Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (flight)

Date	17 July 2014
Deaths	298
Survivors	0
Interest of	Bellingcat, Christopher Black, Dutch Safety Board, Machiavelli Foundation, Mahathir Mohamad
Subpage	•Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/ATC lost contact confirmed •Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Competing theories •Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Criminal Investigation •Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/First altitude change •Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/First reports of crash •Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Last ADS-B contact •Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Leaves departure gate •Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Russia's questions to Ukraine •Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Takeoff
Description	A Boeing 777-200 plane, which crashed in the Ukraine, east of Donetsk on 17 July 2014, killing all 298 on board.

Last minutes of MH17 (map overlay by User:Two Dogs)

A Boeing 777-200 passenger plane, registration 9M-MRD, operating as Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, crashed in the Ukraine, east of Donetsk on 17 July 2014. All 298 on board were killed.

Flight MH17 departed the gate at Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands at 12:14 hours local time, bound for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was airborne at 12:30 (10:30 UTC) from runway 36C and reached a cruising altitude of FL310 at 12:53 (10:53 UTC). Ninety minutes into the flight, at 12:01 UTC and just prior to entering Ukrainian airspace, the flight climbed to FL330. This altitude was maintained until last contact by ADS-B receivers of a flight tracking website, at 13:21:28 UTC overhead Snizhne, heading 118° at 490 knots.

The preliminary report of The Dutch Safety Board said that "The pattern of damage to the aircraft fuselage and the cockpit is consistent with that which may be expected from a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside." The Dutch Safety Board aims to publish its final report within one year of the date of the crash.

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Timelines here
It is now:

• 3785 days since the crash,
• 3778 days since the data from flight recorders was downloaded by UK AAIB Farnborough,
• 3774 days since UN high commissioner for human rights said It is imperative that a prompt, thorough, effective, independent and impartial investigation be conducted into this event. and
• 3757 days since the criminal investigation was "in full swing"  

Sub-Pages

Page Name	Size	Description
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/ATC lost contact confirmed	653	MAS confirms it received notification from Ukrainian ATC that it had lost contact with MH17
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Competing theories	54,151	competing theories as to why and how Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 came to its tragic end.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Criminal Investigation	8,851	The investigation into the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/First altitude change	175	Just prior to entering Ukrainian airspace, the flight climbed to FL330 (33,000 ft)
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/First reports of crash	202	First reports come from an "aviation source" quoted by the Russian Interfax news agency
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Last ADS-B contact	579	Last contact by the ADS-B (Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast) of flight tracking web sites.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Leaves departure gate	234	Aircraft leaves the departure gate at Amsterdam's Schipol airport
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Russia's questions to Ukraine	9,998	Questions addressed to the Ukraine authorities by the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian Air Transport Agency .
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17/Takeoff	173	The aircraft became airborne from Schipol runway 36C

Background

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MH17 crash site

The aircraft was flying over an area of vicious fighting in the civil war between the western-backed, coup-imposed Kiev Junta of Petro Poroshenko and dissident, Russian-speaking areas of Eastern Ukraine. Wreckage of the aircraft settled in a dissident-controlled area close to the city of Donetsk.

The civil war in Ukraine is symptomatic of the conflict between the Anglo-US-NATO global hegemony agenda that requires the subjugation of Russia - pursued through relentless Eastward expansion - and the Russia-BRICS resistance to this agenda. The information war surrounding the fate of Flight MH17 reflects this reality and is as intense as that surrounding 9-11. In these circumstances it is inconceivable that both Russia and Anglo-US-NATO were not deploying all the technical surveillance means at their disposal on the Eastern Ukraine region. It is therefore almost certain that both have comprehensive data, satellite images and recordings of voice traffic between the MH17 and the Ukraine ATC's, quite apart from the routine recordings of the Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk ATC facilities themselves, which the Kiev authorities immediately took possession of. As of 17 August 2014, only Russia has released any of this kind of information.

Concurrent NATO exercises

NATO exercise Sea Breeze, involving US and other NATO warships in the Black Sea, ran from 10-21 July 2014 and included "commercial aircraft monitoring" using the AN/SPY1 radar of the AEGIS-Class cruiser USS Vela Gulf. Also present in Ukraine were 200 US Army personnel, normally stationed in Germany, as part of the concurrent NATO exercise Rapid Trident.

Siberia Airlines Flight 1812

On 4 October 2001, in an incident now barely remembered in the West, Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 - a commercial airliner carrying 78 passengers and crew - was shot down by the Ukrainian military over the Black Sea whilst en route from Tel Aviv, Israel to Novosibirsk, Russia, killing all on board. The then Ukrainian government of Leonid Kuchma initially denied any involvement in the loss of the aircraft but was eventually forced by indisputable evidence to admit that it had in fact been accidentally shot down during a military exercise

Cause

According to the long-awaited Preliminary Report by The Dutch Safety Board into the cause of the crash, little information of any significance was added:
There are no indications that the MH17 crash was caused by a technical fault or by actions of the crew.

