Well, except for the fact the rebels want to be an independent Russian state, occupying the juiciest part of Ukraine, under Putin, who has been aiding them "secretly", whom they hope will, and have repeatedly called on to, aid them. (Pardon the grammar.) One has to hope that the crew who pulled the trigger will confess their crime, and kill themselves. Ritualistically, to indicate they have some sense of honor.
I hope so too, but I very much doubt it... The Ukrainians still haven't fully admitted their guilt in the downing of a passenger plane in 2001. I doubt that either side in the current conflict is any better.
The really odd thing is that I read that the colors for a plane of Malaysian Airlines look very similar to Russian plane colors. So then, why would the rebels shoot at a plane showing Russian colors inside Ukrainian airspace? I don't know who did this, but I did immediately think back to TWA flight 800 near long island. It is clear that we can't trust any investigation by any of the countries involved ( including the US). After all the first casualty of war .... is the truth! I think we should wait for more information. Cui Bono?
The Ukrainian SAMs are Soviet-era. Almost nobody in NATO believes they are operational (e.g., dead batteries).
If the Buk SAM system was used to down the plane, those are known to be very much operational. The ones sold by Ukraine to Georgia were successfully used against Russian aircraft in 2008.
They can't see the plane. It was 35,000 ft in the air. Radar picked up a plane and they prob assumed it was a Ukraine transport. My guess is that it was an accident as no one has any incentive to shoot a foreign civilian plane.
you need to be an idiot to fly this airline after they lost modern plane " somewhere" and then they decided to fly over the country with full blown war where everyday day fighter jets ,helicopters and just couple weeks ago same size airplane was shotdown, even 5 years old with a little common sense will not do it, but as common sense is not that common,and according to some study saying that idiots don't know they are idiots,I am not surprised at all