Aussies dead in Shot down plane crash over Ukraine.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by blueoval

It's the images of the dead that are the issue. I shouldn't have looked. But now I have it in my memory.

I haven't seen it because I'm at work, I thought there would be nothing left of them?

[marty351]

I wonder how many people are aware of what Stalin and his N.K.V.D. did to the Uknanian people during the 1930s. Post WWII, many Ukranians were forced to flee to europe to escape Stalins wrath for trying to side with NAZIs, thus a long history of dislike and sometimes hatred of Russia. It runs deep.

[Franco Cozzo]

The problem with Ukraine is that the eastern side tends to relate more with Russia, where the western side wants to be part of Europe and independant.

[creative]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

I haven't seen it because I'm at work, I thought there would be nothing left of them?

Far from it......very far from it.

The image of the chair is the worse. I will leave you to find that one.

[cheap]

Originally Posted by Cashie

There was a mixup of IFF replies when the Iranian F14s replies shadowed the airliner on the ground. The ship was also under a simultaneous surface attack by gunboats. There were many mistakes made that day in the operations room, having working in a similar environment, I can relate totally to what occurred and how different personal recalled differing events. The actions and position of the ship were easily verified when the Aegis logs were downloaded during the investigation.... In summary lots went wrong.
The US governments tardy acknowledgement of events was due to the policitical situation in the region at the time, sadly politics dictates the actions of the worlds powers as I am sure will again happen

I do agree though, awarding him a medal after what went down was probably in very bad taste and poor form.

Several months beforehand the USS Stark got hit by a wayward Exocet, there would have be commands given to all USN captains to ensure high levels of protection to their ships and crew given what happened to Stark.

[ivandrago]

The human body is amazing resilient while death is easy to occur in a human the structure of the body is well made to survive large knocks or impacts.

[superyob]

These images should not be posted up for our 'entertainment'. I am not going to look. You people who have viewed them would not condone public access to gruesome pictures of your relatives...

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by creative

Far from it......very far from it.

The image of the chair is the worse. I will leave you to find that one.

What has been seen cannot be unseen, so I might leave it I think.

[nstg8a]

There's a report from a journalist that's been through the crash site, he was saying the bodies are incredibly hard to see.
Some don't have a scratch, some are horrifically mutilated while others are just bones.
I have no confidence either side will treat the remains as they should be treated.

[Charliewool]

A family of 5 from Eynesbury (just up the road from Caroline Springs) has just been added to the fatalities.. That's 18 from Vic now!

[Charliewool]

Originally Posted by marty351

I wonder how many people are aware of what Stalin and his N.K.V.D. did to the Uknanian people during the 1930s. Post WWII, many Ukranians were forced to flee to europe to escape Stalins wrath for trying to side with NAZIs, thus a long history of dislike and sometimes hatred of Russia. It runs deep.

I was married to a Ukrainian for 26 years.. Her parents (father in particular) spoke of terrible atrocities in Ukraine at the hands of the Russians..
He used to reckon the Nazis were pussycats compared to Stalin..
Their hatred certainly runs pretty deep.

[BradEL]

This is such a tragedy, my heart goes out espeially to one family

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/malaysia-a...ectid=11296105

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

What has been seen cannot be unseen, so I might leave it I think.

I saw the picture of the baby's body, there was a small crater around it so that shows how hard those poor people hit the ground.

This Flaw In The Buk Missile System Makes It Really Easy To Accidentally Shoot Down A Passenger Jet

Military experts think that a Buk missile — an easy-to-use type of anti-aircraft weapon — is the most likely culprit in the destruction of a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet that’s thought to have been shot down over eastern Ukraine.

These missile launchers are specially created for hitting high-altitude aircraft, and can fire at targets of up to 80,000 feet.

But unless linked to other weapons or an air traffic control system, they are almost incapable of telling the difference between military and civilian aircraft. The Buk is mobile, easy to use, and capable of hitting aircraft at all but the most outlandish altitudes. Yet as the MH17 disaster proves, that comes with a huge potential drawback, especially when the weapon is in the hands of people incapable of using it responsibly.

Pro-Russian separatists have apparently admitted that they have Buk missiles. These weapons reach far higher altitudes than the shoulder-fired rocket launchers that pro-Russian separatists have been using to destroy Ukrainian aircraft during the past week, high enough that they could reach the over 30,000-feet altitude at which the airliner was flying.

