OT – Malaysian 777 shot down over Ukraine

[ucodegen]

[quote=FlyerInHi]I’ll go out on a limb and suggest the Ukrainian military shot down the plane by mistake thinking it was a Russian craft.[/quote]
Umm not likely. Because Ukraine has a long range system, they could see where the aircraft really came from as it enter their airspace. Ukraine has systems like our FAA radars that cover a good portion of our airspace.

[paramount]

Like flight 370 we may never know the truth; no doubt all sides will be putting lots of dis/mis-information out and muddying up the waters.

As such, both Ukraine and Russia are now enemies of the civilized world.

This was a war crime.

[spdrun]

Ucodgen- Reports and the Ukrainian government have at least one of the transports being shot down at 6,500 m or 21,000 ft. Too high for a manpad.

[spdrun]

Paramount- why are you blaming both sides before you know who shot the missile?

[scaredyclassic]

I hate flying. Well. Technically I’m scared of it. Even in peacetime. I’m pretty sure we were intended not to be in the air like thst

[Allan from Fallbrook]

[quote=spdrun]Ucodgen- Reports and the Ukrainian government have at least one of the transports being shot down at 6,500 m or 21,000 ft. Too high for a manpad.[/quote]

Reuters is reporting that the system used was either an SA-11 Gadfly, or an SA-17 Grizzly, both successors to the Cold War SA-6 Gainful. These are tracked vehicles carrying a mounted rack of surface-to-air missiles capable of bringing down a commercial jetliner.

According to Jane’s, both Ukrainian and Russian forces have these.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

[quote=paramount]Like flight 370 we may never know the truth; no doubt all sides will be putting lots of dis/mis-information out and muddying up the water.[/quote]

Paramount: “we may never know the truth”. Really? You don’t think that the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) and NGA (National Geo-spatial Agency) are all over this? Please. I’m sure the DNI had a briefing on Obama’s desk an hour after this happened. Trust me, if we don’t know exactly who’s behind it, we’ve already begun connecting the dots.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Paramount: “we may never know the truth”. Really? You don’t think that the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) and NGA (National Geo-spatial Agency) are all over this? Please. I’m sure the DNI had a briefing on Obama’s desk an hour after this happened. Trust me, if we don’t know exactly who’s behind it, we’ve already begun connecting the dots.[/quote]

Based on the number of TLAs in the post, it must be authoritative.

If any of our agencies know, it’s probably the NSA (they actually do more than just listen in on phone sex.)

The NGA takes pictures, and they can’t be photographing everything all the time. But the NSA can pretty-much “hear” everything all the time, and I’m sure they know exactly what a Russian antiaircraft platform sounds like.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

[quote=harvey][quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Paramount: “we may never know the truth”. Really? You don’t think that the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) and NGA (National Geo-spatial Agency) are all over this? Please. I’m sure the DNI had a briefing on Obama’s desk an hour after this happened. Trust me, if we don’t know exactly who’s behind it, we’ve already begun connecting the dots.[/quote]

Based on the number of TLAs in the post, it must be authoritative.

If any of our agencies know, it’s probably the NSA (they actually do more than just listen in on phone sex.)

The NGA takes pictures, and they can’t be photographing everything all the time. But the NSA can pretty-much “hear” everything all the time, and I’m sure they know exactly what a Russian antiaircraft platform sounds like.[/quote]

NRO feeds the NSA. But, yes, I’m sure “hearing” a SAM site is very valuable, too.

Are we due for another of your famous “pri_dick_shuns”, like the one on Syrian chem weapons? I mean, speaking of authoritative, that one was right on the money.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=ucodegen]
Umm not likely. Because Ukraine has a long range system, they could see where the aircraft really came from as it enter their airspace. Ukraine has systems like our FAA radars that cover a good portion of our airspace.[/quote]

As allan posted, the Ukrainians and the Russians have the capability. so it’s either.

I was reading some European news outlets and they are less wanting to pin the blame on Russia than our media.

Would Russia be stupid enough to shoot down a plane down over Ukrainian airspace?

[ucodegen]

[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=ucodegen]
Umm not likely. Because Ukraine has a long range system, they could see where the aircraft really came from as it enter their airspace. Ukraine has systems like our FAA radars that cover a good portion of our airspace.[/quote]

As allan posted, the Ukrainians and the Russians have the capability. so it’s either.

