That is the opinion of someone who does not seem to have read the Dutch Safety Board’s MH17 reports, and who tells us that he does not have much faith in such investigations. Those who use my professional services are of a different opinion; MH17 is one of the reasons that my retirement this summer was so brief.

You really must stop making things up. It was the Ukrainian authorities who decided in the summer of 2014 that there was no high-altitude SAM threat from the rebels. The DSB report makes this clear. It was not my judgement – all I did was to tell you what the report said, and to suggest that you read it.

Amateur enthusiasts on “aviation forums globally” reach all sorts of conclusions, sometimes on the basis of so-called “commonsense”. Personally, I place little faith in this sort of thing. Remember all the theories that MH17 had been shot down by cannon fire or an AIM? Reading this blatant nonsense on fora at a time when I’d already seen a recovered ‘bow tie’ fragment from a Buk warhead was not a pleasant experience.

Within a day of learning that the MH17 investigators had recovered Buk warhead fragments from within bodies from the crash site, I even had a London-based academic assure me that the idea that MH17 had been shot down was all an invention by “wicked journalists” and that “everybody” knew that the aircraft had simply suffered an accident.

So I deal not in “commonsense” and “everybody knows”, but it citable facts. As in archaeology, provenance is important. If a client wants to know when I first saw a ‘bow-tie’ fragment and who had recovered it I can tell them; similarly when and how I learned that autopsies had yielded recognisable Buk warhead fragments. “I read it on a forum” is simply not good enough.

This is hilarious! Did this “rebel command” have a published phone number or email address?

As Swerve said in posting #51:

I suspect that, like Lukos, he just likes to argue, and simply refuses to back down when wrong. In the case of Lukos, his persistent claim that the Alarm missile used a second motor burn during its final dive made un-necessary work for editors at Jane’s and for staff at MBDA whom they consulted. When proven wrong, he did not even have the grace to apologise for the trouble he’d caused.

Last time I looked, I could see 12 aircraft over Israel, 3 over Lebanon, 2 over Syria, and 10 over Iraq. Some were overflying. Only eastern Ukraine was zero.

Show me where I cited a newspaper as evidence that the rebels had only MANPADS. I think you will find that I was citing the DSB final report.

You can say it’s the opinion of an non-expert etc. etc. but it’s nevertheless the correct opinion, there was a SAM in the area, that much is indisputable.

So the Ukrainian couldn’t make a correct assessment as to whether there was a high altitude SAM threat despite likely having RWR on the transport that got shot down, but you expect one rebel grunt in a TELAR to make an accurate decision as to whether there’s an airliner above him. Double standards much?

You should place far more faith in such opinions, because they were indisputably correct in this instance.

Archaeology, you mean like examining remnants, say, of a downed transport plane?

The rebel leader was a known person at that time yes. In the case that you can’t contact them, the sensible decision is not to fly over the conflict zone and diverting over it last minute is simply a suicidal decision.

What ever happened to the Air Warfare Manual, “avoid flying over conflict zones where possible”? Was it possible? Yes, because other airlines were doing it. So why didn’t they? That applies equally to Ukrainian ATC. Don’t allow airliners over a conflict zone.

This report is a politically charged pile of dog-doo designed to discharge all culpable parties of any responsibility, except for Russia and the rebels. Why? Because nobody wants to allow civil prosecutions of the airline or Ukrainian ATC. It’s too diplomatically charged. As per 9/11 and Saudi prosecutions.

The radar (GaN) offered by SAAB was not the SELEX set, and not even an upgraded SELEX radar that is meant for the Gripen E/F. The radar offered was a SAAB set.

http://www.leonardocompany.com/en/-/raven-1

The actual TRMs for all these radars (Raven, RBE2 and Captor) are coming from UMS regardless of who makes the radar.

Do you have a source or something?

