Overview of eyewitness reporting seeing military aircraft
This post will provide an overview of eyewitness who reported seeing one or two military aircraft shortly before MH17 crashed.
At least 22 people told on camera they saw one or more military aircraft. And this is just the videos I found. I am sure there are many more eyewitness.
The videos are made by various reporters.
In the final report of the Dutch Safety Board it was mentioned there were no aircraft close to MH17 other than civil aircraft.
The primary radar of Ukraine civil airtraffic control was not operational for maintenance.
The primary radar of Ukraine military air traffic control was not on on July 17 as accoding to Ukraine there were no flights scheduled that day.
Russia stated it erased the recordings of the raw primary radar.
Quite a few tv programms are made on MH17:
Some n went to the crash site in November and did interview with eyewitness.
Malaysian TV3 made a documentary called Romeo November Delta. It can be seen
A Russian program called Moment of Truth released a documentary end of November. It can be seen .
MH17: A visit at the Crash Site: The locals speak up (also know as )
1+2 BBC Russia showed these two ladies. The video was later deleted but re-uploaded by others. These ladies saw two military aircraft
3. The same video showed another lady telling about a military aircraft.
4+5 Russia Today made a documentary on MH17. Here is another eyewitness. She says as well there were 2 planes. The lady on the left told in another documentary she saw two planes as well.
6. The same Russia Today video shows another eyewitness. He saw a small military aircraft with a silver underside.He is 100% there was a second aircraft.
7. Dutch TV program Nieuwsuur went to the crash site and interviewed some people. This man also saw a military aircraft
8. This man is interviewed by . While the subtitels does not show the word ‘military jet’ two persons I asked to translate say the man is talking about another aircraft. The translation of the FRENCH subtitles is included. I understand the translation of the man his Russian language into French is not done correct. Also some parts of the interview are cut/left out. It seems Paris Match suggests that the man in telling about a missile. He is sure he saw a military jet according Max van der Werff who interviewed this man in April 2015.
9. I am not sure what these men tell.
10+11. Max van der Werff spoke to someone named Bulatov Lev Aleksandrovich who saw three SU-25 near Torez and Shakhtersk (here)11+12. Graham Philips released a new video in July showing two persons who saw jets. ()
12. Tatyana Timchenko works for a orphanage in Torez. She describes in this she saw military airplanes at the moment MH17 was shot down. How many she is not sure about. There was no shooting from the airplanes. The tv station Hromadske.tv is an independant TV station which gets money from the US and the Netherlands. So it is not some sort of propaganda station from the DPR. (source). Still the claim of the eyewitness cannot be verified.
13. Graham Phillips interviewed someone wo claims to have seen Su-25 aircraft. No subtitles
14. Jeroen Akkermans, reporter of RTL Nieuws, interviewed this lady who saw a military jet . It is at 4:46 in the item.
15. Graham Philips . He did not see another plane but heard it.
16 Graham Philips . She and many others say a second plane.
17+18 These two man called Leonid and Victor saw two military aircraft. The has english tranlations.
19
This is Andrey Silenko who saw a low flying military jet just above the forest. He is seen in a Russia Today documentary. He states MH17 was flying 100 meters above a hen house but still intact. This cannot be correct.
20. This is a lady who talks about seeing a military jet. She says she saw how the plane was shot down and how various debris separated from the Boeing 777. She saw another plane, and that since it was flying at such [low?] altitude, it was Ukrainian plane. She says it flew towards Shahtersk [to the West]. At the end, the guy asked whether passenger jets flew over that area before MH17, she says they never saw trace/plume of any passenger jets before in that area.
21 and 22
Journalist Billy Six spoke to these two Pjotr Losjak & Jura Sereditsch. The BBC documentary Conspiracy Files: who shoot down MH17 had this interview in the program. Part of the interview can be seen here with an english explanation.
This eyewitness even told he saw a plan launch a missile towards MH17. The location of these eyewitness was Schachtjar Lesnaja.
23
24
by
You are right in your assumption there are too many witness statements seeing a jet to completely dismiss it right away.
On the other hand, how many did the witnesses did they interview to get those statements, then just put on the ones that they wanted to promote the SU25 story as a guilty suspect?
They used actors for various Kremlin propaganda stories in the past, and this was a serious one that the Kremlin was playing CYA on.