The cockpit voice recorder, the flight data recorder and data from air traffic control all suggest that flight MH17 proceeded as normal until 13:20:03 (UTC), after which it ended abruptly. A full listening of the communications among the crew members in the cockpit recorded on the cockpit voice recorder revealed no signs of any technical faults or an emergency situation. Neither were any warning tones heard in the cockpit that might have pointed to technical problems. The flight data recorder registered no aircraft system warnings, and aircraft engine parameters were consistent with normal operation during the flight. The radio communications with Ukrainian air traffic control confirm that no emergency call was made by the cockpit crew. The final calls by Ukrainian air traffic control made between 13.20:00 and 13.22:02 (UTC) remained unanswered.

The pattern of wreckage on the ground suggests that the aircraft split into pieces during flight (an in-flight break up). Based on the available maintenance history the airplane was airworthy when it took off from Amsterdam and there were no known technical problems. The aircraft was manned by a qualified and experienced crew.

Pattern of damage

As yet it has not been possible to conduct a detailed study of the wreckage. However, the available images show that the pieces of wreckage were pierced in numerous places. The pattern of damage to the aircraft fuselage and the cockpit is consistent with that which may be expected from a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside. It’s likely that this damage resulted in a loss of structural integrity of the aircraft, leading to an in-flight break up. This also explains the abrupt end to the data registration on the recorders, the simultaneous loss of contact with air traffic control and the aircraft's disappearance from radar.

Further investigation

In its preliminary report, the Safety Board presents the initial findings of an investigation that is still fully underway. More research will be necessary to determine more precisely what caused the crash and how the airplane disintegrated. The Board believes that additional evidence will become available in the period ahead. From this point on, the research team will start working towards producing the definitive investigation report. The Board aims to publish the report within one year of the date of the crash.

Procedure

The draft preliminary report has been sent to the Accredited Representative of the states that participate in the investigation (Malaysia, Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Australia) for review. All Accredited Representatives have sent a reaction. The Dutch Safety Board assessed the provided suggestions and amended the report where appropriate.

• The Dutch Safety Board is bound to international regulations that are set out in the ICAO agreement. One of these regulations prescribes that a draft of the final report must be presented for feedback to all parties which are formally involved. These parties then have sixty days to respond to the draft, after which the Dutch Safety Board must incorporate their feedback. With the mass of the western public having already been very effectively stampeded to the conclusion that Russia/Putin did it, western interests are best served by delaying any evidence to the contrary for as long as possible - and obfuscating any such evidence from other sources; which is precisely what is happening.

Contributions

Donetsk People's Republic

800 volunteers carried out an intensive search and many bodies were recovered. The black-boxes were handed over to Malaysian officials. Residents came to hand in the personal belongings of victims, and statements were taken from some people. "It appears that they did so with great care and sensitivity" (said Dutch PM). "We are grateful for their help and the respect they showed." Early on, the search team found significant quantities of human remains, mainly in the vicinity of the poultry farm. These were transported immediately to the Netherlands, where the process of identification will now continue. In addition, there are a total of 10 one-cubic-meter packages filled with personal belongings. These include items of great significance to the victims' loved ones, such as photo albums, cameras, jewelry, diaries, passports and cuddly toys.

Actual weather conditions at 12:00

MH17 shootdown graphic from US intelligence report (not included in the preliminary official report)

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Russia

Primary surveillance radar recorded by Russian surveillance aids and secondary surveillance radar (SSR/Mode S).

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Ukraine

The NBAAI (National Bureau of Air Accidents Investigation of Ukraine) made some short visits to the site between 19-21 July and took photographs of items of wreckage. UkSATSE (Ukrainian State Air Traffic Services Enterprise) provided a graphic of the route of MH17 and other civilian aircraft in the area at the time plus recordings/transcripts between MH17<->UkSATSE and Russian ATC <->UkSATSE. It is worth noting that primary surveillance radar was supplied by the Russian Federation. So Ukrainian-supplied ATC-data was limited to what was available by other means:

A graphic which can easily be derived from internet sources

UkSATSE<->MH17 radio conversations that were available from the cockpit voice recorder anyway.

UkSATSE<-> Russian ATC telephone conversations that the Russian Federation would have had anyway.

The only significant differences made to the crash investigation, by Ukrainian authorities, were in confiscating ATC data and holding back the investigators in Kiev, for several days, whilst they bombed and shelled around the crash site where bodies were rotting in the fields.

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USA

If any information was supplied by the USA (fiscal 2013 intelligence budget: $68bn ) then it does not appear to have been incorporated into the Preliminary Report.

Criminal Investigation

According to a BBC report of 17 August 2014, because two-thirds of the 298 people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 were from the Netherlands, the Dutch have taken the lead in identifying the bodies, trying to establish what caused the crash and running the criminal investigation. Wim de Bruin from the Dutch prosecution service, who has been dealing with press inquiries from all over the world as passengers from 10 different countries were on board Flight MH17, said:

"Never before have we had a murder case with so many victims."

