5 ms·

Personally, I don't see any reason to blame them for either crash. As far as I can tell, pretty much every airline in the world thought that the corridor they w

by ufmace 12y ago

Personally, I don't see any reason to blame them for either crash. As far as I can tell, pretty much every airline in the world thought that the corridor they were flying over eastern Ukraine was perfectly safe. That flight just had the bad luck to be there at the time some marginally-competent Ukrainian rebel in charge of a high-end anti-aircraft missile system got a little enthusiastic. Could have been any other flight just as easily. We still don't have any idea what happened to that flight 370, either. I don't think this will help them, though. I sure wouldn't buy any stock in anything connected to them. Even if nothing about either crash was their fault in any reasonable way, people remember stuff like that.

maaku 12y ago
Most airlines were avoiding the eastern Ukraine corridor...
- DenisM 12y ago
  Proof?
  - brianglick 12y ago
    See: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/17/world/europe/maps-of-the-crash-of-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/17/world/europe/m... I don't know if "most" is true, but Air France and British Airways were avoiding it at least, and I recall reading Delta had been as well.
- ufmace 12y ago
  See this article: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28356745 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28356745 Looks pretty heavily trafficked to me. And a lot of airlines are now saying that they will avoid that area, when they were presumably using it before.
- sghodas 12y ago
  According to the linked article, Air France and some other foreign airlines were the only ones to avoid Ukraine.
- Schweigi 12y ago
  Many did cross - even Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines. Spiegel gathered some flight data from flight radar.com. The article is in German but you can scroll to the bottom to see the list: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/malaysia-airlines-mh17-karte-grafiken-route-flugroute-a-981784.html http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/malaysia-airlines-mh17...
  - jakub_g 12y ago
    One should note that though Air France from from Paris to Bangkok used to take the route south from the Ukraine, the KLM from AMS to Kuala Lumpur was going through the country, both later merging to the same route over Turkmenistan. Given that Air France-KLM is a one corporation since 2004, it's pretty surprising. Paris is a bit more south than Amsterdam, but not that much. [1] http://cdn1.spiegel.de/images/image-726710-galleryV9-ocpi.jpg http://cdn1.spiegel.de/images/image-726710-galleryV9-ocpi.jp...
myth_drannon 12y ago
high-end anti-aircraft system can't be operated by a bunch of drunk wannabe rebels, you need entire support unit of radar observation and command(read on wikipedia what is a BUK battery). stealing that one sorry BUK vehicle would just make it shoot in random direction into the ground not at high speed, high altitude target.
- foldr 12y ago
  The rebels had already shot down a number of Ukrainian military aircraft before this happened, so it looks like they can operate the system.
  - myth_drannon 12y ago
    Landing transport planes, su-27's on a bomb run, helicopters. Easy targets for simple shoulder fired missiles ,that's what Afghani sheeperds were doing to soviet and american armies - just a dumb Stinger missile
    - foldr 12y ago
      An Antonov AN-26 was shot down at 21,000ft on July 14. Assuming that the Ukrainians don't shoot down their own military aircraft, it was either shot down by the rebels or, possibly, the Russians. The rebels took credit and there is no real evidence that the Russians did it, AFAIK. Also, the twitter comments by the rebels immediately after MH17 crashed, and the conversation between rebel commanders released by the Ukrainians, speak against direct Russian involvement. (And on top of that, although militaries certainly do make big mistakes from time to time, it is clearly more likely that the poorly trained rebels would have made a huge fuck up like this than that the Russian military would have done so.)
- spartango 12y ago
  The SA-11 'Buk' TELAR (9A310M1) was indeed designed to be used as part of a broader system including C&C, dedicated launchers, and the 9S18M1 radar. It certainly requires trained personnel to operate. With that said, the Buk was also designed to surpass its predecessor('Kub') by incorporating a fire control radar into each launcher (TELAR vs TEL), so that it could operate with some autonomy. The original idea was to allow the whole SAM network to track multiple targets independent of the 9S18M1 radar, which would focus on detection and delegation. This capability also enables an autonomous TELAR unit (as the various images and videos are showing) to target an aircraft at a range of 3-32km, much as people are hypothesizing happened to MH17. It is plausible, although far from certain. http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/sa-11.htm http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/sa-11.htm
MarkMc 12y ago
Even if it is true that all airlines thought it was safe, I don't see how that is a valid defence. The simplest research would have told Malaysia Airlines that (a) rebels were shooting down planes in Eastern Ukraine with surface to air missiles; and (b) some surface to air missiles can reach 40,000 feet. Those two facts alone indicate that the region was not safe for commercial airliners. If all airlines flew through Eastern Ukraine then they are all guilty of abdicating their responsibility to make simple checks about the safety of their flights. It is not acceptable to say that air traffic authorised the flight. In the cockpit the co-pilot is trained to question the judgement of the pilot. In the same way Malaysia Airlines should have performed simple checks on the information supplied by the air traffic authorities.
- konstruktor 12y ago
  What would be needed are not simple checks, but thorough research, which in turn would require reliable local intelligence. The kind one could expect the organisation responsible for ATC to have access to, as opposed to an airline based far, far away.
- ufmace 12y ago
  Sounds dicey. Typical rebels use MANPADS, which have max ranges around 2-4 miles, too small to hit an airliner at cruising altitude. Missile systems with longer ranges tend to be bigger and more complex, and mostly used by well-trained soldiers in proper national militaries who know better than to target airliners. It seems that we have an exception to that here, but it still looks like it was reasonable to assume that they'd be safe.
  - MarkMc 12y ago
    “Typical rebels” might be unlikely to be able to shoot down a high-altitude plane. But the rebels in Eastern Ukraine had just demonstrated that they could shoot down a plane at 21000 ft. With that information who would conclude that there was less than a 1% chance the rebels were capable of downing a plane at 33,000 ft? And even the most well-trained military force in the world has shown that it can mistakenly target civilian planes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
gizmo686 12y ago
> I sure wouldn't buy any stock in anything connected to them. This sounds like a good reason to buy stock in them.

by ufmace 12y ago

maaku 12y ago

Most airlines were avoiding the eastern Ukraine corridor...