A promise of a case of vodka? A Rolex? Education at top University and passport into Moscow? A chance to be on International TV?
I am not saying that is what happened, but the Kremlin was in serious cover-up mode using all the tools they had at their disposal if they did it.
Could there have been SU25s flying around? I think it is a possibility.
Governments do not always tell the public when they did things to protect them, sort of unsung heroes.
Maybe before they could force the ATC to change routes and close the skies, they had to have actionable evidence a BUK was travelling around under its own power and with missiles and with working radar and targeting computer.
I like to think if this scenario is true, it is a possibility and the reason would be UA government after it got questionable information about a BUK driving around Donetsk, they scrambled a bunch of planes to go kill it and protect the skies.
Did they? Time will tell.
It was Ukrainian skies, and they had every right to try to protect those in the skies and fly jets around.
Did they? And then lie about not flying in the days before hand to avoid giving DNR and LNR and RF military specific intelligence or use disinformation themselves??
The route change to fly over Donetsk was given while MH17 was still over Poland.
Could they put out a new NOTAM, close the skies between times vague reports of the BUK, go investigate those reports and the time the disaster happened?
Or could all these witnesses are telling what pink elephants showed them? Or some other reason for reporting jets?
Did the BUK have more jets on its radar? I am not sure if they keep a history like that.
And if it did, did the targeting person have 4 civilian planes and 3 military jets and they accidentally or intentionally launched at MH17?
AD and I and many are under the belief they would not been able to launch at a civilian plane without circumventing built in safeguards, which means intentional targeting.
Ukrainian military radar would have them on it most likely, but I think that will be withheld until the criminal trial comes out.
Who else would be able to confirm it?
I imagine if the UA planes were going around squawking various communication codes, the Russian communications equipment would have picked up something that said planes were flying.
So far they have not released that. Of course those pilots would be in silent mode. so maybe no communication could be detected.
Are all or some of these people just mistaken in what they saw as many UFO sightings work out to be?
Could they have confused dates?
Could there be ulterior motive to lie?
Could they have seen parts of MH17 and described them as planes since the wreckage area is some very large area?
That last one is my guess as to what the witnesses saw and then the tail section, wing, or cabin that broke off flew behind clouds and that was the last time the witnesses saw it.
Investigators have their work cut out for them.
I think your speculation about Observer status might be more right then my theory, although I think a threat of military response to holding the BB or
statements that that would happen were made to show how serious this was to the global community, and was helpful to get the Kremlin to weaken a little and allow Malaysia to take the boxes, but observer status was the main factor.
And that base jumper, insane!
Fare thee well
I do not have links, but recently I spotted also a video where lady said she saw figter jet(s) and BLACK MH17 coming down.
On same video there was some 60y old farmer looking guy who said he saw fighter jet attacking MH17, while flying on same level.
Clearly also both of those have some eye issues etc….
+Some eyewitness heard brrrrt brrrt of the machine cannon from 10km
+IIRC, also A.Z. (ex DPR leader) saw figter jets with his own eyes
Too bad RU deleted their primary radar data. 😉
The variation in the number of other aircraft the witnesses said they had seen (varrying from 1 to 3, is already a clear sign that some of the witnesses are unrealiable witnesses.
Did the witnesses saw an extra plane (1-3) and how can they (some of them) be sure it was a military plane?
The weatherconditions made it difficult to impossible to see anything at 10km height. Which witness was in a proper position to see something at 10km height, because from their position there were less clouds compared to other spots?
An SU25 has roughly 25% of the size of a B772. On a clear sky i am able to see many passengerjets flying at cruisingaltide, but never i am able to determine (with naked eye) to determine the type and the airliner. The difference between plane with 2 or 4 engines can be see, by the number of trailes. Very very seldom i can spot this difference from the plane itself, but only in perfect weatherconditions, which are not just clear sky but also right angle of the sun on the plane.
When i spot an airplane at 10km height, i actually spot its trail first. Could the witness have seen a single trail besides the double trail of a B772? And how sure can they be, that single trail is from a jetfighter? Also a BUK missle has a single trail.
A witness (single and plural) spots a single trail, but cannot determine what is causing that single trail, because it is to small to determine. For the witness (single and plural) it would be most logic to assume: a fighterjet (maybe even an Ukrainian one) because they have seen fighterjets frequently flying over their heads. A human brain fills gaps in the most common/logic way.