Ten Dutch prosecutors and 200 police officers are involved in gathering and preparing the evidence for a criminal trial. There are three main questions about the eventual MH17 trial:

1. Where will it be conducted?

2. What crimes will the accused be charged with?

3. How long before we see the suspects in court?

The Dutch prosecutors are still in the initial stages of the criminal investigation, but they have already dismissed speculation that the trial could be held at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The ICC only takes cases if countries are unable or unwilling to prosecute. The Dutch are willing and able.

Under the current plan, the suspects would be extradited to face trial at the District Court in The Hague. But extradition would require the host country's co-operation, once the suspects are identified. Wim de Bruin says they are considering "several grounds and possibilities" concerning the charges:

"Of course murder, but we also have the crime of 'wrecking an airplane' and we could use international criminal law - that would mean possible charges of war crimes, torture and genocide."

In the absence of any progress in the criminal investigation, the media only has speculation and theory to work with, such as:

Crime theory 1: the Ukrainians did it

The origins for this are the dissidents and Russian authorities. Western media has given this no cosideration whatsoever, in spite of the fact that they are the most likely culprits: they were the only ones known to have the means to bring down an aircraft at this altitude in the area at the time.

MH17 would be the second downing of a civilian aircraft by a Surface to Air Missile fired from Ukrainian territory. The other one being when Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 (a commercial flight) was shot down by the Ukrainian military over the Black Sea on 4 October 2001. Ukraine banned the testing of Buk, S-300 and similar missile systems for a period of 7 years following this incident. Ukraine’s acting Defense Minister Ihor Tenyukh described the combat readiness of the country’s armed forces as “unsatisfactory” in his 12 March 2014 report to the acting president. Tenyukh said recent exercises demonstrated a “dismal degree of preparedness among servicemen and lack of military specialists, equipment and weapons” in the Ground Forces, the Air Force and the Navy. The country’s air defense troops had received little training because of the 2001 ban on missile launches imposed after the crash of a Russian Tu-154 passenger jet. The ban was lifted in 2008, but so far only 10 percent of Air Defense Forces servicemen “have mastered the required level of theory and practice,” the report said. . The Ukrainian military had several batteries of Buk surface-to-air missile systems with at least 27 launchers, capable of bringing down high-flying jets, in the Donetsk region where the Malaysian passenger plane crashed, Russian Defense Ministry said .

Ukrainian Forces BUKs in the area

Ukrainian Forces BUK column

Still from a video taken in March 2014, when Ukrainian media reported the country’s military was concentrating air defenses closer to the Russian border to repel an “invasion”. Includes Kiev air-defense system no. 312.

Sergey Paschenko

Captioned by TheDaily Mail as: "Is this the smoking gun? This picture has emerged of a pro-Russian rebel posing in front of the same type of BUK missile launcher that is believed to have shot down MH17" Though, actually, it is a Ukrainian Army conscript guarding Ukrainian Army Buks.

Buks on Ukraine Military TV

Broadcast the evening prior to MH 17: a Buk-system in training/preparation - complete with radar.

321 at night

On July 19 Kiev’s Security Service (SBU) published photos online it claimed showed ‘Russia’ secretly withdrawing a BUK-M (NATO designation SA-11) surface-to-air missile system from the Ukraine civil war zone. Shortly after publishing this article, the photo in question was deleted. The photo was actually a still from video of a Kiev air-defense system no. 312, filmed in March this year at Yasinovataya, north of Donetsk. Buk #312 is mounted on a civilian transporter.

Confiscated ATC data

Shortly after the crash, Ukraine's SBU security service confiscated recordings of conversations between Ukrainian air traffic control officers and the crew of the doomed airliner

Ukraine's ambassador to Malaysia Ihor Humennyi, in an exclusive interview with the New Straits Times, said that reports alleging that the SBU had seized the recordings had not been independently verified or confirmed by Kiev.

“There is no proof or any evidence that the tapes were confiscated by the SBU. I only read this in the newspapers.”

• Note that this is not, strictly speaking a denial that the SBU had seized the recordings.

Asked if the tapes had been handed over to the investigators, Humennyi said: “We don’t have any information that it had not been given to the investigation team or that it was not received by the (team of international) investigators". Humennyi said that if a formal request was made by Malaysia or the international investigation team, Ukraine would extend its cooperation. At one point, Humennyi seemed to question the significance of the ATC tapes, saying that “it is just the same as the flight data and cockpit voice recorders”.

In this matter, he seems to have been badly-briefed:

• The CVR will only reveal what ATC said to MH17, not conversations with other aircraft in the area (or show that there weren't any). Ukrainian radar data will also show what (if any) other aircraft were in the area.
• All aviation frequencies are under the control of the FIR sector - not just the ones in regular use. See here for some common civvy ones in Ukraine or here (and search for Kiev) to find 22 military ones.
• An accident investigation HAS to consider ALL possibilities - including what OTHER aircraft were in the area. Only ATC data can help with that - The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) won't.

Humennyi said that "if a formal request was made by Malaysia or the international investigation team, Ukraine would extend its cooperation".

