BearX220

Width of a commercial air corridor: FAA/US standard is four nautical miles to both left and right of the aircraft, for a total width of 8 nm.

This NOTAM was issued yesterday, 16 July, and took effect 10 hours before MH17 departed AMS. I posted it in this thread a few hours ago, but lots of new readers are raising the same questions without reading 500+ posts, which is understandable. Here it is again.

This is not the FAA notice to US carriers issued last April. It is a new notice issued this week by Russian aviation authorities in Rostov.

V6158/14 - DUE TO COMBAT ACTIONS ON THE TERRITORY OF THE UKRAINE NEAR THE STATE BORDER WITH THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND THE FACTS OF FIRING FROM THE TERRITORY OF THE UKRAINE TOWARDS THE TERRITORY OF RUSSIAN FEDERATION, TO ENSURE INTL FLT SAFETY, ATS RTE SEGMENTS CLSD AS FLW:

A100 MIMRA - ROSTOV-NA-DONU VOR/DME (RND) ,
B145 KANON - ASMIL,
G247 MIMRA - BAGAYEVSKIY NDB (BA),
A87 TAMAK - SARNA,
A102 PENEG - NALEM,
A225 GUKOL - ODETA,
A712 TAMAK - SAMBEK NDB (SB),
B493 FASAD - ROSTOV-NA-DONU VOR/DME (RND),
B947 TAMAK - ROSTOV-NA-DONU VOR/DME (RND),
G118 LATRI - BAGAYEVSKIY NDB (BA),
G534 MIMRA - TOROS,
G904 FASAD - SUTAG,
R114 BAGAYEVSKIY NDB (BA)-NALEM.
SFC - FL320.
DEP FM/ARR TO ROSTOV-NA-DONU AD TO/FM MOSCOW FIR CARRIED OUT ALONG
ATS RTE G128 KONSTANTINOVSK NDB (KA) - MOROZOVSK VOR/DME (MOR) AND
R11 MOROZOVSK VOR/DME (MOR) - BUTRI ON ASSIGNED FL.
DEP FM ROSTOV-NA-DONU AD TO DNEPROPETROVSK FIR CARRIED OUT ALONG
ATS RTE A102 KONSTANTINOVSK NDB (KA) - NALEM ON FL340 AND ABOVE.
ARR TO ROSTOV-NA-DONU AD FM DNEPROPETROVSK FIR CARRIED OUT ALONG
ATS RTE A712 TAMAK - SAMBEK NDB (SB) THEN DCT KONSTANTINOVSK NDB
(KA) ON FL330 AND ABOVE. SFC - FL530, 17 JUL 00:00 2014 UNTIL 31 AUG 23:59 2014
ESTIMATED. CREATED: 16 JUL 17:08 2014

MH17 was operating Tamak - Sarna (bolded above) and was shot down a few kilometers from Tamak, on the Ukraine-Russia border. The notation above that says SFC - FL320 indicates the closure goes from ground surface to "flight level 320," e.g. 32,000 feet.

The 777 was operating at 33,000 feet, according to FlightRadar24. That is not much of a margin. If the MH crew saw the NOTAM, they made a judgment to fly as little as 1,000 feet above the designated trouble zone. Not much of a safety margin if you ask me.

I think the NOTAM above is rather relevant.

This Twitter photo of an MH777, purported to be the aircraft lost today, is spurious. Have a look at the nose gear door. The letters shown are "RC", indicating the plane's registration is 9M-MRC. The aircraft shot down was 9M-MRD. Wrong plane. (MH370 was 9M-MRO.)

elkhornne

So the US Vice President is saying the US tracked a foreign missile hitting the airliner. I hope the US finds who did this and takes the strongest action possible!

rjque

That looks like it was on a different day. There were far more clouds in the sky in all of the other videos.

tyberius

There is no doubt at all that there are Russian soldiers on the ground.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...russia-fighter

There are images of the soldiers killed during the assault at the Donestk airport, and some have been matched up with their social media pages (Vkontakte) afterwards. This one was Russian Special Forces.

(note: graphic and disturbing photos of one such dead solder in the next link)

http://inforesist.org/en/a-russian-s...etsk-photo-18/

This page contained this link to his VKontake page which had pictures of him and his girlfriend and his life in Russia. I read the report above the day it was made and followed this link:

https://vk.com/id143829513

Which is now deleted.

Igor Strelkin who is the leader (which means "Shooter", his real name is Girkin) is from Moscow as well and was present in Crimea and has a background in Russian military intelligence.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/r-...rebels-2014-15

You have a mix of experienced and trained fighters, local militiamen, and then foreign mercenaries or patriots from various ex-soviet republics. This is a typical patriot type who's come to fight and then got the heck out:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...aine-interview

So you have this combination present from these reports: Russian military intelligence leadership, presence of Russian special forces, rag-tag politically motivated believers recruited from far and wide and sent in. Aside from these there are of course reports of paid mercenaries from inside Ukraine and Russia, then no doubt at all there are local people with Russian descent who believe in their cause.

Remember it was only about 20 years ago that Ukraine became independent. This means that men in their 40s-50s have military experience in the USSR.

And they had to serve some number of years in the military. So it's not a situation where some people may have had some training, it's that all men in a certain age range have some kind of military training of some sort. And many are veterans of real conflicts, like Strelkin.

The Wolf

Absolutely...the grain of salt I'm taking this with is moon-sized, hence the bold unconfirmed in front. To be frank, I can't see anything but a missile and a flash.

CPRich

Maybe I'm a bit dense today. How is a plane going to land in Kiev, Ukraine without flying into Ukrainian airspace?

JBord

Thank you for the detail, that was exactly my point. Its not necessarily the work of the current Russian military. That's all I was pointing out. Dangerous for someone to jump to that conclusion when its very possibly the work of the separatist group. And I'm NOT going to jump into the political debate of who the separatists "really" are. I don't find that pertinent to the topic of this thread.

Sykes

The safety margin is built into the NOTAM.

acader

Condolences to all the families who are victims of this tragedy. I pray that they get the strength to cope up with this loss.

Concerto

I think it's important to keep in mind here one's geography. Eastern Ukraine is a long, long way from Kiev. I once traveled by train from Kiev to Kharkov and it took a whole day (there was a sleeper compartment even in 2nd class on such a trip, which took place during the day). You cross the vast agricultural flatlands of Ukraine and you get some idea of how vast the country is, the granary of Europe! Once in Kharkov, it's still quite a haul on to the Eastern part where all this trouble is happening.

In terms of the size of the country, I don't see any point in avoiding the entire country when it comes to overflying restrictions. Just the far Eastern part.

BearX220

Today's developments suggest that policy might benefit from review.

exilencfc

I know what you mean. I feel sad about the Brits (i'm British) and very sad about the Dutch victims - a good friend of mine is Dutch and it's one of my favourite countries to visit. All equally tragic thoigh when you look at it objectively rather than emotionally

Pseudo Nim

Can someone Spanish-speaking browse through this account? https://twitter.com/spainbuca

Apparently a traffic controller who works in Borispol. Not sure if relevant, but makes some peculiar claims.

Mart81

I'm Dutch and this is a national tragedy for us. These things are always hard hitting but they hit extra hard when they're so close to home. I've travelled this exact itinerary on an MH 777 a few times before. Having plenty of friends/family/relatives in Oz/NZ this is a route that I closely relate to.
So unnecessary as well.. this will trigger a whole bunch of political dominos

Sykes

Hindsight is 20/20. Planes routinely fly 1,000 feet above temporary flight restrictions and restricted areas (some of which are restricted due to live ordinance testing).