CNN was on in the lunch room at work and it was reporting a "crash" only. Absolutely nothing about shot down.
BBC Monitoring reports more from the conversation between militants allegedly intercepted by the Ukrainian Security Service.
The conversation starts with Igor Bezler, a key militant, apparently telling a Russian security official by phone that the pro-Russian militants have shot down a plane.
In the YouTube footage a militant nicknamed "Major" is seen saying it was shot down by "Cossacks from the Chernukhino roadblock".
Major goes on to say: "It is definitely a civilian plane... there was a lot of people on board," BBC Monitoring reports.
No. You're correct. I misinterpreted an initial report and really should have posted:Uh-huh. A missle just happened to launch itself right at a commercial airliner.
Everybody's blaming everybody else.
The Guardian's live feed reports eyewitnesses saying the plane exploded in midair.It definitely crashed; the cause of it is still unknown. "May have been shot down" is about as far as the subdeck will take it.
I just read that a Ukrainian official is saying it was shot down and that it wasn't them.
I hate the fact that the news is so untrustworthy now, though, that I have no idea if this is still going to be the case in an hour.
Yes. An airliner, even one that's heavily fireblocked, is full of combustibles.This is weird because the article I just read had a video of the supposed crash, which I thought would show a mid-air explosion, but looked like it showed a ground explosion. If a plane exploded midair, could it still explode again when it hit the ground?
Which is also indicative of a missile shot.
ETA: And at 30,000+ feet, there's not a shoulder-fired system in the world that could reach it. It would have been a ground-based military system, which means it was either the Ukrainians or the Russians that hit it.
This is weird because the article I just read had a video of the supposed crash, which I thought would show a mid-air explosion, but looked like it showed a ground explosion. If a plane exploded midair, could it still explode again when it hit the ground?
Which is also indicative of a missile shot.
ETA: And at 30,000+ feet, there's not a shoulder-fired system in the world that could reach it. It would have been a ground-based military system, which means it was either the Ukrainians or the Russians that hit it.
This is weird because the article I just read had a video of the supposed crash, which I thought would show a mid-air explosion, but looked like it showed a ground explosion. If a plane exploded midair, could it still explode again when it hit the ground?
There were 154 Dutch passengers on board the plane, says an airport official, and 27 Australians, 23 Malaysians, 11 from Indonesia, six from the UK, four Germans, four Belgians, three from the Philippines and one Canadian. More nationalities have yet to be counted.
21:55: There were 280 passengers on board and 15 Malaysian crew, says an airport official.
Radar guided missiles usually hit the RCS of the aircraft, which is usually where the wings meet the fuselage. Contact almost always occurs, if not by the warhead then by the rocket booster itself, which is designed to serve as a kinetic kill weapon. An ADA guy could give more info.SAMs do not necessarily need to make direct hits. They often act like flak cannon, exploding near the target to deliver flak. Exploding in front of the jet can kill the pilots and take out the nose to leave the rest of the plane to explode on the ground.