The missiles are straightforward to operate and work as stand-alone weapons — they can function outside of a sophisticated networked air defense system.

While that’s useful in some respects it also makes it unnervingly easy to make a mistake, particularly for guerrilla or non-conventional fighters who are capable of firing the easy-to-use missiles, but don’t have the training needed to distinguish between civilian and military aircraft by sight.

As one expert explained to Technology Review, the Buk’s ease of usability is also what makes the weapon so prone to tragic and costly errors like the MH17 crash.

The system cannot tell the difference between civilian and military-type aircraft based on their transponder signatures alone. In order to tell the difference between targets, it would need to be interfaced with other weapons systems that can work off of additional information.

Being a Soviet design, the user interface is fairly simple, says Michael Pietrucha, a former F-4G and F-15E electronic warfare officer and expert on air defenses. Pietrucha says he trained with German forces operating a similar Russian-built system during the 1990s.

Pietrucha says that the Buk variant operated by the rebels might have been especially unable to distinguish between civilian and military air traffic because of a quirk related to aircraft transponders. The transponder is a device that broadcasts an aircraft’s identity when a radar “interrogates” it for information.

Military and civilian aircraft often use the same transponder modes and therefore that signal is not used as a “discriminator” for a military targeting system, Pietrucha says. The system has to be tied into the national air traffic control system to use that information effectively.

So the Buk can pick up the signal of an aircraft. But if it’s operating in standalone mode, it can’t tell whether that aircraft is a military target, or a jetliner with nearly 300 people onboard.

As Thomas Gibbons-Neff reported in the Washington Post, the Buk can be interfaced with other systems, but U.S. intelligence sources believe the Buk was the only one anti-aircraft system operating in the area of the crash at the time the plane was shot down.

The transponder explanation seems likeliest here: Whatever unit shot down MH17 simply couldn’t see if it was a civilian or military aircraft — they could just see it was an aircraft in their airspace — because it wasn’t hooked up to a system that would have made such recognition possible.

On some models of the weapon, radar systems are rudimentary at best. With untrained irregular soldiers at the helm, even a linked system could have made a terrible mistake. To the right is a GIF of a Buk M2 surface-to-air system in action. The radar and firing interface are relatively simple and user-friendly.

“This definitely could have been an error,” Steve Zaloga, an expert on missile systems at the Teal Group, told Technology Review.

http://www.businessinsider.sg/the-fl...system-2014-7/

Wasn't there a tweet from the rebels that they shot down a plane, which they later removed because they realised what they just did?

Video of said weapon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDXScnEKaP0

[Professor Farnsworth]

Terrible thing to happen.

However out of respect to the families, and those who have been touched by the losses from the incident, the thread will now close.

[russellw]

I am going to reopen this thread but with some very clear guidelines:

1. There will be no links to or post of graphic images of bodies in this thread.
2. Posts which express an extreme political point of view will be deleted and repeat offenders warned.

Regard
Russ

[csv8]

Aussie death toll is now 36 https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/24503654...-what-we-know/
So tragic, politics shouldn't be allowed..Ukraine and Russia must step back and allow recovery of the bodies.....

[Yellow_Festiva]

Some serious phone calls need to take place and some fast decisions need to be made. That whole area needs a team of well armed soldiers to guard and protect what's left.

These stories of looting and guys in cammo gear holding guns in one hand and personal belongings from the dead while grinning for the camera make me furious.

What the hell is going on? This incident is going to cause a world of hurt for a lot of people and governments....

[Bill M]

Highly unlikely the shoot-down was deliberately targeting a civilian airliner.
The pro Russian separatists made an announcement via twitter they had shot down an Antonov, this message was removed shortly after when the real situation became known.
Sadly this is what happens when the Goon squad gets hold of sophisticated weaponry.
My thoughts are with the grieving families.
Bill.

[BHDOGS]

It would be interesting to know if theres any of these systems available in iraq or syria with isis on the march at the moment its a disturbing thought.

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by Charliewool

I was married to a Ukrainian for 26 years.. Her parents (father in particular) spoke of terrible atrocities in Ukraine at the hands of the Russians..
He used to reckon the Nazis were pussycats compared to Stalin..
Their hatred certainly runs pretty deep.

There is good & bad in any race of people, unfortunately it is the innocent people who get caught up in these tragedies. RIP

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by motomk

I have read elsewhere that might be one of the Ukrainian planes that has been shot down in the past few weeks.

