It is, in the first confusing and shocking hours and days, tainted by the hate and propaganda of war

Ahead of Tuesdays DSB report on the MH-17 shoot down over Ukraine on July 17, 2014, WC Turck,’s upcoming book, “A Tragic Fate: Politics, Oil, the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and the Looming Threats to Civil Aviation,” fills in the gap, here with the only complete re-creation of the tragic events that day. The following is an excerpt based on hundreds of sources, thousands of photographs, cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 videos and more than 300 hours of investigation:
It is, in the first confusing and shocking hours and days, tainted by the hate and propaganda of war and the insipid ignorance of social media, that the fertile cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 ground for conspiracy theories and innuendo are created. Innocuous, misinterpreted or ill-informed early reports become fertilizer for conspiracies. But it is reports like the one from Malaysia s Airlines director of operations, Izham Ismail, responding to claims that weather led to the change cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 in MH-17’s flight plan, replied that he had no reports cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 from the pilot to suggest that was the case, which help feed speculation.
Inside the cabin, the stewards and flight attendants were busy with meal service. The passengers were contented with in-flight entertainment. The flight cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 so far has been routine, even mundane. There were still more than 8 hours remaining cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 to Kuala Lumpur. The passengers were thinking of their final destination, making connections, seeing loved ones, business meetings and sleeping in their own beds again.
Far below them others are animated for war. The missile launcher and its crew, now near the town of Torez, as well as their command and control support were expectant of enemy incursion. They were blinded by that perspective, which betrays a complete and criminal negligence at every level in the chain of command. If Russia in fact supplied the vehicle the responsible authorities share substantially in culpability for allowing trigger happy, irresponsible and ill-trained rebels such a dangerously sophisticated weapon.
While fewer flights than normal flew through Ukrainian airspace in the month leading up to July 17, according to Mikael Robertsson, co-founder cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 of flight tracking website Flightradar24, two other aircraft were present within 10 minutes flight cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 time of MH-17. The presence of civilian over flights could not have been unknown to the rebels.
At a press conference following the crash, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said that “MH17 s flight cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 path was a busy major airway, like a highway in the sky. It followed a route which was set out by the international aviation authorities, approved by Eurocontrol, and used by hundreds of other aircraft… MH17 flew at an altitude that was set and deemed safe by local air traffic control, and it never strayed into restricted airspace. The flight and its operators followed the rules. But on the ground, the rules of war were broken.
Ukrainian authorities had earlier prohibited aircraft from operating at 32,000 feet or below, just a thousand feet below the altitude that MH-17 was flying. That still placed it well within range of the BUK Missile battery now operating cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 near Torez.
In June, despite assurances both British Airlines and Lufthansa decided against risking East Ukrainian cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 airspace. Emirates suspended flights to Ukraine altogether, according to Reuters. As pointed cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 out in a previous chapter the routine of war balanced cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 against marketing and business concerns, it had become normal business practice for International airlines cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 to fly over war zones simply to save money on fuel.
Ukraine was no different. Commercial airlines regularly flew over Iraq and Afghanistan during the wars there, comfortable that insurgent forces lacked the capability to threaten them. When the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull (pronounced: Ai-ya-fyatla-yoy-katl) erupted in 2010 disrupting air travel between North America and Europe and ground more than 100,000 flights, the cost to airlines and more than 6 million stranded passengers was in the tens of millions of Dollars. The costs to the bottom line are powerful drivers in the equation when left to airlines alone.
The dilemma begs a wider question, however, as to whether cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 we are becoming far too cavalier with regards to war. In the wake of the Cold War and its international alignment, more or less, there was at least greater control cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 over the proliferation of sophisticated weapons of war. It is a good thing that international market economics, cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 to a degree, is less incumbent upon those old and obsolete structures. In the post-Cold war era, however, cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 commerce and proliferation in weapons, such as the system that brought down MH-17, has become virtually unrestricted.
The collapse of nation states, regional instability and wars around the globe finds buyers for new and ever more terrible weaponry. Following the Malaysian Airlines disaster there has been little if any substantive discussion about limiting the proliferation of such weapons. The saddest aspect of all of this is that the avoidable and unnecessary deaths of 298 people might simply prove a demonstration of weapons capabilities, making it more attractive to despots, madmen and warlords.