• This doesn't exactly appear to be acting in the spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 2166, or in accordance with standard aircraft-accident investigation procedures. It is normal to impound the ATC recordings, obligatory actually, but it should be done by those authorised/certified to do so (in this case authorised/certified by the EASA, probably). What's not normal is confiscation by security services. This evidence is now so tainted that - even if it ever were handed over - it would be of doubtful value.

Continued bombing/shelling of crash site area

In spite of UN Security Council Resolution 2166 demanding the cessation of all combat action in the area, Kiev decided to suspend the ceasefire at the crash site. The Kiev government said it was ready to extend the ceasefire near the crash site upon receiving a request from a multinational commission investigating the disaster..

• Again, this was not acting in the spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 2166.

Crime theory 2: the Russians did it

The origins for this are the US State Department and the authorities in Kiev, but only as fall-back position once Crime theory 3 fell apart. Evidence comes from the Ukrainian authorities (themselves the prime suspects) and the USA which spent $5 billion installing this puppet-regime in Kiev.

On 08 Sep 204, Bellingcat claimed "New evidence has been found that shows the Buk missile system that was used to shoot down MH17 on the 17th of July came from Russia, and was most likely operated by Russian soldiers.".

The first source quoted for there being a Russian BUK in Ukraine is a Paris-Match photo in the suburbs of Donetsk in the morning of 17 July. Russian satellite images show several BUK systems in the Donetsk area prior to MH17 but Bellingcat does not appear to have geolocated these or the Paris-Match video-frame.

Full article here via GoogleTranslate published July 25, 2014 | Updated July 29, 2014

Transporter-loaded BUK on the H21 main road from Donetsk to Torez. From YouTube Published on Jul 17, 2014, supposedly filmed at 11:40am on July 17th, geolocated to 48.017050,38.301678 by Bellingcat (about 25km and 50 minutes from the next photo-op in Torez at 48.02448,38.61451):

Note that it is on what appears to be the same civilian transporter, on a sunny day.

A photograph, allegedly "made at the time of launching rockets in the vicinity. Between Torez and Snizhne, which should be clearly visible inversion missiles, which shot down "Boeing-777" ... (interpreted from none-too clear GoogleTranslate Ukrainian-to-English translation) was released by the Ukraine Security Service. Note the clear conditions compared to the actual conditions at the time MH17 was shot down.

A BBC film crew went to locate this location and had the following to say:

"To find the place from which the smoke was allegedly coming from, we adopted as markers these three poplars and the group of trees. Presumably, this is the place that can be seen on the photograph published by the SBU. And here are our markers: the three solitary poplars and the small group of trees in the distance. The smoke that can be seen on the photograph came from somewhere over there [pointing behind her], behind my back. The SBU believes that this is a trace coming from the launch of a “BUK” missile. However, it must be noted that there are here, approximately in the same place, the Saur-Mogila memorial, near which the fighting continues almost unabated, and a coalmine. It turns out that the smoke with the same degree of probability could have been coming from any of these locations."

This BBC report was deleted shortly afterwards but later reinstated in edited format. See: BBC Russia MH17 report

Based on the BBC report, the launch is alleged to have occurred around here, which is about 30km from the nearest Russian border checkpoint, in Marynivki, avoiding major roads (geolocated photo).

Early the following morning, it is alleged to have been in Luhansk (by The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine/Bellingcat) and heading towards the Russian border, which is not the ideal route for getting from Torez to Russia. The Paris-Match caption for this photo says "The same truck photographed at dawn on Friday, July 18, 2014 by a surveillance camera in the city of Krasnodon, close to the Russian border, according to this image circulated by the Ukrainian intelligence." Krasnodon is in the Oblast of Luhansk, about 40km SE of Luhansk city. The civilian transporter is just passing a Bogdan Auto billboard. It appears to be the same truck.

On July 22, Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov, gave the exact coordinates of the video’s location: separatist-held Luhansk, about a 45-minute drive from Krasnodon. as 48.545760°, 39.264622°map (about 70 metres from where this photo was taken) 1.5km off the nearest M04 junction and heading towards Kiev-controlled areas: 7km from Roskoshnoye (which was "Claimed by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence to be liberated from separatist forces as of July 14") and 21 km from Luhansk Airport (which was not abandoned by Ukrainian forces until September 1)[1].

It is shown on a civilian transporter, whereas those shown in Russia are on military transporters. The BUK has a white patch on its right-hand side and no railings - like one seen in Russia in June: basically, that's it.

On July 19 Kiev’s Security Service (SBU) published photos online that it claimed showed ‘Russia’ secretly withdrawing a BUK-M (NATO designation SA-11) surface-to-air missile system from the Ukraine civil war zone. At the time SBU Chief Vitaly Naida declared to a mute press“The SBU has taken measures within the investigation and is getting clear evidence of Russian citizens’ involvement in the terrorist attack (on the Malaysian Airlines Boeing)”.

