A Malaysian Airlines civil passenger-carrying Boeing 777 aircraft (flight MH17) with 298 passengers and crew aboard has crashed and been totally destroyed on 17 July 2014 in the disputed region of East Ukraine after allegedly being shot down at high altitude by a radar-guided missile. The crash represents the second loss of a Malaysian Airlines flight this year.
The missile allegedly used in the strike on the airliner is believed to have been a “Buk” class missile (NATO designation: SA-11) of Russian manufacture and may have been fired as the result of an accidental misidentification of the aircraft as a military type. US Intelligence sources have reported to the media that their systems (likely to be Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) and Early Warning satellites) detected both the missile guidance radar being turned on, and the thermal signature of the subsequent missile launch. The SA-11 is a follow-on to the highly successful Soviet SA-6 mobile missile system which was used to dramatic effect by Egypt in the Yom Kippur war of 1973 against the Israeli Air Force. The missiles’ launcher, in being on a tracked vehicle, has the ability to “shoot and scoot” making it less vulnerable to retaliatory air attack itself.
Analysts are reportedly trying to use the detection records to see if the location of the missile launch used in this attack can be found. It has been suggested that the missile launch was conducted by seperatist rebels wanting to move Eastern Ukraine into Russian control using mobile launch hardware supplied by Russia. However, rebel and Russian government-controlled news sources including the RT news network (the former RIA Novosti news agency) claim that it was Ukrainian forces that were responsible for the airliner being shot down using either a surface-to-air missile or a missile launched from a fighter aircraft.
Update on 22 July 2014: The US Secretary of State John Kerry has disclosed the surface-to-air missile launch which apparently destroyed the Malaysian Airlines airliner came from within rebel held territory in Eastern Ukraine.
