Breaking: Plane crash near Ukraine-Russia border, 295 on board
posted at 11:43 am on July 17, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
This looks very, very bad. Ukrainian officials say that a Malaysia Air commercial flight traveling near the Russian border has been shot down, with 295 people on board:
BREAKING: Adviser to Ukraine's Interior Minister says passenger plane carrying 295 shot down.
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 17, 2014
No other source has confirmed that the flight, which left Amsterdam earlier, was shot down as opposed to crashed for some other reason. Sky News reports that Malaysia Air has confirmed an “incident” in the area, though, so the crash itself appears to be real. It would be the second major crash for the airline this year, and this one might touch off a lot more than a so-far futile hemispheric search.
On Twitter, people were recalling the tensions following the KAL 007 shoot-down in 1983:
Anyone else remember the tension the Fall of 1983 after KAL 007 was shot down?
— Popehat (@Popehat) July 17, 2014
Reuters has more on this now:
The Boeing plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, it said. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.
The Interfax report said the plane came down 50 km (20 miles) short of entering Russian airspace. It “began to drop, afterwards it was found burning on the ground on Ukrainian territory,” the unnamed source said.
The plane appeared to have come down in a region of military action where Ukrainian government forces are battling pro-Russian separatists.
If this plane was shot down, this would mean an enormous escalation in the Ukraine-Russia crisis. It’s difficult to believe that either Ukraine or Russia would mistake a commercial flight at 10,000 meters, as Reuters reports it, as a hostile military flight — although that was the explanation offered for the KAL 007 shootdown and the US Navy’s shootdown of an Iranian commercial flight in the 1980s as well. CNN’s expert wonders whether Malaysia Air’s communications got screwed up again and ended up flashing something other than its proper ID, but it seems a little more likely that if it got shot down — still not yet established — it would have been from forces not used to dealing with the distinction between the various kinds of flights.
Ukraine says that the missile was fired by separatists:
#BREAKING: Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser said the Buk missile was fired by separatists: Interfax
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) July 17, 2014
Assuming that it was shot down, of course, that would reflect back on Russia, which is supporting the separatists. CNN is now reporting that the Pentagon thinks that’s what happened on an earlier shootdown [corrected]:
CNN's Barbara Starr reports Pentagon believes Russian side fired missile that took out separate Ukrainian cargo plane on Monday.
— michaelscherer (@michaelscherer) July 17, 2014
[more to come]
Source from: hotair
No comments:
Post a Comment