However, bloggers immediately spotted the photos were of a Kiev air-defense system no. 312, previously pictured in March this year, when several BUK-M systems were filmed at Yasinovataya, north of Donetsk. The Ukrainian "evidence" photos show a single missile launch vehicle, whereas a Buk-M complex consists of at least three vehicles: missile launcher, radar and command vehicle. Ideally, a transporter loader vehicle would also form part of the system. This Ukraine SBU "evidence" shows two different transporters (with and without a blue flash on the cab. With one of the two photos (obviously faked and later removed) being submitted by the Ukraine SBU as "evidence", Bellingcat would reasonably have been expected to question the first one.

Crime theory 3: the dissidents did it

The origins for this are the US State Department and the authorities in Kiev. Once this theory fell apart, they moved on to Crime theory 2: "the Russians did it". It failed because the dissidents didn't have the means to carry it out. Even so, the western media still persists with this.

ITAR-TASS reported in June that Donetsk defence forces seized BUK missile defence systems from an army unit operating in the region, a point repeated and echoed by NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Philip Breedlove in a Pentagon press briefing on 30 June 2014. However, this was directly contradicted on 18 July 2014 by Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Vitaly Yarema, who told Ukrainian Pravda that militias do not have access to BUK delivery systems or S-300s.

On 19 July 2014, Ukrainian intelligence posted what they claimed to be intercepted communications showing Dissident' responsibility for the downing of MH17 along with an English transcript. Numerous alternative media sources claimed that the creation timestamp on the video indicates it was created before the crash took place.

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See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbyZYgSXdyw - but here are some extracts that highlight some discrepancies:

17.07.2014 4:40pm: "We have just shot down a plane. That was 'Miner's' group. It fell down outside Enakievo"

(That would be Enakievo, Yenakijeve, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine - over 30km from where MH17 went down) 48.219, 38.216

- "Pilots. Where are the pilots?"

- "Set off to search for the shot down plane. A plume of smoke is visible."

- "How many minutes ago?"

- "about 30 minutes ago" (from 4:40pm)

ie: about 10-15 minutes before MH17 actually hit the ground.

The video then goes on to say:

"Having inspected the scene of the airplane crash, terrorist decided that they had shot down a civil aircraft."

4:33pm: ... "so that were those from Cherukinsk who shot down the plane. From Chernukhin checkpoint, cossacs that are nearby Chernukhino." (48.330, 38.487)

Note

Enakievo and Chernukhino are about 45km away from where US satellite and other intel put the launcher (Snizhne) and that the time is now 7 minutes before they reported the shooting down and set off to look for the wreckage.

5:11pm and onwards: discussion of MH17

• Shaun Walker of The Guardian - a journalist that actually got to speak with Igor Bezler - had the following to report on the subject:

"If the Ukrainian security services, the SBU, are to be believed, the Demon and a group of his men were responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over the region a fortnight ago. . .According to the recording of a phone call allegedly made two minutes before the disaster, the Demon was told: “A bird is flying towards you.” He asked whether it was small or big, and was told that it was hard to see, as it was flying high above the clouds. In another recording, apparently made 20 minutes later, the Demon reported to his interlocutor, supposedly a Russian intelligence official, that a plane had been shot down. Bezler said the recording was real, but referred to a different incident: as well as allegedly bringing down MH17, the rebels have shot down 10 Ukrainian aircraft. . . . We left hastily, and I never did get to ask the Demon about his alleged role in shooting down MH17." Shaun Walker in Gorlovka

The previous day, an Su-25 was shot down at around 7 p.m.(local) . . . while "performing tasks in the area of Amvrosiivka city" (according to Ukrainian authorities). Though the Militia timings put it somewhere between 16:35 and 17:40 . It appears that this incident, from the previous day, was spliced onto the MH17 discussion by the SBU.

Rebel commander Igor "Strelkov" Girkin said two Su-25 planes had been downed during fighting at the Marinivka border crossing. The Information Centre of the militia of the Donbass claimed that two Ukrainian Air Force Su-25s were hit by DNR militias . It was reported that one of the planes was shot down from the portable missile systems near Gorlovki (48.310,38.047). The other one left towards the airfield in Mirhorod (49.93086,33.6437) heavily smoking.

Ukraine also claimed that a post appeared on the social media account of rebel commander Igor Strelkov exactly 35 minutes after the crash appearing to take credit for the downing. Subsequent reporting, however, pointed out that the post was ambiguously worded and the social media account in question may not be run by Strelkov at all.

Unanimity at the UN

UNSC's moment of silence for MH17 victims

On Monday 21 July 2014, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) unanimously adopted Resolution 2166 calling for a full and independent investigation into the crash of Flight MH17 and demanding that international officials are given safe access the crash site. The UNSC’s five permanent members are China, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia. Its ten non-permanent members at the time of the vote are Argentina, Australia, Chad, Chile, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Nigeria, South Korea and Rwanda.

Deafening American Silence

The deafening silence of the US media and government about the investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 reeks of a cover-up. In the hours and days immediately after the crash, without a single shred of evidence, US officials alleged that the passenger jet was shot down by an SA-11 ground-to-air missile fired from pro-Russian separatist-held territory in eastern Ukraine. They launched a political campaign to obtain harsh economic sanctions against Russia and strengthen NATO’s military posture in Eastern Europe.

