Malaysian Airlines 777 shot down over Ukraine, 295 people on board.

[GMantis]

Most likely the rebels brought down the plane, as it would be very unlikely for trained operators to confuse it with a military plane. However, since the Ukrainian government must have known that the Buks were captured for nearly three weeks, why didn't they close the airspace over the region?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Nationalities released:

154 Dutch
27 Australians
23 Malaysians
11 Indonesians
six Britons
four Germans
four Belgians
three Filipinos
one Canadian

[Platypus]

Genuinely shocked to see so many Aussies aboard. And absolutely zero Americans - unless they make up the bulk of the unconfirmed?

[retromike22]

Genuinely shocked to see so many Aussies aboard. And absolutely zero Americans - unless they make up the bulk of the unconfirmed?

I wonder if the Australians were on a layover?

[Platypus]

It's a somewhat unusual fight for Australians to take, tbh. The vast majority would either go through the UAE or Singapore; the flight via KL is on the most expensive side and most who choose to pay premium prices fly Qantas, Emirates, or Singapore.

That said, the corridor as a whole would be very Australian-heavy, so this may indeed by a low load of Australians relative to other flights.

Just looked it up, KLM (which was codesharing with Malaysian) is the second most expensive on the route right now for flights in a few weeks, not sure if that is a usual circumstance or not. Qatar and Qantas both less than a third of the price

[Mr. Morden]

Genuinely shocked to see so many Aussies aboard. And absolutely zero Americans - unless they make up the bulk of the unconfirmed?

According to this there were 23 Americans:

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/805297-malaysia-airlines-mh17-victims-first-victims-identified-by-passports-as-jennifer-vanderlei-sanjid-singh-tomas-van-kuelen-charlotte-van-der/

[Mr. Morden]

It's a somewhat unusual fight for Australians to take, tbh. The vast majority would either go through the UAE or Singapore; the flight via KL is on the most expensive side and most who choose to pay premium prices fly Qantas, Emirates, or Singapore.

I'm in Perth, and my trip to Marseille last year was via Malaysia Airlines, PER-KUL-LHR-MRS.  It was the cheapest route for getting to Marseille that didn't involve ridiculously long layovers, at least at that time.

[Simfan34]

The news is converging. Perhaps a sign of End Times?

Perhaps. I was frozen with shock for a good minute and a half, all but maybe ten seconds of those had to do with the airline. Reminds me of American Airlines Flight 587 back in 2001. I mean, it's a complete tragedy, but you've got to feel sorry for the Malaysians. What terrible luck. This is worse than Lockerbie, indeed, I'm wondering what it isn't worse than.

But the conspiracies are going to be all over the place. Particularly considering the Israelis have invaded Gaza in the meanwhile. Today is certainly in the bottom 1% of days in human history, if nothing else.

[Simfan34]

I'm not the only one whose first thought was "this is an incomprehensibly terrible joke by [whoever's telling me this] and I'm not going to interact with them ever again," am I? Now, I was "informed" of this by the BBC News webpage so obviously the idea that the BBC would be playing a "joke" like this is highly improbable... but the thought that a Malaysia Airlines 777 would be crashing, again, anytime in the distant future, much less now, was so utterly implausible as to render the other thought relatively believable. A rather specific reaction, but I've had three people tell me already they thought that the person who told them of this or the site they saw it on was playing some kind of sick joke.

I mean, what? Apparently, also RIA Novosti is reporting (as of 11 AM) that militiamen shot down a "Ukrainian An-26". I don't know what that is (as in whether or not it was really an An-26 or this plane). I mean I think it seems pretty certain. ITAR-TASS says- actually, let me post it in its entirety, because this is ITAR-TASS and Putin is currently claiming that this is Ukraine's fault.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

(feel free to infract)

The BBC and everyone else seem to be saying that the 777 was shot down near the town of Hrabove/Grabovo... which is about 10km from Torez. Now, unless we are to assume two planes were shot down within hours of each other, 10km apart... but we've already thrown probability out of the window, haven't we?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Europe via KL is actually a pretty common route for Australians. Malaysia is known for having pretty good early-bird sales and is usually much cheaper than Singapore/Cathay.

[Boris]

Did you guys  read the transcript of the alleged conversation that the Ukrainian SBU released purporting to implicate the rebels? In theory it shouldn't be that hard to verify. I doubt the SBU would have had access to the passenger manifest at the time this was released, so all you have to do is check and see if an Indonesian student from a university in Thompson (?) was aboard...