The documantary “Brain games” of National Geographic gives a simple but clear explanation how the human brains work.
Less time consuming is to read the article: http://www.law.yale.edu/news/2727.htm on the website of Yale Law School. If forensic evidence is available, skip the witnesses, they are more often wrong than right.
In my opinion:
there are no military jets! Why? Russia doesn’t saved their primary raw radar data, breaking ICAO rules with that, but not saving their primary raw radar data is like destroying THE SMOKIN GUN. That radat data would be the ultimate evidence against Ukraine, but Russia destroyed (not saved) it.
Robert: you are suggesting all eyewitnesses say one or more SU-25 were flying close to MH17. That is not the case for all eyewitness.
I agree some believe they saw something which in fact was something else. Or just say so because they hate Kiev.
In this situation there are just too many eyewitness who saw at least a single SU-25. The reason Ukraine denies Su-25 were operating plus Ukraine did not provide radar recordings is very suspicious.
I am not saying SU-25 were attacking MH17. I am sure SU-25 played a role in this disaster.
Russian primary radar does not cover anything flying below 2000 meters near Snizhne. Why would Russia release this information?
> I am sure SU-25 played a role in this disaster.
Russian primary radar does not cover anything flying below 2000 meters near Snizhne. Why would Russia release this information?
— You’d better ask, in this case: why would Russia hide the information that would have indicted its foe Ukraine?
However, what role could a Ukrainian ground attack plane flying below 2000 m (if it indeed was there, which is a sheer speculation) have in the disaster that took place at the same moment at more than 10000 m?
Don’t forget that a) Russia did not see any Ukrainian planes at all, at least higher than at 2000 meters, and b) an imaginary Ukrainian plane would have had absolutely no capability to strike a target at such a distance.
As for the “eyewitnesses”: at least one of them has “seen” a Ukrainian ‘Buk’ formation near the village of Zaroshchenske, the place that Russia tries to falsely claim as the launch spot.
The person, according to his words, has seen many “radars” (in the plural!), especially the one looking as a “cupola” (showing something big and round-shaped with his hands), and it was “turning around” (http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2642968 in Russian).
The problem was, a) there’s just a single visible radar, an acquisition radar 9S318, NATO code “Tube Arm,” also known as “Snow Drift,” with each ‘Buk’ formation, b) it is codenamed “Kupol” (‘a cupola’) in Russian, but it has no cupola/dome-shaped elements, c) it doesn’t turn around (in Russian + pictures: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%D0%A118).
So, it’s clear the “witness” had been told about a ‘Buk’ formation that should have a radar named “Cupola” but he has learned his role without understanding it. This way, he told the Russian propaganda “Vesti” TV program of “multiple radars” and of a “dome-shaped radar turning round”: obviously, this type of a radar was the only one known to him from his pre-war life, and he has not seen any other radars in his life.
So, the person has promptly delivered his faked account while fantasizing about some “turning cupola shaped radarS” of a claimed ‘Buk’ system where it had never been in reality.
And that’s the main way the Russian propaganda works: generating lies.
Sorry, the ‘Buk’ ‘Kupol’ radar is 9S18.
According to my friend (Russian), who was helping a German TV team in the Donetsk region in the 20s of July, 2014, every local in the crash area, he talked to, said that either he/she had seen a second plane with his/her own eyes or his/her neighbor/relative had seen. I can’t know what exactly they meant, but I can guess that they could have seen a second plane when it was below clouds, when MH17 was already falling.
I’m personally most interested in eyewitness records done on 17July, before anyone had time to train/pay for witnesses.
Was there any f.jet eyewitness recorded 17Jul?
Not a single one?
Not even in social media?
All appeared after 17Jul?
The only one I recall is some rebels asking where is the shot down Suhoi.
Has anyone done study how Soviet/Ukraine Air-to-Air missiles behave when shot from ~2km height vs target at 10km height, from 40+km distance?
I imagine, in theory, (semi-active) radar guided LONG RANGE AAM could fly similar path as BUK, but I think it is not any normal/planned/designed use-case for AAM.
(yes I know damage match 100% with BUK M1, but I just would like to know for myself, for completeness sake)