Before I start... Please, if you have nothing useful to add, don't post. There's always some guy who wants to post "oh more people died here" or "this disaster was way worse than this"... Please, don't. Also, please don't turn this into a debate on who was responsible. There's no point. Anyway... As most of you may know, a Boeing 777, passenger flight MH17 from Malaysian airlines, from Amsterdam to Koala Lumpur was downed by an anti-air missile in Ukraine last Thursday by (most likely) Russian seperatists, killing all 298 passengers on-board, amongst them were many children and the worlds leading AIDS specialists... And just, well.. families.. Innocent people... I find it strange that noone opened a thread about this tragedy. Seperatists supposedly blocked off the crash-site, looted bodies for jewels, phones, laptops, cameras etcetera and apparantly still don't let specialists/investigators do their job properly. According to journalists, no cameras/phones/laptops are to be found at the crash-site anymore. Someone took all of them. One of the seperatists wanted to trade a child-victims drawing for 2 beers. Just to show how incredibly un-humane these people are. Now, I'm not writing this to express my hatred for whoever caused this tragedy to happen, but more to raise awareness, as searching for "MH17" on this forum results in no hits whatsoever. Quite sad, if you ask me, for such a disaster. Today was a day of national mourning in the Netherlands, with flags raised to half mast, out of respect to all 298 victims, 193 of which were Dutch. The second biggest loss in Dutch lives, after the 1977 Tenerife crash. Today, 40 of the vicitims were brought to the Netherlands to be identified, there was a very impressive ceremony and cortege with a C17 Globemaster and a C130 Hercules, 40 hearses, and 1200 relatives/friends of the victims. Here is a quick, impressive recap of the ceremony. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=892819397398133 Almost every family in the Netherlands knows someone directly or indirectly who was on the plane. "A friend of a friend"... A crew member from my school(who I didn't directly know) was on the plane too. Same with 2 children who went to the same lower school as I did, who went on a holiday with their parents. Same with a friend of a colleague of my best friend. A Facebook friend of an old class mate of mine... I could go on, but it's pointless. To me, the most impressive thing was when I read some comments on the Facebook page of a Dutch passenger. "Happy holidays!" "Stay safe guys, have fun".. Then later: "Oh my god... Does anyone know the flightnumbers?" "This is not the one [he] was on, was it?" "Jesus Christ guys... Please tell me this is a missunderstanding, I'm fearing the worst" "Footage on tv doesn't give much hope for emergency landing guys" "Downed by a missile??? What the fuck?" "Please don't let this be true" And it goes on and on. Just his family friends who thought he was going away on a holiday... The post this was all commented on, was a photo the Dutch passenger posted, jokingly titled: "If it disappears, this is what it looks like"...(Referencing the disappeared MH3709, also from Malaysian airlines)... :/ The 40 hearses in cortege made a huge impact on me, especially when it dawned on me that this were only 40 of the nearly 300 victims... Not even one seventh of all the passengers. Also, during the cortege, many banners with the text "Home" written on it... For the 193 Dutch victims who came back home for the last time.
Very tragic and sad indeed Mythbuster. My condolences to every family member of every victim. Rest all in Peace. ;-(
I believe someone did create a thread previously but I think it got out of hand and taken down. Anyway this is tragic news. Its incredibly sad to hear all of those innocent lives were lost over the conflict of two countries completely irrelevant to those passengers on board
If I'm remembering right ChrisLucas opened it. Didn't know that it got taken down. Hard to believe that some members of this community are that insensitive that they would let a thread as sad as that get out of hand.
Absolutely awful incident, my thoughts are with all these people's families. But it is absolutely sickening that the Russian government and media (russiatoday) is not accepting responsibility. With the amount of evidence that it was separatists, how can the Russian media still play dumb?
well the entire western world was basically accused of being jews (specifically zionists) by a "Ukrainian" member in it (who knows, maybe he didnt know what zionists are - zionism was banned by the soviet union regardless) while sprouting his propoganda for the separatists (usual stuff, army shot plane down, Ukraine is russian, etc etc). Needless to say he ground my gears a bit, I don't even remember exactly what I said but I probably didn't help the whole "thread not here any more" situation. Not surprised it went although I honestly thought this was that thread when I saw it, didn't realise it had actually gone. Anywho, nobody really wants to read about that here. Its a shocking loss of life. Nobody on that aircraft would have suspected a thing. Honestly, those I feel saddest for are those who's loved ones have not been found. The number of victims returned so far do not account for the full flight passenger list. I want to say something deep and meaningful, but its one of those incidents where there simply isn't anything to say. Its just awful Some lighter news on the subject. Both black boxes arrived at the AAIB in the UK today (actualyl yesterday as its gone midnight, so assume this post was on wednesday), the cockpit voice recorder was damaged but its memory module was apparently intact and all data successfully downloaded with no signs of tampering. Flight recorder will be looked at on thursday apparently.