Picking up on the scent, the CIA attack-dogs in the US and European media blamed the crash squarely on Russian President Vladimir Putin. The cover of the July 28 print edition of German news magazine Der Spiegel showed the images of MH17 victims surrounding bold red text reading "Stoppt Putin Jetzt!" (Stop Putin Now!). A July 26 editorial in the Economist declared Putin to be the author of MH17’s destruction, while the magazine ghoulishly superimposed Putin’s face over a spider web on its front cover, denouncing Putin’s "web of lies".

Anyone comparing the media’s demonisation of Putin with their treatment of Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi had to conclude that Washington was launching a campaign for regime change in Russia like those it carried out in Libya and Iraq — this time, recklessly pushing the United States towards war with a nuclear-armed power, Russia.

Having built up the crash into a casus belli against Russia, however, the US media suddenly dropped the matter completely. The New York Times has not found it fit to print a word on the MH17 crash since August 7. There is no innocent explanation for the sudden disappearance of MH17 from the media and political spotlight. The aircraft's black box download-data has been held by the Dutch Safety Board for weeks, and US and Russian spy satellites and military radar were intensively scanning east Ukraine at the time of the crash. The claim that Washington does not have detailed knowledge of the circumstances of the crash and the various forces involved is not credible. If the evidence that is in Washington’s hands incriminated only Russia and the Russian-backed forces, it would have been released to feed the media frenzy against Putin. If it has not been released, this is because the evidence points to the involvement of the Ukrainian regime in Kiev and its backers in Washington and the European capitals.

Responsibility

Alternative Positions

Some airlines avoided overflying Eastern Ukraine

In a statement issued late in the day on 17 July 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

"I want to note that this tragedy would not have happened if there were peace on this land, if the military actions had not been renewed in southeast Ukraine. And, certainly, the state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy."

A report originally posted to Russia Today shortly after the downing suggested that the real target of the missile might have been President Putin’s plane, which was said to have been scheduled to fly over the exact same airspace as MH17 less than an hour after it was shot down. This claim has since been retracted and RT has noted that Putin has been avoiding Ukrainian airspace altogether since the recent coup in Kiev.

According to a report circulating widely in the alternative media, a Spanish air traffic controller working in the Ukraine on 17 July 2014 tweeted a series of messages indicating that the Ukrainian military shot down the flight and that "Kiev authorities" and "foreigners" subsequently took over the civilian air traffic control center overseeing the disputed airspace in an apparent cover-up. The twitter account (@spainbuca) of the alleged air traffic controller, "Carlos," was then reportedly removed. [UPDATE: Global Research is now reporting that this story is likely fake and that sources indicate the tweets were being sent out of London.]

But where is the evidence?

Flight MH17 victims' coffins transported by military aircraft from Ukraine to the Netherlands

Even before a proper investigation has been conducted on the downing of MH17, Washington has laid blame on Russia. But where is the evidence? On 23 July 2014, Russia Today's Peter Lavelle hosted a video conference with:

Alexander Mercouris, legal expert and analyst;

Christopher Walker, former bureau chief of the Times in Moscow;

Mark Sleboda, international affairs and security analyst; and,

Andrew Liakhov, a leading aviation lawyer and a specialist in aviation security.

This is the concluding comment (from Mark Sleboda):

"I have to say that I don’t expect any black and white answer to come out of these investigations whatsoever. Even the BBC reported off-hand in their timeline that in the immediate hours after the crash the Ukrainian regime intelligence services confiscated the air traffic control records in Kiev. I do not believe that the delay of the real international inspectors in Kiev for four days – four days when bodies lay rotting in the field - so that in the end, they had to be moved before the inspectors actually got there! I don’t believe it’s a coincidence.

"From the very first hours after the crash the Ukrainian regime has done everything possible to militarily exploit the crash and launch new devastating offences on Eastern Ukraine. New tanks, airstrikes, heavy artillery, some of them in Donetsk while international inspectors – three Dutch forensics investigators - were in Donetsk trying to get to the crash site.

"The tragedy – MH17, the 300 victims – there is no taking away from that! It is no less a tragedy what is happening to the people in East Ukraine right now. This is directly being completely blacked out and ignored by the Western press!

"In the last four days alone, 300 innocent civilians, not even counting self-defence, have been killed by the Ukrainian regime’s military… That is an equal number. Are their lives somehow of less value than the lives of the people on that plane? No!"

Why has Yatsenyuk really resigned?

Former PM of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk

On 24 July 2014, John Goss posted this article to his blog:

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Ukrainian prime minister, who was leading the fascists, Pravy Sector and Svoboda party coalition, that ousted Viktor Yakunovych in a coup d'état, resigned yesterday, Thursday. His ostensible reason for resigning was, he said, due to the breakup of the coalition and the non-adoption of certain bills he had backed. Yes, well, you have to say something when you go. So what is the real reason behind his resignation?

While at this stage nobody properly knows it has been a week of intense activity in Ukraine, not least due to the shooting down of the MH17 Malaysian passenger plane which killed all the passengers on board. This has overshadowed most other news worldwide. It is an odd time to resign, when an investigation into who brought down the plane is ongoing. The time to resign would have been before the plane was downed.