Correct. It's not MH17. Judging for the many, many uncensored images available it looks like MH17 tore apart at cruise altitude.

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by blueoval

It's the images of the dead that are the issue. I shouldn't have looked. But now I have it in my memory.

You're lucky then the media in Australia is extremely sanitised. Have just returned from Philippines two days after this occurred the images on TV there are very graphic indeed. Don't like it, look away. Simple.

[malazn mafia]

Originally Posted by cornflakes8

Those raw images of the aftermath really puts into perspective how f-cked up this whole thing is. :(

Puts into perspective how **** up this whole world or universe is. I will never be at peace until I know why whoever or whatever seemingly sick minded individual or group created what we know as 'reality', 'humans' and the 'laws' of physics that allow such horrible things to even take place. If reality was a video game, the creator is one sick individual and should have been banned from creating video games in the first place. Why do people bother even having kids

[CoupeKing]

Makes you wonder what the Ambos and the Police see on a day-to-day basis, then go home to the family and try and put down a steak.

[castellan]

Would you be happy to fly over a war zone ?

I would think any fool that fly's over a war zone is playing a foolish game and it's the responsibility of the airline to insure that all is ok.

At the end of the day there is no excuse to fly over a war zone, do the math and you will find out the chances of being hit go up not down.

You get what you pay for, save a few $ and take a chance or do your home work and fork out some more $ and be safer.

[buggerlugs]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but this from a pilot's point of view.....
http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/2...t-pilot/?cs=62

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by buggerlugs

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but this from a pilot's point of view.....
http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/2...t-pilot/?cs=62

What hindsight, we knew there was a war going on in the region and what weapons both sides had BEFORE this happened?

Weren't two planes also shot down before MH17?

Even when all the evidence is found of what happened and who did it, all that will occur is a strongly worded letter to the offender, and thats it, this has happened in the past and will probably happen again in the future if airliners keep flying over war zones with this technology in the hands of its combatants.

This wouldn't have been the Ukrainian military, or the Russians, it would have been the rebels.

[jpblue1000]

Its pretty hard to fly from Europe to Australia without flying over or very close to contested territories, areas where there are active wars or psudo border disputes
A direct line from Australia to Europe flies over, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and Sri Lanka. Divert around these places and you fly over Kazakhstan, China, Russia and Ukraine, egypt, sudan, somalia, et al

Have a look at this map to see how much of the world would potentially could be a no fly zone due to conflict and risk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...rmed_conflicts

The authorities had not closed the flight corridor and I am sure MH had undertaken risk analysis, unfortunately they were wrong and had it not been for MH370 we wouldn't be doubting their management and decision making ability. had it been one of the other airlines we probably wouldnt be asking the question 'should they have been there'
They had legal authority to fly there and unfortunately were randomly targeted and all of them are dead, through no fault of their own.
It will be unfair to use our fellow countrymen's deaths in this tragedy to push our own 'cheap' local political, social and race agendas.

JP

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

Its pretty hard to fly from Europe to Australia without flying over or very close to contested territories, areas where there are active wars or psudo border disputes
A direct line from Australia to Europe flies over, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and Sri Lanka. Divert around these places and you fly over Kazakhstan, China, Russia and Ukraine, egypt, sudan, somalia, et al

Have a look at this map to see how much of the world would potentially could be a no fly zone due to conflict and risk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...rmed_conflicts

The authorities had not closed the flight corridor and I am sure MH had undertaken risk analysis, unfortunately they were wrong and had it not been for MH370 we wouldn't be doubting their management and decision making ability. had it been one of the other airlines we probably wouldnt be asking the question 'should they have been there'
They had legal authority to fly there and unfortunately were randomly targeted and all of them are dead, through no fault of their own.
It will be unfair to use our fellow countrymen's deaths in this tragedy to push our own 'cheap' local political, social and race agendas.

JP

The difference between those other war zones is that their local rebel group doesn't have their hands on this kind of weaponry to hit something that high up in the air.

The only group which would most likely have that weaponry would be ISIS or what ever they are called because of the amount of $$$ they have behind them and their training.

[GasoLane]

If you look here you'll see that it's (or at least, it was ) a regular flight path for MH17 (map shows 14th May 2014) and possibly a number of other flights/Airlines I just couldn't be bothered looking it up.
http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/mh17/#354342f

The new route is here....
http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/mh17/#3dc40e5
Bypassing the Ukraine region by a large margin.