Through banks of full gray and white clouds 33,000 feet below, embattled Ukraine cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 appeared peaceful as a geometric patchwork of farms and towns elegantly carved with the telltale green of rivers and fertile tributaries. The distance and humidity near the surface deepened hues and softened lines until the land took on the character of a pastel rendering.
Somewhere just outside Snizhne, according to radio intercepts the Buk’s crew was alerted cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 to an incoming aircraft. While indications are abundant and clear that the rebels assumed the incoming aircraft was a Ukrainian military transport there seems to have been a blatant cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 disregard for protocols which would have allowed them to identify the plan as civilian.
Visually it may have proved difficult, even with binoculars, cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 but the BUK system hardly relies on antiquated technology for identification. But while NATO member countries rely on the International Friend or Foe, IFF, the BUK radar has its own IFF system. According to HIS Jane’s Missiles and Rockets editor Doug Richardson:
“Although it has it own Identification Friend cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 or Foe (IFF) system, this is only able to establish whether the target being tracked is a friendly aircraft. It is the electronic equivalent of a sentry calling out Who goes there?” If there is no reply, all you know is that it is not one of your own side s combat aircraft. It would not give you a warning that you were tracking an airliner.”
The Buk’s acquisition radar, deployed some thirty miles to the southwest in the village of Styla, allowed the rebel fighters to identify, track and target the aircraft. Whether they believed they were once again targeting a Ukrainian cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 transport, or simply took advantage of a ready target remains unclear. Protocols, IFF, known civilian over flights, flight path, altitude, command structure and time on target removes the specter of the accidental and indicates at the very least negligence if not intention.
Once launched the fate of MH-17 was sealed. The system is highly accurate. According to Army-Technology.com, in association with Defense and Security Systems International the BUK Air Defense Missile System maintains a high kill rate at target:
A single cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 missile can destroy tactical aircraft and helicopters with a probability between 0.9 and 0.95, while the kill probability against tactical ballistic cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 missiles cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 ranges between 0.6 and 0.7. The missile can operate continuously for one day with refuelling and has a tear-down time of five minutes. The missile can destroy tactical ballistic missile cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 within the range of 20km and can kill cruise missiles at 100m altitude and within the range of 20km. It has maximum target g-load cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 of 10g and can destroy aerodynamic targets with a maximum speed of 830m/s flying at an altitude between 0.015km and 25km, and within 3km to 45km range. The missile system can operate in temperatures up to ± 50°C and wind speeds up to 30m/s. Its maximum operating altitude above sea level is 3,000m.
The BUK system wasn’t a truck with a couple of drunk rebels roaming the countryside in search of a target. Even paired down to a smaller unit, as it may have been on that warm July day, it would have consisted of several vehicles and several operators. It had proved itself more than capable against combat aircraft and requires only about 5 minutes to set up and deploy. It can be ready to move in another five minutes after firing a missile or missiles, making it a very versatile cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 and competent weapon of war.
Credible witnesses place the large and unmistakable BUK vehicle entering the neighboring town of Torez only 4 miles due south of Hrabove and just six miles (10 kilometers) west of Snizhne. Three days earlier, on the 14th a BUK system was credited with the downing of a Ukrainian Antonov-26 flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet over the town of Izvaryne outside Donetsk. Two days later above the town of Amvrosiivka, 10 miles southwest of Snizhne a Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 fighter was shot down.
A bird is flying to you, a spotter told a rebel commander for pro-Russian separatists in Horlivka 15 miles west of the crash sight, identified as Igor Bezlor, a mercurial man and a typical character to be found in any conflict who is all too ready to rationalize any moral and ethical transgression to war. In temperament cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 and stature Bezlor reminds one of the late Serbian thug and warlord Zeljko cheap travel insurance worldwide for over 65 “Arkan” Raznatovic. His features are pallid and severe, an obligatory cigarette ever present and a black cap that seems costume-like.
Bezlor, who goes by the non de guerre of “Bes,” or “demon” in Russian, reportedly was a former undertaker sacked from his job for theft. He never once disputed the authenticity of the recordings. Many of those recordings have been verified and supported by other rebels. That is backed up by the initial communications and Bezlor’s own initial tweet that indicates quite clearly that the rebels