[58]


16 July 2014: A Ukrainian military Sukhoi Su-25 close air support aircraft was shot down, and Ukrainian government officials accused the Russian military of downing the aircraft with an air-to-air missile fired by a MiG-29 jet in Russia, while a spokesman for Russia's Defence Ministry rejected those accusations as absurd.[55][60][61]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
Content from External Source
 
This is the main arguing point here. A modern, properly trained military would most likely not have made this mistake. Or it probably would have already happened before.

Are you saying something like this hasnt happened before?
 
The first rule of hunting is, 'never point a gun at something unless you know what it is'. The military caveat is, 'or it is shooting at you'. The BUK shooters in this case violated both rules.

The BUK operators and the authorities that provided the equipment bear 100% of the responsibility, not Malaysian Air or the civil aviation authorities. Identifying a civilian aircraft does not take special connections into the air traffic control network; as has been shown here, it can be done on a smartphone using any number of flight tracking websites (that simple capability would have saved the lives on the Iran Air flight). Furthermore, common sense was not used - a plane steadily flying east at high altitude a few dozen Km's from from entering Russian airspace clearly has nothing to do with the rebellion on the ground in eastern Ukraine. (This was also a failure in the Iran Air incident in that the seaman in charge of reporting altitude suffered a loss of situational awareness - he saw it descending toward the Vincennes when it was in fact climbing.)
 
Are you saying something like this hasnt happened before?
Have there been other times when a military has given this sort of high altitude SAM system to a group of rebels without the proper training and a civilian aircraft was shot down?
 
You do realize how ridiculous this notion is don't you?

There have been countless planes that have flown over war or conflict zones and not been shot down by accident.

there have been countless people that crossed the 80 mph zone on four lane highway and didn't get hit by the car, that doesn't mean crossing the highway at those places should be allowed

This is the main arguing point here. A modern, properly trained military would most likely not have made this mistake. Or it probably would have already happened before.

well it happened, ukrainian military accidentaly downed russian plane before 10 years and we all know about US Vincennes incident, and those were not warzones

there are several other, case of friendly fire when Russians accidentaly downed their military plane during shooting down the U2 etc. etc. so mistakes do happen occasionally even when they are trained

Have there been other times when a military has given this sort of high altitude SAM system to a group of rebels without the proper training and a civilian aircraft was shot down?

no, but if you already have the information there is an active medium-range SAM system over the area then you have to close the airspace above it, it doesn't matter if its regular military, rebels, terrorists, aliens or whoever

That does not follow.

it does, I don't know if there are any medium-range missiles in use that can't reach FL300+, even north korean can do that
The first rule of hunting is, 'never point a gun at something unless you know what it is'. The military caveat is, 'or it is shooting at you'. The BUK shooters in this case violated both rules.

huh, where is that rule written would you link me? Do you really expect SAM operators to first wait for HARM missile and only then shoot? That's not how SAMs are operated in a war. They were pounded from bombers that used the same corridor and I am not at all surprised that they fired without making sure that it's a military plane(even if they knew how to check it).
 
This isn't a discussion forum for interpretations of the law. It's about evidence.
Unless you are arguing that the rebels are at fault (for example) or not Ukraine (for example)
The first rule of hunting is, 'never point a gun at something unless you know what it is'. The military caveat is, 'or it is shooting at you'. The BUK shooters in this case violated both rules.
Yeah I guess, certainly unexpected. There's no reason to think they would deliberately target a civilian flight.
 
Furthermore, common sense was not used - a plane steadily flying east at high altitude a few dozen Km's from from entering Russian airspace clearly has nothing to do with the rebellion on the ground in eastern Ukraine.
I tend to disagree. There was(is still???) encircled Ukrainian army between Russian border and separatists. They have shortage of ammunition, food, water etc. so the only way to get them there is by dropping them from the plane. The separatists has downed atleast one plane carrying those resources. According to "the avionist" the passenger plane was escorted by two Ukrainian army jets which might have hinted to them that this one was too an Ukrainian Armys plane thus they shot it down http://theaviationist.com/2014/07/21/su-27s-escorted-mh17 . Actually some of the Russian/Novarussian media has been claiming for a long time that the plane was followed by Ukrainian Armys jets which they claim shot down the plane.