DenisM 12y ago
Proof?
- brianglick 12y ago
  See: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/17/world/europe/maps-of-the-crash-of-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/17/world/europe/m... I don't know if "most" is true, but Air France and British Airways were avoiding it at least, and I recall reading Delta had been as well.
ufmace 12y ago
See this article: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28356745 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28356745 Looks pretty heavily trafficked to me. And a lot of airlines are now saying that they will avoid that area, when they were presumably using it before.
sghodas 12y ago
According to the linked article, Air France and some other foreign airlines were the only ones to avoid Ukraine.
Schweigi 12y ago
Many did cross - even Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines. Spiegel gathered some flight data from flight radar.com. The article is in German but you can scroll to the bottom to see the list: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/malaysia-airlines-mh17-karte-grafiken-route-flugroute-a-981784.html http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/malaysia-airlines-mh17...
- jakub_g 12y ago
  One should note that though Air France from from Paris to Bangkok used to take the route south from the Ukraine, the KLM from AMS to Kuala Lumpur was going through the country, both later merging to the same route over Turkmenistan. Given that Air France-KLM is a one corporation since 2004, it's pretty surprising. Paris is a bit more south than Amsterdam, but not that much. [1] http://cdn1.spiegel.de/images/image-726710-galleryV9-ocpi.jpg http://cdn1.spiegel.de/images/image-726710-galleryV9-ocpi.jp...

myth_drannon 12y ago

high-end anti-aircraft system can't be operated by a bunch of drunk wannabe rebels, you need entire support unit of radar observation and command(read on wikipedia what is a BUK battery). stealing that one sorry BUK vehicle would just make it shoot in random direction into the ground not at high speed, high altitude target.

foldr 12y ago
The rebels had already shot down a number of Ukrainian military aircraft before this happened, so it looks like they can operate the system.
- myth_drannon 12y ago
  Landing transport planes, su-27's on a bomb run, helicopters. Easy targets for simple shoulder fired missiles ,that's what Afghani sheeperds were doing to soviet and american armies - just a dumb Stinger missile
  - foldr 12y ago
    An Antonov AN-26 was shot down at 21,000ft on July 14. Assuming that the Ukrainians don't shoot down their own military aircraft, it was either shot down by the rebels or, possibly, the Russians. The rebels took credit and there is no real evidence that the Russians did it, AFAIK. Also, the twitter comments by the rebels immediately after MH17 crashed, and the conversation between rebel commanders released by the Ukrainians, speak against direct Russian involvement. (And on top of that, although militaries certainly do make big mistakes from time to time, it is clearly more likely that the poorly trained rebels would have made a huge fuck up like this than that the Russian military would have done so.)
spartango 12y ago
The SA-11 'Buk' TELAR (9A310M1) was indeed designed to be used as part of a broader system including C&C, dedicated launchers, and the 9S18M1 radar. It certainly requires trained personnel to operate. With that said, the Buk was also designed to surpass its predecessor('Kub') by incorporating a fire control radar into each launcher (TELAR vs TEL), so that it could operate with some autonomy. The original idea was to allow the whole SAM network to track multiple targets independent of the 9S18M1 radar, which would focus on detection and delegation. This capability also enables an autonomous TELAR unit (as the various images and videos are showing) to target an aircraft at a range of 3-32km, much as people are hypothesizing happened to MH17. It is plausible, although far from certain. http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/sa-11.htm http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/sa-11.htm

MarkMc 12y ago

Even if it is true that all airlines thought it was safe, I don't see how that is a valid defence. The simplest research would have told Malaysia Airlines that (a) rebels were shooting down planes in Eastern Ukraine with surface to air missiles; and (b) some surface to air missiles can reach 40,000 feet. Those two facts alone indicate that the region was not safe for commercial airliners. If all airlines flew through Eastern Ukraine then they are all guilty of abdicating their responsibility to make simple checks about the safety of their flights. It is not acceptable to say that air traffic authorised the flight. In the cockpit the co-pilot is trained to question the judgement of the pilot. In the same way Malaysia Airlines should have performed simple checks on the information supplied by the air traffic authorities.

konstruktor 12y ago
What would be needed are not simple checks, but thorough research, which in turn would require reliable local intelligence. The kind one could expect the organisation responsible for ATC to have access to, as opposed to an airline based far, far away.
ufmace 12y ago
Sounds dicey. Typical rebels use MANPADS, which have max ranges around 2-4 miles, too small to hit an airliner at cruising altitude. Missile systems with longer ranges tend to be bigger and more complex, and mostly used by well-trained soldiers in proper national militaries who know better than to target airliners. It seems that we have an exception to that here, but it still looks like it was reasonable to assume that they'd be safe.
- MarkMc 12y ago
  “Typical rebels” might be unlikely to be able to shoot down a high-altitude plane. But the rebels in Eastern Ukraine had just demonstrated that they could shoot down a plane at 21000 ft. With that information who would conclude that there was less than a 1% chance the rebels were capable of downing a plane at 33,000 ft? And even the most well-trained military force in the world has shown that it can mistakenly target civilian planes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

gizmo686 12y ago

> I sure wouldn't buy any stock in anything connected to them. This sounds like a good reason to buy stock in them.