I can guarantee it’s a French blog. French Sputnik equivalent. Similar sites have claimed that an Su-24 caused Aegis radar screens to go blank and apparently Richtag AV has blocked all NATO electronics over Syria. These sort of claims are 10 a penny.

http://www.kp.ru/daily/26221.4/3104418/
http://osnetdaily.com/2015/10/russian-jamming-system-blocks-all-nato-electronics-inside-bubble-600-km-in-diameter-over-syria/

Starfish,

How many high altitude bombers were in service with the Ukrainian AF in 2014?. How many airstrikes had they prosecuted from 33,000ft up?. You said yourself earlier….victims of rocket and bomb strikes etc….what manner of strike aircraft looses unguided rocket fire from airliner cruise altitude…..what attack platform did they have capable of accurate bomb placement from 33k ft?.

In short did any credible threat exist that would justify a 70/30 shoot/no shoot call?. Was there the slightest proven risk of them getting killed from an air target at the altitude MH17 was at?.

As you pointed out, they hadn’t ID’d it, so it could have been a fighter at that point. Who’s to say it hadn’t been wrongly ID’d as a military plane.

Kh-58 perhaps? Bottom line is, you’re expecting someone with their life in danger to make completely rational and accurate decisions. Police have failed in this pursuit several times, no one is above it, not me, not you and not the Donbass rebels. Hell, the Ukrainians even shot down an airliner in peace time.

Yes, the fact that no airliner was due on that path at that time of day, and MH17 had deviated from it’s usual course, so succinctly, no airliner was supposed to be there at that time. You’re seriously expecting someone whose life is in danger to be asking themselves all these questions, which hindsight and armchair perspective has permitted you? But that isn’t the way things work I’m afraid.

Sure but I’ve never known marketing to under-claim.

If we should prosecute any military action which ended in a death of a civilian as a criminal deed, then all prisons of the world would not suffice.. The unlucky airliner should not have been there, in the first place, the place has been known as a war zone for months.. If you travel from Poland to Kazakhstan and take a direct route via a conflict zone in Donbass in order to save fuel, who is responsible if you get shot? Yourself, no one else..

Worse than that, they diverted last minute to avoid bad weather and rather than fly south of it, they flew north of it through a conflict zone to save a bit of fuel without notifying the party that controlling region. Surprise! Airliner! Seriously? No one sees a problem with that?

Uggh.

Do you really believe what you write or are you just backed into a corner?

Why argue with two people who have a much better sense of the event than you, who have followed the events (which you just google when you need to) from day one and are generally regarded as top contributors to this forum?

You have no standing on any thread you post in, and doing down an aircraft full of dead civilians (from any country) is low.

Which bit do you question?

1. That I and most knew the military transport was taken down by a SAM (non-MANPADS)? Do you believe the Ukrainian claim that they fought it was an AAM?

2. That this isn’t the first time such an incident has happened and likely won’t be the last.

3. That the airline and the Ukrainian ATC should have notified rebel command of the aircraft and flight path.

I completely believe those things.

Groundless accusations. We’ve so far seen one guy on another thread claim the following:

1. Beamwidth = Angular accuracy

2. RWR can use conical scanning and monopulse too.

On another thread we’ve seem someone:

1. Not know the difference between static and total pressure.

2. Say the Typhoon had pitot intakes.

And you single out me. But I assume you’re only doing that because you don’t like my opinion. I am not Russian or pro-Russian and my thread on ‘historical evaluation of Russian hardware in combat’ proves that. I say it exactly as I see it and I’m not one to take a position simply because it’s seen as politically correct.

All of them?. No. The authority that detailed Vincennes to a volatile region with the CO that she had….very definitely yes….whoever did that was a complete idiot.

There are lots of things that happen in war that shouldn’t. What about all the collateral from drone strikes? Accidental fire on journalists etc.? War is war aka sh!t happens. The only real difference in this case is that it was Western Europeans who got a raw deal.

So it was the Ukrainians fault for not understanding that the Russians would fire on unidentified targets….not the Russians fault for firing on an unidentified target you mean?.

They should have notified rebel command, so should the pilot/airline. The airspace over the Donbass was effectively not under Ukrainian ATC. For all we know the last minute diversion may have been the latest suicide bid by a Malaysian Airlines pilot, because the move was sure as hell not sensible. Storm cell ahead, fly south of it in non-hostile airspace, or fly North of it through a war zone a few days after another large aircraft was shot down? Hmmm… let me see… I know, I’ll fly through the hostile airspace for a chuckle give them a bit of a surprise LOL.