Malaysian Airlines plane shot down over Eastern Ukraine

[starseeker]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28354856

Current theories doing the rounds are mechanical faults, Russia shot it down, the seperatists shot it down with Russian AA, the seperatists shot it down with stolen Ukrainian AA, the Ukrainians shot it down assuming it was the seperatists etc. This could get very interesting.

It's not been a good year for Malaysian Airlines has it?

[Ultimate Paragon]

No, it hasn't.

[dpareja]

Now watch CNN fixate on this for the next month and watch the Republitards blame Obama.

[Ironchew]

Nothing of substance circulating in the press yet. I'll wait until more evidence comes to light before I start pointing fingers.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Was it confirmed to have been shot down?  From what I've heard, that's still up in the air (no pun intended).  But it seems likely, doesn't it?

[starseeker]

Was it confirmed to have been shot down?  From what I've heard, that's still up in the air (no pun intended).  But it seems likely, doesn't it?

It exploded in mid-air in an area where 2 other planes were shot down in the last week, and is an active warzone. It's plausible as a theory.

[Meshakhad]

Until evidence otherwise emerges, I will assume it was shot down by the Ukrainians AND the separatists.

[Askold]

At first the the separatists were quite proudly stating that they have shot down yet another Ukrainian military plane after it refused to change course despite being warned... How they would have warned it is unclear but does not seem to matter as they redacted that statement as soon as it was revealed that it was an civilian plane that had been shot down.

Here is the original post from a separatist leader which has now been removed:

And translation:

We warned them not to fly in our sky. The birdie fell behind the earth dump, didn't affect inhabited areas. Peaceful civilians were not harmed

Now the separatists are claiming that they do not even have any weapons that are capable of this and that an Ukrainian fighter plane shot down the Malaysian plane.

Meanwhile Russia today is becoming quite the entertainment channel...

They are calling this an "accident" and a "crash" rather than calling it a shooting, thought they are accepting the possibility that the plane was shot down but are uncertain which side would have done it. They even dug up the old case of Ukrainian military accidentally shooting an civilian plane and are using it as evidence that they might have done it again and an expert from USA was talking about how reckless and unusual it is for planes to fly over warzones like this. (RT was staying classy and also accused the Malaysian airlines being unreliable, referring to the earlier missing plane that was on the news a lot.)

[Ultimate Paragon]

American intelligence seems to have confirmed that a surface-to-air missile was indeed responsible.

[Old Viking]

You don't suppose that this is the flight that's been missing since March, do you?

[Sleepy]

This is terrible. I wonder why a commercial jetliner was flying in such dangerous territory.

[starseeker]

This is terrible. I wonder why a commercial jetliner was flying in such dangerous territory.

Apparently they were supposed to be avoiding the area, but rebels/militia aren't usually capable of taking down things flying at 30,000 feet, the previously shot down planes were at something like 15,000 ft.

[Sleepy]

This is terrible. I wonder why a commercial jetliner was flying in such dangerous territory.

Apparently they were supposed to be avoiding the area, but rebels/militia aren't usually capable of taking down things flying at 30,000 feet, the previously shot down planes were at something like 15,000 ft.

Ah, I see. The risk there is still obvious, but I guess we'll learn more as officials investigate. Additionally:

Meanwhile, the head of Ukrainian's emergency services told Reuters that search efforts at the scene of the crash we being hampered by "armed terrorists."

http://news.yahoo.com/maylasian-plane-crash-ukraine-russia-153426322.html

[Id82]

Remind me to never fly Malaysian Airlines.

[Lt. Fred]

It was apparently a Russian medium-range SAM, probably a Buk. At least, according to the Ukrainian Interior Minister. Now, that might be a battery they smuggled to their special forces in Ukraine, but a SAM is complicated and expensive technology. I doubt Ukrainian rookies could aim and fire it without direct Russian help. Of course, it's definitely been supplied by the Russians. This comes one day after the Americans identified some photographs of Grad missiles being fired as on the border of Ukraine - on the Russian side.

What I want to know - what happened to the Malaysian jet's IFF? Did the Malaysians not turn it on, or could the Russians not detect it?