Reading between the lines does Yatsenyuk know something the rest of us do not? Radar tracking images presented by Russia indicate a military jet was accompanying the passenger plane until shortly before MH17 was attacked. Satellite images raise many questions too. Is Yatsenyuk's real reason for resigning because he is a lawyer and knows that those responsible for this deliberate act of criminality are quite likely to face justice and the full measure of international law when the truth emerges?

A tragedy that should have never happened

Wreckage of Flight MH17 near the village of Petropavlivka, Donetsk region, 24 July 2014

According to Peter Lavelle, there is a real civil war being fought in Ukraine. The fabric of social life is collapsing and war crimes are being committed. The downing of Malaysian flight MH17 is a tragedy that should have never happened. These are all facts and almost all of us in media covering this conflict can find common agreement regarding these points. Sadly, this is where agreement comes to an end. Ukraine’s calamity is victim of an information war and propaganda. I can’t think of a better example of this than from my appearance on CNN’s "News Day" being questioned by Chris Cuomo. Commentary on our encounter to date describes it as a "battle," "shouting match," and a "brawl." All of these appellations apply if one only focuses on how the "interview" appeared in form. What is more important - and not commented on - is the content of the "give and take" slug match.

Being the interviewer, Cuomo from the outset forcefully attempted to frame the interview – and that framing was to blame Russia for the downing of MH17. He appealed to emotion using moral indignation. I refused to participate in his charade. In fact, I was determined to rely on facts as much as possible. This is what generated all the fireworks.

As soon as it was reported that MH17 was brought down, Western media immediately pointed the finger of blame at Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Over the next few days, media outlets went into a hysteric frenzy portraying Russia in the most horrific fashion. This is not particularly new – Western media is well known for its anti-Russian editorial lines. What I found extremely distressing this time around was that this hysteric frenzy was unleashed based on little or any facts to draw conclusions about MH17. Cuomo, CNN, and other Western media outlets again committed massive journalistic malpractice.

My take coming away from the interview was Cuomo conducted himself like a "drama queen" appealing to emotions and probably his sense of moral justice. However, emotions and any sense moral justice are not substitutes for facts. As journalists it is incumbent on us to report on the facts and only the facts. Cuomo appeared unable to marshal basic facts about what has been happening Ukraine over the past half year.

He also appeared unable to put the tragedy of MN17 into context. This constitutes epic failure on the part of CNN. Additionally, Cuomo’s fixation on my place of employment was a cheap shot and a desperate attempt to "shoot the messenger", because the "message" challenged the mainstream media’s hastily assembled narrative on Ukraine in general. I work at RT as host of the debate program called "CrossTalk." Unlike CNN, at "CrossTalk" we have real and often very heated debate. As host of the program I may not like or agree with a guest’s point of view, but all points of view are given a fair hearing. And ad hominem attacks are not allowed.

Lastly, I am convinced I was asked to appear on CNN for the sole purpose of discrediting RT and myself. Well, it backfired and badly so.

Cuomo’s performance was sketchy, his knowledge questionable, and his professional responsibly to establish facts absent. To sum up my experience with CNN, I propose readers and viewers answer the following questions: Who uses tragedy to fight an information war? Who is the propagandist willing to say anything to frame a story?

Victims

All 283 passengers and 15 crew died. The crew were Malaysian and of the passengers, 193 were Dutch nationals, 43 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians and 10 British.

Among the passengers were delegates en route to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, including Joep Lange, a former president of the International AIDS Society, which organised the conference. Many initial reports erroneously indicated 100 attendees of the conference were aboard but this was later revised to six. Some have suggested that the researchers may have been planning a high profile questioning of the origins of AIDS, and drawn a parallel with the head of the WHO's AIDS programme, Jonathan Mann, who also died in a plane crash (Swissair 111). Also on board were Dutch senator Willem Witteveen, Australian author Liam Davison, and Malaysian actress Shuba Jay.

Jane Burgermeister attempted to bring legal proceedings against the WHO in connection with bird flu. She reports that the WHO media coordinator whom she emailed in 2009, Glenn Thomas, was a passenger on flight MH17.

At least twenty family groups were on board the aircraft, and eighty of the passengers were children. An Australian family lost relatives on both MH17 and Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared four months earlier.

Support for the families

On 23 July 2014, Dr Jim Swire wrote an article in The Telegraph advising the MH17 relatives to form a support group:

After Lockerbie, there was no support group, no protocol and many mistakes were made. We were kept in the dark by the authorities and treated insensitively by politicians and the media. It took many years of persistence to feel we had achieved any level of justice.

I would advise the families of MH17 victims to form a group, perhaps taking advice from the charity "Disaster Action", which was established in 1991 by relatives in the aftermath of Lockerbie and other tragedies. They need to appoint a legal counsel and a spokesman. They must insist on being kept informed at every stage of the investigation.

Some relatives will want justice, others to forget, but some may demand revenge. I will never forget being approached at the Lockerbie trial by another relative who suggested that the answer was "to nuke Tripoli". This hunger for retribution will stalk some lives in the months and years to come, but it will only damage them.

