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Sunday 20 July 2014

Out of the area of responsibility: Was Malaysian Boeing shot down by Ukrainian Buk?

Vasiliy Sychov
Lenta.ru

Translated by sott.net 

Passenger Boeing 777 2H6ER of Malaysia Airlines crashed in Ukraine near the village Grabovo 50 kilometers from the Russian border. All 283 passengers and 15 crew members were killed in the plane crash. Shortly after becoming aware of the accident, many sources suggested that B777 was hit by anti-aircraft missile system. Media also quoted eyewitnesses who said that Malaysian plane was shot down from the board of Su-25 by the Ukrainian Air Force. 

The flight

Malaysian passenger plane, registration number 9M-MRD, KLM flight KL4103, took off from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur at 02.14 pm Moscow time on July 17, 2014. At about 04:20 pm Moscow time, when the plane was already over the territory of Ukraine, the contact was lost with it. It is known that, approximately 50 kilometers away from the Russian border, the liner began to descend, but whether it was the cause of damage to the aircraft or change of scheduled tier before moving from one country's airspace to another, is not yet clear. Later, B777's wreckage and bodies of passengers have been found near the village of Grabovo in the Donetsk region.

According to the State Air Traffic Service Enterprise of Ukraine (the "UkSATSE") responsible for the maintenance of passenger vessels in Ukrainian airspace, the flight of Malaysian Boeing was performed in accordance with the flight rules, without any technical faults. According to the UkSATSE CEO Dmitry Babeychuk, pilots of the KLM flight KL4103 did not report any problems. The last maintenance of the liner was held on July 11, 2014. The plane was flying at an altitude of 10.6 thousand meters, which is 2.7 thousand meters higher than the height of the official curfew imposed by the Ukrainian authorities on July 8 this year.

The radius of scattered debris of the crashed Boeing 777 is at least fifteen kilometers. This suggests that the plane began to fall apart literally in the air at high altitude. The nature of the damage to be defined by analyzing the craft wreckage is yet unknown. The fact that the Malaysian liner fell on the territory of Ukraine was reported at about 07.00 pm Moscow time. Shortly thereafter, Ukraine, Russia and Ukrainian militia began to accuse each other of the crash. In particular, Russian president Vladimir Putin blamed solely Ukraine for the accident; the president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko accused militias; while the latter accused the official Kiev authorities.

It is interesting that both Ukrainian authorities and militia announced that the airliner was shot down by anti-aircraft missile system. Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to the Ukrainian minister of internal affairs, said that the plane was shot down by the "terrorists" who were using the "Buk anti-missile system kindly furnished to them by Mr. Putin." That complex was allegedly located near the Torez town. In turn, the RIA Novosti news agency, by citing its own sources among the militia reported that shortly before the fall of B777, the Armed Forces of Ukraine deployed a division of Buk system to the Donetsk region and started preparing for deployment of another such division to the area.


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