What happened to flight MH17? Culprits and cui bono
The big question is: who did it and what would be the reason? Who would benefit (cui bono) or was it a mistake?
These are the possible culprits:
- The Russians are responsible but made a mistake
- The Russians are responsible and did it deliberately
- The rebels did it but made a mistake
- The rebels did it deliberately
- The Ukraines did it but made a mistake
- The Ukraine did it on purpose
- A different cause
1. The Russians are responsible but made a mistake
Heavy fighting between Russia supported rebels and the Ukraine army took place in the weeks before the crash of MH17. A couple of aircraft of the Ukraine Air Force were shot down in the days and weeks before July 17 by manpads (manheld small surface to air rockets) and also probably Surface to Air missles.
The rebels wanted to prevent Ukraine Army bringing in personel and supplies by aircraft towards to Ukraine/Russian border. A stronger Ukraine army near the border would encircle the rebels in the area near Donetsk.
It is likely MH17 was shot down by a surface to air missle. The prove will be posted soon in a seperate post in this blog.
The Russian had a good reason to shot down military aircraft. It is likely the Russians used a BUK Telar to shot missles at aircraft. The Telar is not able to ‘see’ the difference between a military friendly or enemy aircraft and a civil aircraft. The radar screen inside the BUK just shows a dot.
So there are at least two stories on this mistake
1.1 The Russian crew in the BUK believed a military aircraft entered rebel controlled area and deciced to shot down.
It could be possible that Ukraine Air Force fighter jets flew underneath civil aircraft and then dropped down to attack their targets. At least two eye witnesses told this story on video. See . At 2:57 someone tell the story.
They use these civilian aircraft to hide behind them. It is only now that they stopped flying over us – but, usually, civilian aircraft would always fly above us. And they hide [behind them]. [The experience in] Slavyansk had demonstrated that they would fly out from behind a civilian aircraft, bomb away, and then hide, once again, behind the civilian aircraft and fly away.
about one month before the crash of MH17 a rebel lady told the same sort of story. Here is the
Terrible things are happening. For example, an incident that happened recently:passenger plane was flying by, and Ukrainian attack aircraft hid behind it. Then he lowered his altitude a bit and dropped bombs on residential sector of Semenovka town. Then he regained the altitude and hid behind the passenger plane again. Then he left.
They wanted to provoke the militia to shoot at the passenger plane. There would be a global catastrophe. Civilians would have died.
Then they would say that terrorists here did it. There are no terrorists here. There are regular people here that came out in defense of their own city.
This theory has not been debunked like many other theories at Metabunk.com. Pilot of civil aircraft cannot visual see aircraft flying behind or below them. Also there is no radar in the cockpit which is able to detect aircraft.
At July 15 Ukraine suspended all military flights above East Ukraine. This was a direct result of a shot down of an Antonov 26 of the Ukraine Air Force. Ukraine was investigating what caused the shot down because it was flying too high for a manpad missile.
The rebels are likely to have believed the airspace was completely closed to all air traffic. A point on the radarscreen of the BUK could only be a military aircraft.
All parties would n0t like to have this scenario become known. It could be a reason for all the fighting near the crash site.
1.2 The Russian crew was instructed to shot down an Aeroflot aircraft. This would give Putin a good reason to invade East Ukraine. Rumours but never proven is that the Russian secret service put bombs in several flats pretending Chechen terrorists did it. It gave Putin a reason to start a war.
However the crew made a mistake and the missle hit MH17
So what proves this scenario?
1. The so-called defense minister of the People’s Republic of Donetsk, Mr. Igor Strelkov, posted in the Russian Facebook Vkontakte (VK) a post stating they just shot down a military aircraft. When the rebels found out it was MH17 they removed the post.
2. Ukraine secret service released a telephone conversation between two rebels. They talked about the shot down of an aircraft. In a later conversation they found out it was a civil aircraft.
3. The rebels controlled the area of the MH17 crash site. When the OCSE wanted to access the crash site for monitoring reasons they were blocked by rebels. There are clear video evidences for this. Why would they block access to an independant, UN mandated organization?
4. When the Dutch/Malaysian/Australian team was allowed to enter parts of the crash site for recovery of bodies, the team was not allowed to do investigation into the cause of the accident. The team was not allowed to use dogs, drones and divers to recover bodies. Why would that be?
5. Why is the Dutch government not allowed to enter the crash site without acknowledge the Donetsk People Republic? The Dutch wrote about 12 letters to the rebels asking for permission. According to the rebels these letters were not addressed to the DPR and because of that ignored.
In a later post I will go futher into the evidence that Russia could be responsible.
2. The Russians are responsible and did it deliberately
A not very likely scenario. What would be the benefit for Russia to shot down an airliner operated by Malaysia Airlines?
Putin’s ex-adviser says MH17 was not random choice
3.The rebels did it but made a mistake
The rebels claimed they had stolen a BUK from the Ukraine Army. A single BUK can be used to lauch missles in autonomous mode. While this is not an easy job for a single person, it can be done. For example by someone who worked for Ukraine Army but was now working for the rebels. The operator in the BUK could have made a mistake.
4. The rebels did it deliberately
Not a very likely scenario. Why would rebels shot down a civil aircraft.
5. The Ukraines did it but made a mistake
In 2001 the Ukraine Army shot down a Siberia Airlines Tupolev 154 during an excersise. The army shot at a single drone using two surface to air missles. One missle hit the drone. The other missle, a S-200 retargeted and hit the Tupolev 154. Ukraine initially denied they made a mistake but after a couple of days the admitted.
The same could have happened at July 17. Several BUK systems were reported in the neighborhoud (source: Russian Ministery of Defense). The Ukraine Army also has long ranch S-300 surface to air missles which can destroy aircraft flying at a distance of max 100 km
It cannot be ruled out the Ukraine Army made a similar mistake like in 2001.
6. The Ukraine did it on purpose
Not the most likely scenario. Ukraine could have decided to shot down a civil aircraft to get attention to the war in East Ukraine and get help from other countries (EU/ NATO).
By doing that above the area controlled by the rebels Ukraine could blaim the rebels. The crash site would be full of investigators. Donetsk would be isolated. The rebels backed by Russia would not make more progress and the crash site is a kind of buffer zone.
The type of weapon: fighterjet for a surface to air missle will be discussed in a later post.
Russia has been releasing several press releases stating the investigation into the cause has made little progress. At September 19 the UN Security Council had a special meeting on request by the Russians. They requested the investigation should be guided by the VN instead of the Dutch authorities (Dutch Safety Board)
The Russians have been releasing several reports stating an Ukraine Air Force fighter shot down MH17. Another report by the Russion Union of Engineers finger points to a shotdown by a jetfighter. The Russian Union of Engineers was registered on January 11, 2011 by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.
In a later post I will comment on this research.
7. A different cause
Maybe nobody of the three mentioned parties are guilty. Other causes could be:
- a bomb: not likely and ruled out in the preliminary report of the Dutch Safety Board
- a meteor: not likely at all. Nobody saw something. Damage to aircraft would be different
- weather: not likely and ruled out in preliminary report. There was no distress call of crew and black boxes stopped all of a sudden while aircraft was at cruise level.
- explosion of engine. Not mentioned in DSB report. This would not make the damage seen on the cockpit.
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