Israel? So people can focus on russia instead of Palestine. Playing with planes is a very easy game for them.

Hey putin. Leave us middle east. Take some from ukraine. Ok?

plane crashses ma,ke explosions which are cool. its also fun when they go missing because you can guess what happened to them then.

Edited 8/9/2014 05:05:06

apparently the risk was considered low enough to not lower profits by taking more fuel on board and flying around ukraine

Not sure where you are from myhand (I think Germany, right?), but I love watching Jon Stewart rip on our foreign relations in middle east. We are pretty amazing at screwing up that region.

Yes, germany. And yes I enjoy Daily Show as well. In many countries mass media, the only thing close to real news and truthful journalism can only be presented in satirical formats.

"Policy is largely set by economic elites and organized groups representing business interests with little concern for public attitudes or public safety, as long as the public remains passive and obedient."
― Noam Chomsky

Edited 7/18/2014 20:37:36

As for people who wonder if the aircraft was off its course - why should it matter? you just don't shoot down a civil a/c like that. there's a million of procedures - they have a permanent two-way radio communication to confirm reasons/intentions of the crew, they have procedures for radio-communication failure - ether one or both ways, they have intercepting procedures in case everything fails (you basically send a fighter jet to escort the aircraft who lost communication, and there is an international "language" of manuevers by the fighter which every certified pilot understands and complies to at sight). Only when you are sure the intentions are clearly terrorist, the crew does not comply with interceptors despite confirmed visual contact and it's to late for negotiations etc, they will CONSIDER taking the a/c down. - the above also applies for trespassing an active military area. You just don't shoot them at will. the military is aware that civil planes may have different failures and that no civil pilot would trespass such a zone knowingly.

Aranka - there is absolutely no chance to mistake a big passenger plane like B777-200 equipped with a regular operating ModS transponder, adsb, adsc, cpdlc and a couple of other fancy equipment they most likely had on board for a military plane. no chance whatsoever. You can mistake them using a primary surveillance, but an SSR radar gives more info - and the military for sure had access to civil flightplan database and ssr data. first of all - who would have flew a bomber squawking all the way? they use encrypted ID systems for missions.. It would be stupid to broadcast " hey, here's my squawk, flight level, speed, etc. i'm a military aircraft you don't have a flight plan for, and am here! look! i'm cooomiiiing!!"

"I am no radar expert, but wouldn't you be able to tell it was a commercial airliner and not a fighter/bomber?" - i'm not sure it has anything to do with resolution, myh. Although yes - the performance between a big passenger jet may be very same to that of a mil transport jet..

On a not-completely related note - I remember talking to the pilots of that flight every now and then when i was working at air traffic control. I know the crews change, but still It's disturbing when i remember MAS17 flying through our airspace, remember controlling it, and realizing it'll never show up again. You very easily get used to scheduled flight callsigns that you work with. Yesterday I was at a party with a few ATCos who controlled it's last flight.. believe me, even though there was no fault at all on their side, they are full of what-ifs.. It's like - what if i forced it to fly according to the full flight-plan route or lengthen his route due to bad weather ahead? what if i coordinated a bigger shortcut for him? he would have been flying those couple miles north/south from that spot, maybe it woulg be enough, maybe they would be still alive etc. That is a burden.. also being aware that people who you have been controlling and talking to a few minutes ago, have been shot down is a great deal - you start to think if you should or not reroute all the other planes entering that airspace, you are thinking if there was anything you could have done, etc while you have to remain completely unbiased, and concentrated to an extent people who never worked in ATC will most likely NEVER experience....

It's a big tragedy, and there is no excuse for those who've done that, regardless of who they were. They had to be aware it was a passenger liner.

my 0.02

Although I was not involved, a few years ago I took the very same plane and flight to Malaysia to get to New Zealand, So, it hit me hard when I found out.

It will most likely finish Malaysia airlines, 2 planes in 4 months, People will stop flying with them, and they have already been suffering a loss financially before both accidents. This could be the final act needed to kill them.

Edited 7/19/2014 09:04:37

Edited 8/9/2014 05:05:14

True.. What i wrote is valid as long as we speak about authorities, not rebels..

However even a complete idiot can identify most planes with a simple smatphone app like flightradar24..

Edited 7/19/2014 12:05:49

A big loss for the world and my country Australia and I've been crazily researching the how and why topics.

I feel devastated.

A big loss, for the world?

It's a huge loss for those people's families, absolutely, but 298 people is a completely insignificant number to the world as a whole.

We're talking 0.000004% of the worlds population, the same number of people die every three minutes.

If you spent more than three minutes caring about this then you're giving these people far more concern than you give to other people that die, which just seems weird, and bizarre. Why are they more important just because their deaths were sensationalized and publicized?

Maybe Russia shot it down so they can pin it on the ukraine, or the other way around? idk just a thought

If you spent more than three minutes caring about this then you're giving these people far more concern than you give to other people that die, which just seems weird, and bizarre.

It's different. Other people who die don't get 24/7 coverage from CNN. Other people die more frequently, other people usually just seem like masses somewhere else far away starving in a hopeless situation. The thing is, I bet in an incident closer to you, you'd mourn and pay attention, but you don't spend all of your days in sorrow crying over those people dying by the minute. So don't act like you're above and beyond.

You're wrong. As an American I thought September 11th was a bunch of over-sensationalized bullshit as well.

Dying of old age is commonplace, may I say boring.

Dying in a plane crash caused by Ukrainian rebels when the world is watching Ukraine is something special. Of course it gets reported.

Of course I understand why it gets reported on. It's unusual and interesting. But the more salient point is that there's no reason this should be viewed as more tragic than the countless fatal automobile accidents that happen every day. It is tragic, but Good Kid was specifically responding to the statement that this was a big loss for the world.

The difference is, it was PURPOSEFULLY done by another country to the nationality of the plane. It could be seen as a declaration of war if Russia did it and it could cause an official military invasion against pro Russian rebels in Ukraine (in my opinion, the chance that Ukraine did it is none).

First of all, it worth remembering that 298 people died before we start blaming either Russia or Ukraine. It must be a sad time for the friends and families of the people on board.

193 from the Netherlands (1 with dual US citizenship)
43 from Malaysia
27 from Australia
12 from Indonesia
10 from the UK (1 with dual South African citizenship)
4 from Belgium
4 from Germany
3 from the Philippines
1 from Canada
1 from New Zealand

Edited 7/20/2014 18:08:06

What do you guys think of the pro russian seperatists in Ukraine using the deceased bodies as diplomatic bartering chips ??

The fact that they try to do everything to obstruct objective independent investigations seems to suggest the seperatists are indeed the guilty party in this case

I'm almost feeling for military intervention to just forcefully end these russian seperatists

Edit: At the least we should be allowed to send detachments of military troops and backing with longbow apache's in order to secure the safety of these international investigators in these areas

Edited 7/20/2014 18:17:42