You can always go to Google Translate:
And who happen to be in contact with Russian military intelligence.
Google’s cache certainly does
Looked to me by some of the photos there were 2 different sources of smoke shortly after the crash. I wonder if that’s just a 2nd debris site or if thaw smaller one is related to the launch site of the suspected missile?
I worry that physical evidence to prove the cause will be stolen or destroyed before a proper investigation can be done.
Poor Malaysia. Who will fly on that airline now?
black boxes in Russia already according to tv.
the aircraft was spread over miles because it came apart high up due to the missile hit.
I sure hope the families were notified before they saw anything on the news. So sad.
This has the intercepted conversations between separatists talking about the plane, with English subtitles. The translation is pretty accurate - the only real mistake is that where they talk about Kazaks - it should read Cossacks.
This was posted by a pro-Ukrainian account, and the intercept is claimed to be from the Ukrainian Security Service, so take it with whatever amount of salt you deem necessary.
Pretty damning, if authentic.
CNN is saying a significant portion of it hit the ground intact because the plume is the fuel going up, which means the tanks weren’t ruptured at altitude.
there may be confusion because the flight also had a KLM number.
I read Russian.
This article says, in its relevant part, as follows:
The rest of the article recites reports about a previous successful destruction of an An-26 aircraft by another “volunteer fighter” group.
It is pertinent to note that:
[ol]
[li]this article was published by Itar Tass, which is a major and long-established state-owned Russian news agency;[/li][li]it would appear from the stamp that this article was published at 19:04 UTC+4 or, in other words, 15:04 UTC; and[/li][li]the photo used in the article appears to be a stock photo from the earlier An-26 crash site (given that it appears in the report of the 14 July hit).[/li][/ol]
MH17 is reported to have lost contact at 14:15 GMT, or 13:15 UTC.
So, the article follows the event by two hours. Either there really was an An-26 downed on 17 July in addition to MH17 (both of them near Torez) or, unbeknownst to the authors, this article is actually reporting the separatists downing MH17.
Now, aside from being a propeller aircraft, An-26 is also considerably smaller than a 777. But it is still a very substantial aircraft and, without claiming any kind of military expertise, I doubt that at the kind of distances that the Buk launcher can hit out to visual identification works well enough to tell a 777 from an An-26.
We will probably never know for sure, but my money currently says the separatists blew up MH17 in a case of mistaken identity. It’s just the kind of thing that is liable to happen when people get access to tools which they are not properly qualified to use.
Let’s spare a thought for the dead. And for the no doubt many more soon to be dead.
I flew Malaysia Airlines from KL to Paris exactly two weeks ago. As usual, we flew right across Ukraine, from one end to the other. (As on previous such flights, I remarked to my wife how much the landscape – from 30,000 feet up – reminded me of our Kansas). I recall thinking that stuff was going on down there, but I wasn’t aware it was a hot war in recent weeks. I was a bit more apprehensive that we often also fly over Afghanistan; but even with that, it didn’t occur to me that commercial airlines do sometimes avoid airspace above conflict areas, any more than if they, say, avoided flying over the Arctic (which many fly over every day) because it’s so cold.
It sounds like outright murder. A plane simply flying through a standard commercial air corridor is shot down? If I understand the news reports this plane had no connection to the Ukraine? Planes have to fly over countries all the time.
I hope the families get some justice for their loss.
True. They were in financial trouble BEFORE the disappearance of 370, worse after, and now this. Too bad, because I’ve been impressed by their comfort and service on the six occasions I’ve flown with them.
Anyone want to bet the data will be erased or edited?
Does black box data even matter at this point though? Nothing went wrong with the plane, and it’s not like the pilots or anyone could have reacted anything sensible to a missile strike.
This is the smoking gun.
I think at this point there’s a reasonable conclusion to be drawn that pro-Russian separatists did this. The question is, what is the rest of the world going to do about it?
Pick their collective noses, it sounds like.
With Russia and China becoming more belligerent, it seems less and less likely that the post WWII peace is going to last… Ukraine sounds basically like Cold War shenanigans at this point.
Apparently back in April there were already warnings by aviation authorities in the U.S. and Europe about avoiding Ukrainian airspace but some airlines were ignoring them in order to save money.
It would not really change anything at this point. So there is no real point to erasing or editing. Between what the Ukrainians have interceped, and what the NSA is reaping in Moscow, with frantic calls going hither and yon.
At this point, the Russians are going to be looking at
Compensation and reparations to the airline and passengers
What kind of diplomatic sanctions from Europe
Or Moscow decides to double down and cross the border in strength
Declan
Some more. My favorite is that this was really the plane that disappeared in March, that “aliens took it, kept it for several months, and now they’re dropping it back off but the governments want to cover it up and take out the witnesses.”
I said after the March disappearance that we had flown them before and would not hesitate to again, but now I dunno. I know it’s probably not their fault they got blown out of the sky way up there by some dipshit rebels, but I might still feel too squicky getting on board one now regardless of what my rational self might say.