MH17 As Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists blame each other for the crash of MH17 Boeing 777, a sophisticated missile system has been brought into the public limelight – the Russian-made 9K37 Buk.
Confirmation that a missile was involved will only come if someone admits firing one, or if crash investigators find shrapnel and other tell-tale signs on the aircraft debris and the bodies recovered.
Nevertheless, the use of a missile was raised soon after the MH17 disaster by a Ukrainian Interior Ministry official who said pro-Russian forces had used the missile to bring down the plane.
However, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has denied having missiles in its possession.
A medium-range surface-to-air missile such as Buk is necessary to bring down an aircraft at a cruising altitude as shoulder-fired missiles (called Manpads, or Man-Portable Air Defence System), favoured by insurgents worldwide for their portability, lack the range needed.
Manpads can only threaten an aircraft during take-off and landing, when it is flying relatively low and slow. The earliest version of the Buk missile has a maximum engagement altitude of 14 kilometres. The MH17 was reportedly flying at about 33,000 feet (9.5 kilometres) high.
Airspace MH17 was in was deemed 'open'
According to a report in British newspaper The Guardian, the Ukrainian authorities had banned flights at 32,000 feet and below in the area where MH17 crashed at the time of the incident, and the airspace it was flying was deemed “open”. That airspace in eastern Ukraine is now closed to all civilian air traffic.
The radar-guided missile weighs just over half-a-tonne and is typically launched from the top of an armoured vehicle or a ship.
Various versions of the missile, carrying nicknames such as “Grizzly” and “Gadfly”, have been fielded since 1979 in Russia, Ukraine, China and other countries.
It had seen combat on both sides of the 2008 South Ossetia war between Russia and Georgia, during which defence analysts noted the Russian Air Force had taken heavy casualties and could not develop a counter-measure against a missile system it created.
However, the question remains: If a missile brought down the MH17, who fired it?
“It's a very capable system, proven under real-world conditions,”Foreign Policymagazine quoted a political risk consultancy Wikistrat researcher as saying, while noting that the system is difficult to use.
“These systems require a large amount of technical know-how, unlike these Manpads, which are basically ‘point-and-shoot’,” the researcher said.
Foreign Policy also reported that Ukraine has such missiles in its possession. However despite denials, so does Donetsk, which is said to have a missile system similar to Buk.
Donetsk had acquired Buk missiles, says report
The magazine quoted Russian newswire Itar-Tass as reporting on June 29 that Donetsk had acquired Buk missiles, and said the group had even bragged about its acquisition on Twitter.
The posting, also dated June 29, has since been removed and can only be viewed via Google’s cache.
“An Associated Pressreporter spotted what was described as ‘a launcher similar to the Buk missile system’ near the town of Snizhne.
“On Thursday, a Twitter account associated with Maidan protest movement in Kiev posted a photograph purporting to show a Buk launcher in the town of Torez, which is near the crash site and has been the scene of fighting between separatist and government forces,” the report added.
The report also noted that while Ukraine does have Buk missiles near the crash site, these missiles in the region were only used against Ukrainian government aircraft.
Meanwhile, Polish editor Michal Potocki, who had been studying the conflict in Ukraine, agreed that the separatist group is responsible for shooting down the Malaysian airliner.
“It cannot be the Ukrainian side - they do not need to use surface-to-air missiles as the separatists do not have airplanes as for now. It was probably a missile system called Buk,” Potocki toldMalaysiakini in an email today.
He also pointed out that just before news broke that MH17 had crashed, separatist leader, Igor Strelkov, posted on a Russian social media site that two supposedly Ukrainian aircraft had been shot down, saying that they were “an Antonov and probably a Sukhoi”.
“Only after we got the news that it was Boeing - the separatists started to blame the Ukrainian side,” Strelkov said.
MH17 had been using a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft for the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight, which is the same model used for flight MH370 that went missing on March 8.
Source :http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/269149
Confirmation that a missile was involved will only come if someone admits firing one, or if crash investigators find shrapnel and other tell-tale signs on the aircraft debris and the bodies recovered.
Nevertheless, the use of a missile was raised soon after the MH17 disaster by a Ukrainian Interior Ministry official who said pro-Russian forces had used the missile to bring down the plane.
However, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has denied having missiles in its possession.
A medium-range surface-to-air missile such as Buk is necessary to bring down an aircraft at a cruising altitude as shoulder-fired missiles (called Manpads, or Man-Portable Air Defence System), favoured by insurgents worldwide for their portability, lack the range needed.Manpads can only threaten an aircraft during take-off and landing, when it is flying relatively low and slow. The earliest version of the Buk missile has a maximum engagement altitude of 14 kilometres. The MH17 was reportedly flying at about 33,000 feet (9.5 kilometres) high.
Airspace MH17 was in was deemed 'open'
According to a report in British newspaper The Guardian, the Ukrainian authorities had banned flights at 32,000 feet and below in the area where MH17 crashed at the time of the incident, and the airspace it was flying was deemed “open”. That airspace in eastern Ukraine is now closed to all civilian air traffic.
The radar-guided missile weighs just over half-a-tonne and is typically launched from the top of an armoured vehicle or a ship.Various versions of the missile, carrying nicknames such as “Grizzly” and “Gadfly”, have been fielded since 1979 in Russia, Ukraine, China and other countries.
It had seen combat on both sides of the 2008 South Ossetia war between Russia and Georgia, during which defence analysts noted the Russian Air Force had taken heavy casualties and could not develop a counter-measure against a missile system it created.
However, the question remains: If a missile brought down the MH17, who fired it?“It's a very capable system, proven under real-world conditions,”Foreign Policymagazine quoted a political risk consultancy Wikistrat researcher as saying, while noting that the system is difficult to use.
“These systems require a large amount of technical know-how, unlike these Manpads, which are basically ‘point-and-shoot’,” the researcher said.
Foreign Policy also reported that Ukraine has such missiles in its possession. However despite denials, so does Donetsk, which is said to have a missile system similar to Buk.
Donetsk had acquired Buk missiles, says report
The magazine quoted Russian newswire Itar-Tass as reporting on June 29 that Donetsk had acquired Buk missiles, and said the group had even bragged about its acquisition on Twitter.
The posting, also dated June 29, has since been removed and can only be viewed via Google’s cache.
“An Associated Pressreporter spotted what was described as ‘a launcher similar to the Buk missile system’ near the town of Snizhne.“On Thursday, a Twitter account associated with Maidan protest movement in Kiev posted a photograph purporting to show a Buk launcher in the town of Torez, which is near the crash site and has been the scene of fighting between separatist and government forces,” the report added.
The report also noted that while Ukraine does have Buk missiles near the crash site, these missiles in the region were only used against Ukrainian government aircraft.
Meanwhile, Polish editor Michal Potocki, who had been studying the conflict in Ukraine, agreed that the separatist group is responsible for shooting down the Malaysian airliner.
“It cannot be the Ukrainian side - they do not need to use surface-to-air missiles as the separatists do not have airplanes as for now. It was probably a missile system called Buk,” Potocki toldMalaysiakini in an email today.
He also pointed out that just before news broke that MH17 had crashed, separatist leader, Igor Strelkov, posted on a Russian social media site that two supposedly Ukrainian aircraft had been shot down, saying that they were “an Antonov and probably a Sukhoi”.
“Only after we got the news that it was Boeing - the separatists started to blame the Ukrainian side,” Strelkov said.
MH17 had been using a Boeing 777-200ER aircraft for the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight, which is the same model used for flight MH370 that went missing on March 8.
Source :http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/269149
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