Boeing 777 shot down

Russia getting even more bullish with it's claims a Ukranian Su-25 type aircraft was operating near the 777:

Russian officials say they have evidence of the jet’s presence following images taken by the Rostov monitoring centre, and has urged the US to release satellite images taken at the time of the crash.
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"According to the statement by the US representative, they have some pictures from space that confirm that the missiles were launched by the rebels. By nobody has seen these shots," Mr Kartopolov added.

He said that a US satellite was present over Ukraine territory at the time of the crash and and would like American authorities to release these images to the "world community for further investigation."
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The Americans must have very detailed knowledge of what went on.
They would have been watching the area very closely, there may even be people undercover on the ground.
 
Dis86 said:
They wouldn't let anyone near it for days.
They were seen by independents to be removing items.
They are now escorting and directing investigators heavily.

That to me reeks of suspicion.
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Of course they're escorting them heavily, they are in a warzone and currently the investigators safety is their responsibility, imagine how much worse it will look if one of them gets shot!

The current Russian take: http://rt.com/news/174412-malaysia-plane-russia-ukraine/
 
See without supporting theories eitherway, the Russian take is almost laughable with the way they keep discovering new 'facts'.

Ukraine: Seperatists shot it down with Russian supplied arms!

Russia: Its was a plane full of spies! Oh wait no we thought it was military! Erm, no there was a plane climbing up to it that shot it down! We never gave the seperatists any of those and the little black smudge in these photos we took everyday is Ukranian and it definitely wasn't there yesterday!

If they had simply said 'It wasn't us' there wouldnt be any anti-rus bias IMO
 
[TW]Fox;26641128 said:
I think Russia might consider making up it's mind as to whether it was a Ukraine SU25 or the Ukraine BUK launchers, both of which are referred to there :p

Plus the weird thing about the SU25 claim is that doesn't the SU25 have a service ceiling of some 10km less than the cruise altitude of the Boeing?
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According to wikipedia the air to air missiles commonly fitted on the SU25 would be able to close the distance between its max operational altitude and the cruise altitude of the 777.

EDIT: If its service ceiling was 10km less technically it would have crashed :P
 
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Rroff said:
According to wikipedia the air to air missiles commonly fitted on the SU25 would be able to close the distance between its max operational altitude and the cruise altitude of the 777.

If its service ceiling was 10km less technically it would have crashed :P
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“A Ukraine Air Force military jet was detected gaining height, it’s distance from the Malaysian Boeing was 3 to 5km,” said the head of the Main Operations Directorate of the HQ of Russia’s military forces, Lieutenant-General Andrey Kartopolov speaking at a media conference in Moscow on Monday.
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How did it get to within 5km of a plane travelling at 33km if it has a max operating ceiling of 23km?
 
Your mixing up units - it was cruising at 33kfeet not m.

Apparently the air to air missiles on the SU25 have an effective range of approx 4km and ability to engage targets at upto twice that (with reduce reliability).
 
So I am, fair enough :D

(grumbles about silly mix of imperial and metric in aviation)

:D

They still need to decide if they are running with the BUK story or the SU25 though :D
 
Its a bit of a um long shot though, would need a lot of luck to down a 777 with those altitude differences inside 1-2 shots. None of the videos I've seen have anything to indicate multiple air to air attempts to shoot it down.
 
How much luck would you need to hit something only doing 600mph though at a constant heading and altitude.. Not that I'm saying it was a SU25 :p
 
Dunks said:
How much luck would you need to hit something only doing 600mph though at a constant heading and altitude.. Not that I'm saying it was a SU25 :p
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Quite a bit with the altitude and range differences, outside of 4km you'd get more misses than hits... (Assuming R-60 or 73).
 
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Why would a Ukranian SU-25 be engaging an aircraft in their own airspace, considering the rebels don't have any aircraft, and Russia doesn't need to fly transport aircraft into Ukraine to supply the rebels, when they can simply ship supplies overland? And besides, the air-air missiles an SU-25 carries are short ranged R-60's (NATO Codename AA-8 Aphid). You'd be well within visual range of something as large and as colourful as a Malaysian 777.

If anything the Russians implicate themselves or the separatists, in that they tried to engage the SU-25, and engaged the 777 instead.
 
The Funktopus said:
If anything the Russians implicate themselves or the separatists, in that they tried to engage the SU-25, and engaged the 777 instead.
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It could be a sound accusation if Ukraine were deliberately diverting civilian flights to the area as a means of creating human shields for their own aircraft given their recent losses to SAMs.
 
This is interesting, can anyone identify the camo/uniform and the weapon?

Obviously not stating the soldier is British because of the Union flag on it!

166y6af.jpg
 
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