Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (flight)

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17
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.

A Boeing 777-200 passenger plane, operating as Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, crashed at Grabove 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.

At the point of last contact it was flying 1000 feet above airspace that had been restricted as a result of ongoing fighting in the area. Malaysia Airlines reported that MH17 filed a flight plan requesting FL350 throughout Ukrainian airspace. However, the flight was instructed by Ukrainian air traffic control to fly at FL330.

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Timelines here
It is now:

• 3782 days since the crash, and
• 3775 days since the data from flight recorders was downloaded by UK AAIB Farnborough

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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

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

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 plane’s black box has been held in Britain for examination 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.

Preliminary Report by End August

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."

A team of 25 air crash investigators is trying to establish what destroyed the plane. Experts from Ukraine, Russia, Germany, the UK, Australia, Malaysia and the United States are working at the Dutch Safety Board headquarters in The Hague. Normally with any aviation investigation they would start at the crash site, but counter-terrorism experts feared the presence of aviation investigators might jeopardise the forensic team's efforts to recover the bodies, so they have been forced to rely on alternative sources of evidence. Wim van der Wegen from the Dutch Safety Board says they already have enough to prepare a preliminary report:

"We are using the voice recorder, the black box flight data recorder, satellite images, information from air traffic control and photos taken by people who were able to visit crash site."

They expect to publish the preliminary report within two weeks. It will not attribute blame or liability.

Responsibility

Ukraine's Position

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 Russian 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.

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.

The Ukraine security service also published a video on 18 July 2014 purporting to show the actual BUK missile launcher used to bring down the plane being shuttled back across the border from Ukraine to Russia. Despite the fact that there is no confirmation from any source when, where or how this video was taken, or whether it in fact shows a BUK system on a Russian transport vehicle, it has been uncritically reported on in much of the western press.

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.

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.

 

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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