Just a side note I am not fully convinced that separatists did shoot down the plane altought it seems to be likely.


Some videos to back up some claims

Suplies dropped to Ukrainian army


Latest situation which I could find with fast googling about Ukrainian civil war. You can see the encircled troops at Russian border.
 
there have been countless people that crossed the 80 mph zone on four lane highway and didn't get hit by the car, that doesn't mean crossing the highway at those places should be allowed
Actually, crossing the interstate highways (in most states) on foot is illegal in the U. S. The only time you're allowed on foot is if you break down, and that is only to exit the highway. You can't reenter on foot.

Some southwestern states allow walking on the interstate, but typically it is very rural areas.
 
There's no reason to think they would deliberately target a civilian flight.
What evidence do you have that they deliberately target a civilian flight? They intercepted conversations seem to suggest that they mistakenly targeted a civilian flight.
 
Actually, crossing the interstate highways (in most states) on foot is illegal in the U. S. The only time you're allowed on foot is if you break down, and that is only to exit the highway. You can't reenter on foot.

Some southwestern states allow walking on the interstate, but typically it is very rural areas.

well I know, that's the reason why overflying warzones (or any zones) with active medium-range SAMs should not be allowed by all means
 
Unless you are arguing that the rebels are at fault (for example) or not Ukraine (for example)

No. regardless of who shot the missile, they are at fault. Perhaps there was ALSO some negligence on the part of the Airline and ATC, but that does not take away from the fault of the missile shooters.

The only question here is why MH17 was flying over that region, and it seems to have been answered - it was a routine flight, that in hindsight was a bad idea.
 
I tend to disagree. There was(is still???) encircled Ukrainian army between Russian border and separatists. They have shortage of ammunition, food, water etc. so the only way to get them there is by dropping them from the plane. The separatists has downed atleast one plane carrying those resources. According to "the avionist" the passenger plane was escorted by two Ukrainian army jets which might have hinted to them that this one was too an Ukrainian Armys plane thus they shot it down http://theaviationist.com/2014/07/21/su-27s-escorted-mh17 . Actually some of the Russian/Novarussian media has been claiming for a long time that the plane was followed by Ukrainian Armys jets which they claim shot down the plane.

There may be some military aviation experts here that can correct me but I don't think dropping materiel from 33,000 ft at 500 knots is technically possible. From that altitude the likelihood of the supplies landing in the correct spot would be random at best.
 
I don't think dropping materiel from 33,000 ft at 500 knots is technically possible

A Ukrainian military An-26 transport aircraft flying at 21,000 feet (6,400 m) was shot down

I am not military specialist and I really don't know how these things happend in real life but I could imagine that one possible way is travel to place of drop higher altitude and higher speed and then drop down lower altitude and reduce the speed and make the drop. Anyway the previous supply plane was shot in 6.4 km as quoted before don't know the speed thou. In this vice report you can see atleast kalashnikov from that wreckage at 2:28
 
No. regardless of who shot the missile, they are at fault. Perhaps there was ALSO some negligence on the part of the Airline and ATC, but that does not take away from the fault of the missile shooters.
But we must clearly distinguish "purposely targeted civilian plane" from "mistakenly targeted civilian plane". The former is terrorism (like shelling a hospital) while the latter is collateral damage.
 
But we must clearly distinguish "purposely targeted civilian plane" from "mistakenly targeted civilian plane". The former is terrorism (like shelling a hospital) while the latter is collateral damage.

Getting into semantic there. It is what it is. And I don't think anyone credible is arguing that it was anything other than a mistake.
 
Yeah I guess, certainly unexpected. There's no reason to think they would deliberately target a civilian flight.
And there are many media examples (some already referenced in these threads https://www.metabunk.org/threads/claim-buk-launcher-trucked-out-of-ukraine.3977/) of politicians calling this terrorism.
For example
Michael Fallon, who was promoted by David Cameron on Tuesday, accused Russia of “sponsored terrorism” in supporting pro-Moscow separatists, who have been accused of bringing down the Malaysian Airlines jet carrying 298 people.
Content from External Source
www.independent.co.uk

All I am saying is lets not make that mistake.
 
Last edited:
There may be some military aviation experts here that can correct me but I don't think dropping materiel from 33,000 ft at 500 knots is technically possible. From that altitude the likelihood of the supplies landing in the correct spot would be random at best.

