Council of Europe will discuss missing radarimages

The Council of Europe, in which 47 European countries participate, will discuss the missing radar images of MH17. Dutch PM Pieter Omtzigt submitted a request to the Council to do so.

The Council of Europe  is an international organization focused on promoting democracy, rule of law, human rights, economic development and integration of certain regulatory functions in Europe.

The council has to answer why Ukraine did not provide primary radar images and why Russia delivered the recorded primary radar and not the raw images.

Also an answer must be given by president Poroshenko of Ukraine and Putin of Russia why they did not respond the the letter sent by the families of the passengers on board MH17.

The text of the letter of Omtzigt to the Council of Europe is shown below (source)

Flight MH17 was brought down by a rocket on July 17 2014. All 298 people on board died. The wreckage came down in the Donetsk region. Both the Ukrainian and the Russian air traffic control were in touch with the plane and saw it on their radar screens, as the accident happened near the border.

The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) did not get raw primary radar data from any of the countries. The raw primary radar data would not only show MH17 but also a few images of the rocket, when properly reexamined and refiltered, as was confirmed by an expert at a hearing in the Dutch parliament.

The Dutch government said that it did not know of any other plane incident in the last 10 years in Europe where the investigators could not get the raw primary data. Ukraine told the DSB that its primary radar was under maintenance. It did not challenge that in the final report. Later, it said that part of the radar stations were destroyed.

These two statements are mutually exclusive according to the Dutch government Russia showed the world primary radar data on 21 July 2014 but destroyed its raw primary radar data. It only provided screen prints, so the radar data could not be reexamined to find the rocket.

This is a breach of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) rules, as is confirmed by DSB and ICAO in the DSB report.

The families of the victims wrote a letter to President Putin and President Poroshenko five months ago, asking very precise questions on what happened to the radar data. The Russian administration answered with a public letter without any answers to the precise questions asked. Neither president provided a personal answer.

Mr. Omtzigt

To ask the Committee of Ministers

-Should President Putin and President Poroshenko have the decency to answer letters by dozens of families of MH17 victims and give precise and personal answers?

– Does the Committee agree it should provide a precise answer on what happened to their radar as this is crucial evidence?

5 Comments on Council of Europe will discuss missing radarimages

  1. Slozhny // June 30, 2016 at 3:12 pm // Reply

    I am certain that neither Russian nor Ukraine will give new meaningful info on their primary radar images to the Council, due to different reasons. The Council could yet ask the parties many competently formulated questions, but the purpose of the event seems to be just a PR of certain individuals, so surely nothing intelligible will be asked.

    From ATC transcript in the DSB report it’s rather obvious yet that the air traffic controller at Dnipro did not have PSR data in the area of MH17 disappearance.

    As for Russia’s ATC video https://youtu.be/ZxpzBbK4Xlw that many people consider authentic for some unknown to me reason, why does nobody notice that it does not correlate with that ATC transcript from the DSB report? In the video we see MH17 flying along its trajectory without “loss” (ATC slang), then suddenly jumping to the north. Its mark disappears at 13.22:18. Also some UFO mark appears next to the jumped MH17 mark, and disappears at 13.25:57 (the time is from DSB report). Now do read Rostov air traffic controller replies to questions of their Dnipro counterpart:

    13.22:05+ Rostov-1: No, no, no, nothing [in primary]. We see nothing.
    13.24:03+ Rostov-1: It is not seen. Listen, I do see “SINGAPORE” 3-5-0, I see it, but not yours… Where is it… by synthetic… Where is it anyway?
    13.25:56+ Rostov-1: We have nothing, listen. We don’t see, guys, don’t see. Here 3-5-0 “SINGAPORE” just entered…
    13.31:20+ Rostov Shift Supervisor: I saw the mark, then altitude disappeared. After that I saw it going with loss. I saw it, it went with loss. […] But did he [“Singapore”] see it? Nothing? But where could it go?
    13.36:07+ Rostov Shift Supervisor: Now I am watching the playback.
    13.36:25+ Rostov-1: Well, nothing. Now also, so to say, by any channels and frequencies alerted everyone. Then we’ll ask, I don’t know, we don’t see, no mark, no synthetics, nothing…

    So either the Rostov controllers didn’t see any marks to the north of MH17 trajectory, or they lied to their Dnipro counterpart. Also the Rostov shift supervisor claimed to see MH17 mark moving along its trajectory with a loss, contrary to the video. So I may conclude that the video was fabricated and/or the controllers were instructed not to disclose anything of that sort they may see on their screens…

  2. Ukraine told the DSB that its primary radar was under maintenance. It did not challenge that in the final report. Later, it said that part of the radar stations were destroyed.
    These two statements are mutually exclusive according to the Dutch government.
    – The transcript clearly demonstrate that Ukrainian side didn’t have operational primary radar in the area (at least civil one). There is a very easy explanation regarding the initial claim that all radars were at maintenance:
    It is very possible that none of Ukrainian experts were English speaking. All communication were done through interpreters. The translators usually are not experts; they could easily confuse “repair” and “maintenance”. Moreover in Russian/Ukrainian language both terms usually translated with word combinations that contain word “repair” (“ремонт”): “капитальный ремонт” (major repair) and “планово-предупредительный ремонт” (planned precautionary maintenance). “Maintenance” (обслуживание/обслуговування) is present in Russian/Ukrainian languages, yet the engineers do not use it in this context.
    In many cases a technical error is just an error, not a conspiracy. DSB produced erroneous results too. The good example is the DSB’s animation for Buk attack https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/oct/13/mh17-crash-animation-russian-buk-missile-hit-plane-video. At 1:13 the one can see that Buks rocket engine is still working, yet in real life the engine is working first 15 second of flight only.

    • Slozhny // July 3, 2016 at 4:05 pm // Reply

      An incorrect interpretation from Ukrainian/Russian is quite possible. I suppose the destroyed Artemivs’k radar was listed as “to be repaired” (= “under maintenance”) in the beginning, but when it became obvious it couldn’t be used anyway because of threats of shelling from the occupied territory, it turned into “destroyed”. Just look at 48.532° 38.097° since October 2014.

    • Lena // July 3, 2016 at 5:23 pm // Reply

      After 9M38M1 missile engine fuel exhausts (20 sec), the missile continues to expel (less) smoke from another piece of solid fuel powering missile’s electric generator.

  3. Lena // July 3, 2016 at 5:28 pm // Reply

    The “mutually exclusive” is wrong. One Ukrainian primary radar (TRLK-7 near Chuguev) was under maintenance, two other (TRLK-8/Artemovsk and in Donetsk airport) destroyed.

    TRLK-7 http://wikimapia.org/#lang=ru&lat=49.896570&lon=36.949886
    TRLK-8 http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=48.532319&lon=38.097121&z=18&m=b&show=/15518033/ru/%D0%A2%D0%A0%D0%9B%D0%9A-8-%28%D0%90%D1%80%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%29

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