Malaysian Air Flight 17 shot down over Ukraine

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BrianPR3 said:
i would say if it is russian missles or aircraft, ban their airlines from flying to US airports (was done before)
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Yeah, that will totally show them!

The airplane shot down did not belong to a Russian airline

The aircraft was had not originated nor was destined to a US airport

Russian airlines fly a grand total of probably less than 10 flights a day to the US (Aeroflot 2 to JFK, 1 to LAX, TransAero 1 to JFK, 1 to LAX and 1 or 2 per week flights to MIA and WAS). Stopping those is not going to achieve anything except inconveniencing a few hundred travelers who have no stakes in the conflict.
 
Green Maned Lion said:
I have a feeling the Ukranians did it to draw us into the anti-Russian side of things. I pray to god this doesn't result in a world war.
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The separatist were bragging about the shootdown on social media before they realized what they did.
 
Two Malaysia Airlines 777 crashed in quick succession, I'm thinking that airline will have financial trouble soon, and might lose ridership due to public fear in general.
 
Paulus said:
Here's the radio intercept again but with a better translation

Swadian Hardcore said:
Two Malaysia Airlines 777 crashed in quick succession, I'm thinking that airline will have financial trouble soon, and might lose ridership due to public fear in general.
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Wasn't it already in financial trouble after MH370?
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I don't know, I'm not really following MH right now, but if they were already in financial trouble, now we're looking at triple financial trouble.
 
Malaysian Airlines is mostly state-owned. The three biggest shareholders are a subsidiary of Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund (52%), the fund itself (17.33%), and the Employees Provident Fund (10.72%). The third is a Finance Ministry-controlled pension system. The three control about 80% between them; though a minority is held by non-government entities, the airline is for all intents and purposes state-owned...which means that I sense a bailout coming.
 
SarahZ said:
Green Maned Lion said:
I have a feeling the Ukranians did it to draw us into the anti-Russian side of things. I pray to god this doesn't result in a world war.
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My first thought, upon hearing there were Americans on-board, was, "Lusitania."
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In contrast to back then, the world has become much more internationalized. Pick up 100 random people off the street in Amsterdam or Kuala Lumpur and the odds are you'll have at least 10 nationalities.
 
Shawn Ryu said:
Paulus said:
caravanman said:
What are the odds that TWO Malaysian planes in a row crash...?

Ed,
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Korean Air lost 8 in a decade didn't they?
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Something like that, and they got punished severe;y by US authorities, and now they have a FAA standard procedures and are perfectly safe to fly with.

I am not sure if this one should be blamed on Malaysian Airline itself if indeed it has been shot down. Planes fly over Ukraine all the time.
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Sure, but it's still a war zone. There are also planes that fly over Syria and Afghanistan every day. Some manager at Malaysian took a gamble and said, we'll save some fuel and go the short route and if that increases the risk to our passengers, so be it.

Now they have to face the consequences.
 
cirdan said:
Shawn Ryu said:
Paulus said:
caravanman said:
What are the odds that TWO Malaysian planes in a row crash...?

Ed,
Click to expand...
Korean Air lost 8 in a decade didn't they?
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Something like that, and they got punished severe;y by US authorities, and now they have a FAA standard procedures and are perfectly safe to fly with.

I am not sure if this one should be blamed on Malaysian Airline itself if indeed it has been shot down. Planes fly over Ukraine all the time.
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Sure, but it's still a war zone. There are also planes that fly over Syria and Afghanistan every day. Some manager at Malaysian took a gamble and said, we'll save some fuel and go the short route and if that increases the risk to our passengers, so be it.

Now they have to face the consequences.
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Hogwash. It's not just an arbitrary decision made by some manager at Malaysian. The aircraft was flying on a normal air route flown by numerous other commercial aircraft every day between Europe and South Asia. ICAO listed the rote as safe to fly. There was a Singapore Airlines flight and an Air India flight within 25 kilometers of the Malaysian flight at the time of the incident and it could have been either of those or even in addition to MA017. Lufthansa, British Airways, KLM, the aforementioned Singapore and a multitude of other carriers also were using that airspace and now have announced they will not anymore. The no-fly restriction at that time was over the Crimea peninsula and the NOTAM for the area of the incident was that aircraft shouldn't fly below either 28,000 or 30,000 feet and this flight was above that though now Eurocontrol in their infinite wisdom closed the airspace over eastern Ukraine. IMHO this one is not the fault of the Malaysian pilots.
 