I don't think they could check the altitude without auxiliary radar vehicle which they most probably didn't have and wouldn't know how to operate(not to mention it would be much harder to hide trails of supplying it from Russia).
 
Getting into semantic there. It is what it is. And I don't think anyone credible is arguing that it was anything other than a mistake.

I agree. If you take the intercepted messages at face value the separatists were shocked and upset at what had happened. The only cynical comment was something to the effect that the plane was filled with spies.

Going back to the Iran Air 655 incident, there is no doubt that the US Navy did not intend to kill innocent people. The first investigation was a whitewash but it occurred before there was social media and flight tracking websites - the only entity that had any data was the US Navy. The separatists and Russian military may think it is still 1988 and all the evidence can be controlled, but this incident was not at sea and there are probably a lot of witnesses that had smart phones. Regardless of the initial whitewash, the US ultimately paid compensation.
 
it does, I don't know if there are any medium-range missiles in use that can't reach FL300+, even north korean can do that

That's not what was said. It was said that if it can reach 15,000 ft then it can reach 30,000 feet - and that does not follow. There are MANPADSAMs that can do the 1st but not the 2nd.
 
What evidence do you have that they deliberately target a civilian flight? They intercepted conversations seem to suggest that they mistakenly targeted a civilian flight.
And I agree, I wasn't implying they did. It has relevance to the 'why were they flying there' issue - civilian planes were not being deliberately targeted.
 
That's not what was said. It was said that if it can reach 15,000 ft then it can reach 30,000 feet - and that does not follow. There are MANPADSAMs that can do the 1st but not the 2nd.

russian MANPADs can't go over 12K, except new one which is I think still in a testing phase

tough chance russian rebels would have western MANPADs...
 
Irrelevant - the point still does not follow - being able to reach 15,000 feet simply does not mean that they can also reach 30,000 feet - it is a simple logical error..

However since you mentions specifics - Comparison of MANPADS - there are 3 Russian ones in this table that can reach over 15,000 feet - SA-16, -18 and -24 (NATO designations).
 
OK my mistake but still some ukrainian planes are downed from FL200+ and you can see from the table that they can't reach that altitude so it was easy to conclude they possess heavy SAM batteries
 
Yep - but obviously someone hadn't thought of adding 2+2!:cool:

Sadly that is often the human condition - and just to make it even more...um...well I'm not quite sure what the word is - unfortunate?? How about this - Malaysian airlines diverts from Ukraine - flies over Syria instead!

Kind of wonders what sort of risk management they are doing!! But then my son flew to Germany and back in November & January just gone on a 2 month exchange, and we had a German boy fly here March-April & they both flew over Syria in both directions on Singapore Airlines & I never gave it a 2nd thought!
 
"Two low-flying Ukrainian aircraft—a fighter jet and a military transport plane"

I don't agree as FL150+(confirmed by ukrainian authorities) isn't actually low-flying and whatever missile reaches that altitude will usually reach FL300+.

For information I found some links to that through wiki -

  1. Today the self-defence destroyed An-26 airplane using SAM "9К37М1" (better known as 'Buk')", "Ополченцы сообщили, из чего сбили украинский Ан-26". Vzglyad. 14 July 2014. Retrieved 18 July 2014.
  2. Peter Baker (18 July 2014), U.S. Sees Evidence of Russian Links to Jet’s Downing The New York Times
  3. Доля двох людей зі збитого Ан-26 поки що невідома - Селезньов". Korrespondent.net. 15 July 2014.
I can't vouch for the text of the Russian/Ukrainian articles sorry!
 
I think they also shot down two SU25s with BUK.

Btw flying over Syria is sure safer than over Ukraine, makes you wonder why many of those recently flying over Ukraine evade Syria last couple of years...politics politics
 
Wiki lists 3 Su-25's shot down, 1 by MANPAD, one "being clarified" according to the Voice of Russia article it references, and 1 by a Russian fighter-launched missile from inside Russia according to Kiev - which I think some sources might also be suggesting was a BUK
 
Have there been other times when a military has given this sort of high altitude SAM system to a group of rebels without the proper training and a civilian aircraft was shot down?

I have not had a chance to check but said rebels are blaming government and government are blaming rebels.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top