Malaysian passenger jet allegedly shot down near Ukranian border

See the second post on this thread.

 

Update: The Ukrainians accuse the Russians of shooting down one of their fighter jets last night. This story actually broke before the news of the airliner shoot-down.

Relative to the Malaysian airliner crash, Ukraine says it has not retaliated for the shoot-down last night, and has not fired on any inbound or outbound aircraft. I'd say this is getting pretty dangerous all of a sudden.

Separatists initially claimed they were trying to shoot down a Ukrainian military plane, but now claim they also have not fired on any aircraft in Ukraine airspace.

Nothing being said right now by anyone can be believed. It will have to sort itself out in the next few hours.

Thankfully, we won't have to rely on anything the Malaysian government says about the incident.

 

Further Update: The story is congealing around the Separatists' initial statement that they were trying to shoot down a Ukrainian military jet, using a Russian-made BUT missile system, followed by their denial that they fired at anything.

That system functions via two independent radar guidance systems, but its shortcoming is that, in a multiple-plane environment, both systems will forget the initial target in favor of a larger, "brighter" target. Speculation internationally is that the Separatists attempted to shoot down another Ukrainian military jet but the missile dropped its lock on the smaller Sukhoi fighter and picked up on the Boeing 777 of Malaysian Airlines. There is also the possibility they mistook the Boeing 777 for a Ukrainian cargo plane.

U.S. military analysts assigned to NATO are said to be reviewing military radar, satellite and computer data and will be able to pinpoint within a few yards where the missile was fired from. The question is, will we ever know that information?

 

Ukrainian Government: There were 23 U.S. citizens onboard Malaysian flight 17, which (I forgot to mention) was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Lord be with their families at this time of tragedy.

And that leaves in question what the U.S. response should/will be. I hazard a guess the "should" is much different from the "will."

 

All the links on this story will continue to change almost by the minute. My original links has updated about 20 times since I posted it.

 

American intelligence comes through again.

No country other than the U.S. possesses the technology to produce telephone recording that quickly.

Meanwhile, Putin claims Ukraine shot down the passenger jet.

It is becoming apparent the pilots had some control over the airliner and were attempting to make a "controlled crash landing" but probably lost control of the aircraft either just before or at the point of impact. Large pieces of the airliner were seen, intact, lying in the Ukrainian countryside strewn over a nine-mile path leading to the crash site. Initially the separatist rebels were preventing Ukrainian and international humanitarian efforts and crash site investigators from getting to the scene, but Russia has now announced the rebels have agreed to a three-day cease-fire (as though the Russians was able to "convince" independent fighters) while investigators look over the site and bodies are removed from the area.