I saw that on the news this morning, They reckon it will take 1-2 days max to investigate what happened on the recordings.
I was looking on twitter for Ukraine news when someone said a Malaysian passenger plane was shot down in east Ukraine. At first I didn't believe it as it is surreal, but then I realised it was true when I saw that on TV minutes later... To be honest It made me a little bit cry. How can those f****** terrorists shoot down a passenger plane, even by mistake... There is a big problem over there in east Ukraine, and since the MH17 crash, NATO, US, EU are now all the sudden very worried about the situation. I'm not saying the plane crash is not important or anything, of course it's very worrying, it is an International crime and it needs to be investigated on immediately. And Russia, Russia... Why... You are the one behind all this, you trained these people, you took Crimea and it was a little 'victory' for you and now you are trying to take east Ukraine? You see what happens when you let badly trained separatists use Russian weapons like its their little toy? Massacre, I call this a massacre and Russia will pay for this. I'm really sad about all those innocent lives that were lost, they seemed to be good people and had nothing to do with the Ukrainian crisis.I'm really sorry Tom for the loss of the people you knew. Strange how hours before they bragged that they shot down an AN-26 and when they realized they shot a civilian plane, they just deleted those posts, AND also the ones bragging about the BUK Missile launcher they got from Russia (which they said it was captured from the Ukrainian armyin the east) That's all what I can say for now as I'm almost speechless. Oh, and sorry for my bad English, and the long post.
What happened to the old thread? I was gone for a few days. - - - Updated - - - I saw it on the news 4 hours after the crash I was shocked and I was even more shocked when I heard that there where 150 Dutch people onboard. Yesterday I saw the ceremony live it was weird to see that many cars and it's only a part of all the deads. In Maastricht the city I live in 4 people lost their lives, in Hilversum 3 family's where wiped out.
You guys didn't hear that MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian SU fighter? Teheran news-station has found proof that MH17 was shot down by Ukrainian guided missles that were fired from the SU. Also, the Russians didn't supply the rebels, because iirc, Ukraine recived a fair share of BUK launchers when the USSR fell apart.
Except those Buk launchers were captured in Crimea back in April. And if there are still Buk lauchers in the Ukrainian army, they were not deployed in the east. And yeah, weapons appear magically, of course. Oh look! A glock just appeared in my hands! /irony
I have nothing to add as Mythbuster basically summed it up, disgraceful that the deceased have been treated with such little respect by the separatists and that the UN and EU will probably do very little to punish Russia for such a move.
74 more remains just landed in the C17 and C130 in the Netherlands. They are given the same ceremony, this time without media though. They will also be transported in many, many hearses in convoy to Hilversum using the closed-off highways. Is that what the propaganda news stations tell you in Bosnia? Jesus... I feel sorry for you for not being told the truth. Not as sorry as I feel for the victims and their relatives though. I just read a Dutch article, which basically sums it all up: (loosely translated) "Can I call you Vladimir? Thank you. I was wondering... Did you learn anything from this national day of mourning for the vicitims of the terrorist attack(let's just call it what it is) on flight MH17? No? Ah, you really missed something. It wasn't just impressive, it was so much more than that. It was overwhelming. That grief can bring a population so close together. I didn't know.. But today I felt it. (...) You didn't see all that, did you Vladimir? You know, that's a real pity. You could've learned so much from it. About how the media treated this day with respect. Not just because they adjusted their daily programs on tv.. No, also how you can broadcast the whole day and not put footage of grieving relatives on tv. You could've seen how a father, a mother, a fireman, a daughter, a teacher, a market merchant and thousands of others stood beside the route of the cortege, to pay their lasts respects to the black ribbon of hearses transporting the first 40 remains. Prior to the convoy/cortege/funeral procession, the whole country litterally stood still for a minute. It was only one minute, but it was deafening. It said everything. Even though it was 28 degrees outside, not a single person didn't have goose bumps. Beautiful to see that foreign Media also stood on our side. CNN broadcasted the whole day live, to make the connection feelable far outside of our country borders. Even more beautiful to see that the villagers of the struck area in Ukraine also had their own memorial for all 298 victims. But ok, you missed all that... Why? Oh, I just read about it. You had a party with the high bosses from FIFA. Celebrating the start of the build of their new World Cup stadium for 2018. Of course, that also has to be done. Oh, and you had to send some more ground-troups to the Ukrainian border... Gee... You were just way too busy to also take a minute of silence for 298 victims, who you don't even know of course. Who can blaim you... Sad, but especially for you, Vladimir. Sad, that you didn't get to experience it. Because the strenght, love and connectivity that people felt here between eachother is something you can only be jealous of. Despite the grief. It all went passed you, Vladimir. For a reason. Tell me, what is the word for "Timing" in Russian? My best regards, Feetje" I honestly beg everyone to boycot the Russian World Cup. Let him waste his stupid money on their stupid stadiums. Why would we give a country ran by such a heartless man our money by attending the World Cup, paying for their hotels, for their drinks, for their food, on their ground? ... Honestly :/
We don't know what happened, we can't blame anyone. So Ukrainian authorities blame the rebels, and they show as proof a conversation that was released almost inmediately as the plane was shot down... yeah sure. Now the US isn't even sure who to blame and they say it was shot down ''by mistake''. Btw, another plane just crashed in africa with 114 people, most of them were french.
