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[Jeff Victor Hayden]

A Malaysian airliner with 295 people on board has crashed in Ukraine on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, amid allegations it was shot down.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28354856

[Paul March]

Horrible news... May they rest in peace.

[Brian Ainslie]

Forgive my ignorance, but why would a flight path go right over a known war zone? I realize it is becoming increasingly hard to avoid them now-a-days, and I think I know that there are "routes" (laymans term) in the sky that planes follow, but isn't there a reasonable alternative?

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Forgive my ignorance, but why would a flight path go right over a known war zone? I realize it is becoming increasingly hard to avoid them now-a-days, and I think I know that there are "routes" (laymans term) in the sky that planes follow, but isn't there a reasonable alternative?

You would have hoped they had learned from similiar incidents in the past Brian.

Iran Air Flight 655  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

Korean Air Lines Flight 007  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

[Tim Mellon]

Barbarians.

[Brian Ainslie]

Barbarians.

Can't help but notice that today's flight is taking a different route....more to the east.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

As did all the previous flights.

[Dan Swift]

One report says they diverted for weather. 
We will NEVER know what's on the black boxes either.  They are on their way to Moscow. 

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

There's an awful lot of reports and transcriptions doing the rounds already in the build up to yet another 'conspiracy theory' I would guess. Best wait for the accident investigation before drawing too many conclusions. At least there is something to investigate this time, wreckage, FDR and CVR. As long as they get to the truth and find out exactly what happened, no matter how unpleasant it may or not be, that's all they can do.

[JNev]

There's an awful lot of reports and transcriptions doing the rounds already in the build up to yet another 'conspiracy theory' I would guess. Best wait for the accident investigation before drawing too many conclusions. At least there is something to investigate this time, wreckage, FDR and CVR. As long as they get to the truth and find out exactly what happened, no matter how unpleasant it may or not be, that's all they can do.

Really think there will ever be a real accident investigation to amount to anything in this case?  I don't.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Really think there will ever be a real accident investigation to amount to anything in this case?  I don't.

Depends on who does the investigating really. History tells us that carefully tailored investigations can give you the results you want. In this case a Malaysian Airlines American made plane crashing on Ukrainian soil almost guarantees that none of the previous nationalities will be involved in the investigation. Which guarantees it happening again and again. Previous shoot downs of civilian aircraft.
Here is the evidence


1940s
Kaleva OH-ALL
KNILM PK-AFV
BOAC Flight 777
1950s
Cathay Pacific VR-HEU
El Al Flight 402
1970s
Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114
Korean Air Lines Flight 902
Air Rhodesia Flight RH825
Air Rhodesia Flight RH827
1980s
Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Polar 3
Air Malawi 7Q-YMB
Iran Air Flight 655
T&G Aviation DC-7
1990s
September 1993 Transair Georgian Airline Shootdowns
Lionair Flight LN 602
2000s
2001 Siberia Airlines Flight 1812
2003 Baghdad DHL attempted shootdown incident
2007 Balad aircraft crash
2007 Mogadishu TransAVIAexport Airlines Il-76 crash
2010s
2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight 17

[JNev]

Just keep in mind - this was no accident.  It was the outcome of an act of belligerence.

All the black boxes could possibly tell us is what happened up to the lethal missile strike, with slim chances of much useful about what followed.  Arguably that might include what vitals were destroyed or compromised by the strike - which was quite likely crippling to multiple systems, including primary structure on a large scale.

How to prevent this kind of event lies not with understanding the mechanics of this crash, but in recognizing the realities of the kind of war going on in that part of the world and related threats throughout the globe and dealing with them with fortitude.  Political commentary is not appropriate here, so I'll leave it at that generic level of discussion.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

The black boxes give information on quite important details in cases of shoot downs of civilian aircraft, navigation details, altitude, transponder, communications etc... all vital when flying near or over areas of disputed territory. Not that we have ever learnt anything from previous incidents, see list above. Obviously it goes without saying that these are despicable acts of violence no matter who is to blame, be it Russia, Ukraine, USA as examples from the list of previous shoot downs. Questions need to be asked as to why civilian flights are allowed to overfly disputed territories or we will see this happening again and again, see list.

[Monty Fowler]

Questions need to be asked as to why civilian flights are allowed to overfly disputed territories or we will see this happening again and again, see list.

I think it's real simple - the answer is money. Gas is expensive. Flying around a problem area makes a flight more expensive to the airline, resulting in smaller performance bonuses for the executives and less profit for the shareholders, or the government if it's a state-owned enterprise.

The airlines gamble with their passenger's lives that nothing will go wrong as they shave a few thousand dollars off the flight's cost. The reason it's called gambling is because sometimes, you loose. This was one of those times. Sympathies to all of the families whose lives have been torn apart forever.

LTM, who drives whenever he can,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 ECSP

[JNev]

A couple of thousand feet don't mean much in terms of avoidance, and they were in or skirting a war zone - the "orange" boxes aren't going to provide much but fodder for Russian deniability.