Incredibly to some, the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi became my friend before he died. I had come to believe firmly that he was innocent of any involvement. It helped my grieving process.

But first, for the traumatised families of the victims of MH17, the bodies must be recovered and returned home. Then the truth must come out. After that, their healing can begin.

Concluding a lengthy interview with John Humphrys on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme on 24 July 2014, Dr Swire said:

I worked for the BBC for 18 months and learned about electronics so I knew a lot about the mechanics of how the disaster had been caused. What I didn’t understand was the way that politicians work. And my experience now is that they work to augment or protect their own power rather than to discover the real truth. What the MH17 relatives need is the truth, the whole truth delivered promptly and unequivocally to them. And to do that, they would be in a better position, I think, if they form a group to whom that truth can be delivered.

Suggested Motives

Tony Gosling has suggested that if may not be coincidence that two recent commercial airliners downed were both Malaysian. He notes that Malaysia has been one of the staunchest opponents of the US government's "war on terror", and suggests that the plane's misfortunes may be a form of intimidation.

Others have noted that the disaster, came right after Putin heralded the beginning of the long-awaited BRICS Development Bank. This theory posits that the crash was staged by the US/EU/NATO or other powers as part of a proxy war taking place in the "new cold war" between Russia (one of the key players in an organisation that is seen as a key rival to the so-called "Washington Consensus" institutions, the IMF and the World Bank) and the US.

In the Panorama docudrama "Putin's Gamble", first broadcast on BBC1 on 8 September 2014, presenter Jon Sweeney interviewed Ukrainian intelligence officer Vitaly Nyada who ascribed this astounding motive for the MH17 shoot-down:

"Russia meant to target one of its own aircraft, as a pretext for invading Ukraine, but shot down the Malaysian jet by mistake."

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Mahathir Mohamad	“The conclusions of the Joint Investigation Team that there's a clear link with Russia is hearsay. We as Malaysians are very unhappy because it became a political case from the start just to be able to accuse Russia of wrongdoing.”	Mahathir Mohamad	2019

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:MH-17 Mystery: A New Tonkin Gulf Case?	article	17 July 2015	Robert Parry	A First anniversary retrospective drawing a compelling parallel with the 'Gulf of Tonkin incident' which became the casus belli for the Vietnam war.
Document:MH-17 Slips into propaganda fog	article	9 July 2015	Robert Parry	Almost a year ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine killing 298 people. Yet, instead of a transparent investigation seeking justice, the case became a propaganda game of finger-pointing, with the CIA withholding key evidence all the better to blame Russia
Document:MH17 And Other Traps To Avoid	article	25 August 2015	Christopher Black	A follow-up to the author's article of 2 August 2015 on the same subject. The continuing propaganda and barefaced dishonesty of western politicians and media over the tragedy of MH17
Document:MH17 Tribunal. The Trap Russia Avoided	article	2 August 2015	Christopher Black	The trap being set by the July 2015 UK-proposed UNSC resolution to establish a UN Tribunal to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner - by an author with coal-face experience of these things
Document:Obama Should Release MH-17 Intel	Memorandum	22 July 2015	Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity	US Intelligence Officials Demand that Obama Release MH-17 Intel
Document:Propaganda, Intelligence and MH-17	article	17 August 2015	Ray McGovern	Propaganda is the life-blood of life-destroying wars, and the U.S. government has reached new heights (or depths) in this art of perception management. A case in point is the media manipulation around last year’s Malaysia Airlines shoot-down over Ukraine, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
Document:United Nations Security Council Resolution 2166	legal document	21 July 2014	United Nations Security Council
File:How MH17 was shot down.pdf	technical analysis	5 March 2015	Colonel Cassad	An updated analysis of how Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down and taking account of developments up to 4 March 2015
File:MH17 Report by Russian Union of Engineers.pdf	report	15 August 2014	Russian Union of Engineers	Analysis and report by the Russian Union of Engineers into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 0n 17 July 2014
File:MH17 preliminary report.pdf	report	9 September 2014	Dutch Safety Board staff	The preliminary report by the Dutch Safety Board into the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on 17 July 2014
File:MH17Analysis.pdf	technical analysis	6 August 2014	Anonymous	Persuasive MH17 crash analysis demonstrating that, IF the aircraft was brought down by a 'Buk' SAM, then the missile could NOT have been fired from territory controlled by the DPR militia
File:Report-mh17-crash-en.pdf	report	13 October 2013	Dutch Safety Board	Dutch Safety Board report into the MH17 disaster

 

The Official Culprit

Name	Description
Russia	The largest nation state in the world

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External Links

• Dutch Government - Dutch Government MH17 press releases.
• Dutch Safety Board - Dutch Safety Board (crash investigation) MH17 press releases.
• Dutch Public Prosecutor's Office - Dutch Public Prosecutor's Office press releases (via Google translate). Need to scroll down to find any MH17-related statements.
• slavyangrad.org - Local military briefings for the area around MH17 crash site.