Collateral Damage
"Ukrainian traffic controller: "Rostov, do you observe the Malaysian by ... by the response?'
"Russian traffic controller: 'No, it seems that its target started falling apart."
When the crew of Malaysian passenger jet MH17 failed to respond to Ukrainian air traffic controllers, they contacted their Russian colleagues in Rostov-on-Don to determine whether their radar system was still displaying MH17. Thus, the conversation above...
The report now issued by the Dutch Safety Board is purely technical in nature, in its study of the July 17 crash of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over eastern Ukraine. The flight data recorder, recovered by the ethnic Russian Ukrainian protesters and handed over to investigators indicated nothing amiss as far as anything out of the ordinary was concerned; the jet was in good shape, the crew was alert and nothing appeared to threaten the flight.
One engine was in need of oil at the turnaround point at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport from Kuala-Lumpur. The airliner was set to repeat its route, in reverse Other than that the Dutch service crew made a note that oil consumption was in the normal range. Because of the conflict, the Ukrainian government had posted a restricted airspace access zone to an altitude of 32,000 feet. And because it was a conflict zone, some airlines avoided flying over the zone.
Not Malaysian Airlines, because to do so would be to incur greater costs and longer travel time. The jetliner flew that day at the 33,000 foot level. There was some lightning, since it was raining. The air traffic controller in Dnipropetrovsk asked the MH17 pilots to increase their height to 35,000 to accommodate another plane but the pilots preferred to maintain their altitude as it was. So the other aircraft ascended to avoid the potential of airspace conflict.
Not more than several minutes afterward, the MH17 pilot asked permission to divert his plane 20 nautical miles to the left to bypass bad weather, and he was given clearance to do so. At 1:20 p.m. Amsterdam time, "a large number of high-energy objects", hit and penetrated the outer shell of the plane, destroying its airworthiness integrity, causing it to fly apart and out of the sky, along with its 298 passengers and crew.
Ukraine stated it had no planes in the vicinity at that time. Moscow claimed, along with the rebels, that there had been a Ukrainian jet flying close to the Malaysian airliner. Although ample evidence in recorded messages between the rebels and their Russian handlers exists to link them to the downing of the aircraft, they absolutely disown responsibility.
The cockpit voice recorder contained normal conversation, no mention of anything but normality. Nor was there mention of a Ukrainian fighter jet close to the Boeing at the same altitude before the crash. The black boxes indicate no cause for the crash. The Ukrainian military had no reason to shoot at overhead jets, since their opponents had none. The ethnic Russian rebels had taken possession of anti-aircraft weaponry capable of shooting down a jet at that height
Alternately, a Russian crew had been responsible. Although Air France and Emirates Airlines avoided flying over the combat zone and eventually the U.S. banned its carriers from the airspace, all responsible airlines should have followed suit. For Malaysian Airlines it was the bottom line, not due diligence in protection of safety for passengers that informed their decision.
But of course, if a trigger-happy belligerence exhibited by the Moscow-inspired separatists hadn't been a reality, as it remains to this day, the international community would not have been in mourning for its nationals made victim to virulent nationalism, as collateral damage.
Labels: Conflict, Disaster, Ukraine
posted by Pieface @ Friday, September 12, 2014
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