I was reading some European news outlets and they are less wanting to pin the blame on Russia than our media.

Would Russia be stupid enough to shoot down a plane down over Ukrainian airspace?[/quote]I guess I may have to explain it in simpler terms. Ukraine has a long range FAA style radar as well as the ‘BUK’ system. The two different types of systems can talk to each other. This means that Ukraine, due to being able to ‘join’ the FAA style system’s data with the BUK’s track, would really know where the plane came from. They would also have people trained to ‘recognize’ aircraft by track characteristics (altitude and velocity).

On the other hand, it would not be likely that Russian separatists would have that knowledge. They might be trained to simply ‘push the button’, but would not know how to discriminate one type of target from another. They would also be more likely to ‘lets see what this can do’ with their ‘new toy’. The Russian separatists would also not be able to tie the BUKs unit in with an FAA type source since they don’t control most of Ukraine. I suspect that Russia did give them the system and did some ‘simplistic’ training. I don’t think Russia is stupid enough to actually shoot down a civilian aircraft. Russia would also be able to tie their FAA style system to the BUKs and would know where the aircraft came from. I would also say that Ukraine would not be stupid enough to shoot down a civilian aircraft. As for the separatists, I would say that they might be that stupid (particularly if emboldened by Russia). Imagine the mentality of the southern states racists – add in a BUKs system.. and you have a mess.

[ucodegen]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=spdrun]Ucodgen- Reports and the Ukrainian government have at least one of the transports being shot down at 6,500 m or 21,000 ft. Too high for a manpad.[/quote]

Reuters is reporting that the system used was either an SA-11 Gadfly, or an SA-17 Grizzly, both successors to the Cold War SA-6 Gainful. These are tracked vehicles carrying a mounted rack of surface-to-air missiles capable of bringing down a commercial jetliner.

According to Jane’s, both Ukrainian and Russian forces have these.[/quote]Sounds like our respective news services can’t get their story straight, or are so much in a hurry to be first that they can’t take the time to double check their sources and the story.

Considering that no civilian AC have been shot down until this one, I have my doubts as to anything beyond a manpad being available to the separatists (till now). The ‘escalation’ in capability seems to match now getting such a system. I would suspect that Ukraine’s response to the shootdowns would be to fly higher and limit use of helicopters. The separatists would now need a device that could reach higher. Russia’s predictable behavior would be to see that extending the conflict in Ukraine by supporting the separatists would be in their own best interest.

[spdrun]

How does a MANPAD shoot down a transport flying at 21,000+ ft, considering that the range of the MANPADS available to them have a range of 12,000 ft on a good day?

The BUK missiles were likely used against military targets before. This was just the first time they messed up and hit a civilian target.

[FlyerInHi]

Yeah, question is do the separatists have the capability?

The Ukrainians shot down a plane by mistake before.

[ucodegen]

[quote=spdrun]How does a MANPAD shoot down a transport flying at 21,000+ ft, considering that the range of the MANPADS available to them have a range of 12,000 ft on a good day?

The BUK missiles were likely used against military targets before. This was just the first time they messed up and hit a civilian target.[/quote]
Repeating the same thing w/o references or supporting information does not make it true. I gave references for what I stated. Please do likewise.
[quote=FlyerInHi]Yeah, question is do the separatists have the capability?

The Ukrainians shot down a plane by mistake before.[/quote]They may not have had it before, but I think they do now. The only hit I could get on previous shoot-down involving Ukraine was of Siberian Airlines 1812, in Oct 2001. I could not find any other. The Russian plane flew into a live fire exercise area (MOA). The missile, and S-200, overshot its target and re-acquired a new target (the passenger airplane). The particular missile in this case is a self-guided system at its terminus. This exercise was being watched (spied upon?) by the US. What is interesting here is that only the most recent S-200 versions are capable of 35,000 feet, original version 20,000 feet, both of which are generally only achievable straight up (fuel-distance-gravity-altitude problem). It does make me wonder at what altitude that Siberian Airlines 1812 was flying at – and if it was its normal flying altitude. After the incident, Ukraine banned the practice of live fire on that system for approx 7 years.

[Author]

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