[patrick1]

Simfan, the separatists thought they downed another Ukrainian military cargo plane and started spreading the word.  Once on scene they  realized they ed up and started backpedaling.

Horrible crash site scenes...real ugly. RIP to all.

[Simfan34]

Simfan, the separatists thought they downed another Ukrainian military cargo plane and started spreading the word.  Once on scene they  realized they ed up and started backpedaling.

Horrible crash site scenes...real ugly. RIP to all.

That's what it looks like. I'm surprised the Russian articles haven't been deleted yet. Anyway, the Independent notes that the passengers are as follows:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The separate mention of Americans is odd, but let us be honest- if there are 23 Americans this changes things quite a bit more than they would otherwise.

[patrick1]

Does it really change things, though? Are we going to war because some disparate mercs. ed up?  Russia will try to spin this and create a cloud over who actually did it.  People inclined to mistrust the West will just believe the CIA did it anyway.

I forget which poster has been putting up the good articles in the other thread about the separatist factions internal infighting.  Besler and co. wanted a victory and innocent people paid the price.

[Simfan34]

This apparently exists. I mean there's an actual facebook account and everything that clearly isn't made up. I guess I the chances of a person on an MH flight making a quip about it were high enough but, I mean...

Does it really change things, though? Are we going to war because some disparate mercs. ed up?  Russia will try to spin this and create a cloud over who actually did it.  People inclined to mistrust the West will just believe the CIA did it anyway.

I forget which poster has been putting up the good articles in the other thread about the separatist factions internal infighting.  Besler and co. wanted a victory and innocent people paid the price.

Well people in this country are going to want "action", whatever that might entail. But the idea that this is somehow not "our business" will dissipate completely. The fact that these people were clearly bragging about shooting down some plane in the same village at the same time is... well if one is not persuaded by what comes next then there's no point in trying.

[MaxQue]

It's like the Lusitiana again.

Forces of Evil attacking civilians ships in their insanity.

[patrick1]

This apparently exists. I mean there's an actual facebook account and everything that clearly isn't made up. I guess I the chances of a person on an MH flight making a quip about it were high enough but, I mean...

You are familiar with black humor? I would say same thing.  They had quick 30 second piece on that guy on ABC a little bit ago.  

Occam's razor though.  The other MH flight is down in the ocean somewhere and these folks died a horrible death at the hands of incompetent "freedom fighters"

[patrick1]

The US military has often missed a target and killed innocent people.  Even if there is iron clad proof the rebels did it, Russia still has deniability about its support of the rebels, however implausible.  The pro Ukraine gov't West  could ramp up support and Russia may start to pull back from their rebel support, but I personally see little else happening.  Putin gets Crimea out of the whole thing, so he can still claim victory.  Now Gaza could lead into a much bigger conflict, imho.

[PiMp DaDdy FitzGerald]

It's like the Lusitiana again.

Forces of Evil attacking civilians ships in their insanity.

I personally doubt this Aircraft held military supplies.

[Simfan34]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/17/world/europe/ukraine-malaysia-airlines-crash/index.html?hpt=hp_inthenews

Putin even seems to be saying this Ukraine's fault in a vague and imprecise sense rather than stating that Ukraine shot it down.

[Simfan34]

Most likely the rebels brought down the plane, as it would be very unlikely for trained operators to confuse it with a military plane. However, since the Ukrainian government must have known that the Buks were captured for nearly three weeks, why didn't they close the airspace over the region?

I mean, it's not unheard of, not even from us.

[Platypus]

Reports suggesting certainly many, and possibly up to and beyond 100, of the passengers were en route to Melbourne. Again, certainly many and possibly up to and beyond 100, were delegates for the World AIDS conference starting this weekend, including very senior researchers and advocates

Edit: The Australian says 108 delegates.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/delegates-to-melbourne-aids-summit-on-doomed-flight-mh17/story-e6frg6nf-1226993197572

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I'm normally not a fan of military intervention, but I wouldn't mind if we sent a bunch of troops to eastern Ukraine right now.

[MaxQue]

I'm normally not a fan of military intervention, but I wouldn't mind if we sent a bunch of troops to eastern Ukraine right now.

Wrong place. They are merely pawns. All is decided in Moscow, but American government are being weak. The Western World must get together and topple and kill Putin.

[Simfan34]

Death toll rises by three as "infants are counted". I wonder how much of this is true. We're being told there were "80 children" on board, and now a surfeit of AIDS researchers. I mean they can't all be true at the same time.