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Boys with toys, eh? Give a semi trained bunch of seperatists weapons and they become terrorists who start shooting civilians... Russian weapons in Ukraine, US weapons in Syria and Iraq, European weapons in Africa...

History is written by the victors, so often the real truths behind events never emerge..

ed
 
People are in a fritz because MH17 was operating over a war zone.

Half the planet is a war zone. Airplanes have been flying over Afghanistan and Iraq for the last decade without issue. Thousands of airplanes (including Japanese and Korean registered aircraft) fly over North Korea every year.

The shooting down of a commercial airliner is an extremely rare event--when it happens, it rarely happens in so-called war zones. Before Thursday, no body knew--or would have thought--that the rebels (or, for that matter, the Ukrainians) had the ability--let alone the want--to shoot down a foreign airliner at cruise altitude.

MH, SQ, and the other airlines operating in that airspace were in compliance with both the law and any standard of common sense. Hindsight is 20/20, and we can't fault an airline for flying their airplane in what was assumed to be a safe and prudent manner. While some automatically draw other impressions because of the name 'Malaysia', MH is not some dingbat operation.
 
For those grossly uninformed who think it was just Malaysian flying that route .... That route above 32,000' was an Eurocontrol and FAA approved route that the likes of United and Delta regularly flew to South Asia specially when flying the southerly eastward route. Indeed I flew that route (actually slightly to the south as I recall since we probably got a direct routing) on United to Delhi last December. What changed is that somehow surface to air missiles capable of hitting targets way above 32,000' landed up in the hands of people who were not supposed to have them.

Now of course the exercise of posterior covering begins. First step is to ask for irrefutable proof while as much evidence as possible is destroyed as quickly as possible. We have seen this sequence unfold many times in the past. Both of the five sides in any conflict unfortunately indulge in such.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum
 
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Swadian Hardcore said:
The thing is, who in Ukraine would want to shoot down a Malaysian plane with a lot of Dutch people? Whoever shot it down probably made a big mistake.
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The big mistake was arming untrained rebels/terrorists/freedom-fighters (whatever you want to call them) with deadly weapons that requires a lot of maturity and restraint to use. I am pretty sure their intention was not to specifically down a Malaysian plane with Dutch people, rather "oh look, I spot a plane... could be Ukraine's? Does anyone here know to ID it? No? Well, never mind... we have this fancy missiles that can hit it... fire!"

...and only when the debris came down on the ground, realized "Oh damn, this is not what we wanted"
 
jis said:
For those grossly uninformed who think it was just Malaysian flying that route...
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It's true that MH wasn't breaking any laws or disobeying any regulations. That being said there was nothing preventing MH from playing it safe by completely avoiding conflict zones anyway as per their own flight plans and routing directives. If I were working in operations at a company under as much pressure as MH I'd probably play it safer than most of my competitors. No need to risk yet another huge embarrassment so soon after the last one.
 
jis said:
The beauty of 20/20 hindsight based armchair quarterbacking. Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum
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The Ukraine government had lost multiple aircraft in the preceding days. I was not following the story closely but if I had I would not think 20/20 hindsight was required to see that as a potential problem for commercial flights as well. I'm also curious which tactical measurement would indicate that FL320 is dangerous while FL330 is safe? It would seem if you could reach one you could probably reach the other. It's one thing to fly into or out of Ukraine itself as a calculated risk of which passengers are already aware. Passengers flying between Europe and Australia are unlikely to be aware they're flying over an active war zone. If we don't want to ban flights over war zones then how about forcing airlines to notify passengers that their flight is scheduled to be routed over an area where other aircraft have been downed before they board? If a passenger decides to fly anyway then so be it, but if they choose to play it safe with their own life they receive a free transfer to another route or a full refund. That way everyone gets to take on the level of risk they find acceptable for their needs.
 

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