A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 enroute from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur has been shot down by a ground-to-air missile over eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers/crew onboard are believed to be dead.
As Malaysian continues its struggle over the still-unsolved mystery of the disappearance of MH370, there is no mystery where this plane is: lying in a heap of smouldering rubble on the ground. What a sad testament to the frailty of life.
The aircraft was downed in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, site of heavy fighting between government and pro-Russian separatist forces and also in the vicinity where rebels shot down a Ukrainian transport plane earlier this week.
Politically, we will soon find out whether it was Ukraine or rebel forces who shot down this plane, but does it matter for the families of the lost? 295 more people are dead and another Malaysian jetliner has been lost. My thoughts are with the family and friends of the fallen and the policymakers who are gauging a response that may bring many more deaths as a result of this tragedy than have already occurred.
Matt, my prayers for the families.
Sadly, this has happened before and jogged my memory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_incidents#2001_Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812
2001 Siberia Airlines Flight 1812
On 4 October 2001, Tu-154 crashed over the Black Sea. The plane may have been hit by S-200 surface to air missile, fired from the Crimea peninsula during an exercise of Ukrainian military. All on board (66 passengers and 12 crew) were killed. Then President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma and several high commanders of the military later expressed their condolences to the relatives of the victims.[22]
Considering that this type of missile is most likely in the hands of the rebels, the Russian military, and the Ukrainian army, any of the aforementioned has the technical ability to launch it. It’s an amazingly dangerous and powerful weapon that went off course in the Siberia Airlines incident by several miles.
Poor Matt. He’s not going to get a job as the new duck voice for Aflack with that kind of talk.
I can see what he was aiming for though: He means that the accident is obvious and the victims have almost immediate closure unlike the last tragedy where relatives spent weeks with false hope and remain unsure of the fate of flight 370. And he did see the political implications, but for the families it doesn’t matter.
For those of us who fly often and accept the nature of the risks of air travel, there’s a bit of ghoulish fascination in how these disasters occur and unsolved mysteries when a plane isn’t found.
Oh No! U.N. and NATO intervention… I’m sure both sides are quaking in their combat boots over the thought of that!
@Rocky: PolishKnight saw my point. I am sorry you did not.
Matt: Seems that you didn’t use the fill-in-the-blank comment release ergo many are so dysfunctional (i.e. the epoch of minions imbued with rote learning ‘skills’ fit for drones) as to be able to read and analyze what are independent thoughts. Your words were understood, non-offensive, just not PC ’nuff for some. That said, could this event be the aerial version of the Lusitania? MH 17 on 7-17, B777, US declared entry in 1917. Who knows what the mad, mad world is capable of.