You have got to be kidding me with this new plane crash... A few days ago another plane crashed I think in Taiwan or heading for Taiwan, killing 47.. :| That's the third major crash in a week... What the HELL is going on Do they know anything about the reason yet? EDIT: Just read due to bad weather and it hasn't been found yet... Christ I hope there are at least some survivors Regardless of what the truth is on MH17, the fact that news stations in Bosnia claim that proof has been found is just a complete lie. Fact. If any proof was found for EITHER side of the story, it would definitely be known here. Even though I have no doubt that the Dutch media also picks a side, and then broadcasts news that mainly shows indications that "The Russians have done it", because they know most of the Dutch population *want* to blame them more than they want to blame Ukraine, there is NO reason not to tell us that proof has been found to support either story. It's in no way beneficial for us to blame one side over the other. Ukraine and it's allies on one side, and Russia and it's allies on the other, those are the only countries where it would be slightly beneficial for them to "hide" it when true proof is found that blames one of them. That said, I think you must agree that it's slightly suspicious that the Russian seperatists/rebels posted on their social media that they downed an An-26 which crashed in the Process(or whatever) mines, like, a short time after radio contact was lost. And that they were boasting to have found a BUK missile launcher on that army base a month or so earlier, and that they had been shooting down Ukraine planes with that in the week prior to this crash... And that all those messages were removed as soon as they found out the AN-26 was actually a Boeing 777 with 300 passengers on-board...
One thing that stands out to me. If you were innocent, you'd have nothing to hide right? The separatists wont let anyone investigate it, its like they are deliberately hiding something. It may well be that they really are innocent, but if that's the case we won't find out because they aren't letting an investigation take place. They returned the deceased (although apparently there are several unaccounted for and they weren't the best cared for which is an absolute insult I think). They have returned the black boxes. Cool. But quit playing with the evidence (already seems they've moved stuff around) and let a team go in there and investigate the wreckage properly. A leading rebel commander has confirmed presence of a Buk in Luhansk but claims the team with it "sent it back to remove proof of its existence". Regardless of who has guilt, it was probably a mistake (unless the russian owned news team portalized cites are in fact correct in which case I cant see a fighter jet shooting down an airliner by accident). No side seeks to gain anything from the shooting down of an airliner so why would they do it when that action can itself be taken as an act of war. Nobody out there wants more conflict. In more lighter news. Australia have sent a team of 50 people to London on standby for when we can finally have access to the crash site (why the assembly point chosen is London I do not know). Another 51 deceased have just left Ukraine headed to the Netherlands. The British and Dutch foreign ministers are both travelling to Kiev. - - - Updated - - - The one in Taiwan I am not sure what the cause is, I have heard something about the aircraft being poorly maintained so it may be mechanical failure. The one which has gone missing in Africa did apparently hit very poor weather. Going down over land we should find that one a little more easily, hopefully it will transpire that it survived its landing wherever that was (entirely possible at this time).
Yes, you are correct sixsixsevenseven. I doubt we'll find thatt the plane survived it's landing very well if at all to be honest... When they lose radio contact it usually means most of the plane is destroyed.. It doesn't magically turn off when the belly touches the ground :/ Footage was just published of Russians transporting a BUK launcher with 2 missiles missing from near the Ukraine border through Russia, filmed by someone who followed the truck for 2 kilometers at 8:45PM on Saturday.. It was smuggled in the middle of the night across the border(this footage is from way passed the border, hence why it's light outside). This seems to be the most objective news about the whole thing. http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/who-is-lying-about-the-missiles-that-took-down-mh17-ove-1608293023
