high-end anti-aircraft system can't be operated by a bunch of drunk wannabe rebels, you need entire support unit of radar observation and command(read on wikipedia what is a BUK battery). stealing that one sorry BUK vehicle would just make it shoot in random direction into the ground not at high speed, high altitude target.

The SA-11 'Buk' TELAR (9A310M1) was indeed designed to be used as part of a broader system including C&C, dedicated launchers, and the 9S18M1 radar. It certainly requires trained personnel to operate.

With that said, the Buk was also designed to surpass its predecessor('Kub') by incorporating a fire control radar into each launcher (TELAR vs TEL), so that it could operate with some autonomy. The original idea was to allow the whole SAM network to track multiple targets independent of the 9S18M1 radar, which would focus on detection and delegation.

This capability also enables an autonomous TELAR unit (as the various images and videos are showing) to target an aircraft at a range of 3-32km, much as people are hypothesizing happened to MH17. It is plausible, although far from certain.

http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/sa-11.htm

That's why I called them marginally-competent instead of drunk wannabes.

I'm not 100% solid on this, but I have read that they were using just the missile truck without the supporting air-search radar. The missile trucks apparently have fire-control radar and can attack and aircraft by themselves. It seems plausible that they were given or stole just part of the system - the missile truck - and maybe got some manuals or some hasty training from Russian military or something. So they know enough to fire the missiles at a target, but don't have the hardware or training to operate a proper air-search radar and identify their targets carefully first.

Which is why I think it's mostly likely that it was them. Say what you will about the Russian and Ukrainian militaries, I doubt they'd accidentally shoot down a civilian airliner.

The rebels had already shot down a number of Ukrainian military aircraft before this happened, so it looks like they can operate the system.

Landing transport planes, su-27's on a bomb run, helicopters. Easy targets for simple shoulder fired missiles ,that's what Afghani sheeperds were doing to soviet and american armies - just a dumb Stinger missile

An Antonov AN-26 was shot down at 21,000ft on July 14. Assuming that the Ukrainians don't shoot down their own military aircraft, it was either shot down by the rebels or, possibly, the Russians. The rebels took credit and there is no real evidence that the Russians did it, AFAIK. Also, the twitter comments by the rebels immediately after MH17 crashed, and the conversation between rebel commanders released by the Ukrainians, speak against direct Russian involvement. (And on top of that, although militaries certainly do make big mistakes from time to time, it is clearly more likely that the poorly trained rebels would have made a huge fuck up like this than that the Russian military would have done so.)

Even if it is true that all airlines thought it was safe, I don't see how that is a valid defence.

The simplest research would have told Malaysia Airlines that (a) rebels were shooting down planes in Eastern Ukraine with surface to air missiles; and (b) some surface to air missiles can reach 40,000 feet. Those two facts alone indicate that the region was not safe for commercial airliners.

If all airlines flew through Eastern Ukraine then they are all guilty of abdicating their responsibility to make simple checks about the safety of their flights.

It is not acceptable to say that air traffic authorised the flight. In the cockpit the co-pilot is trained to question the judgement of the pilot. In the same way Malaysia Airlines should have performed simple checks on the information supplied by the air traffic authorities.

What would be needed are not simple checks, but thorough research, which in turn would require reliable local intelligence. The kind one could expect the organisation responsible for ATC to have access to, as opposed to an airline based far, far away.

Sounds dicey. Typical rebels use MANPADS, which have max ranges around 2-4 miles, too small to hit an airliner at cruising altitude. Missile systems with longer ranges tend to be bigger and more complex, and mostly used by well-trained soldiers in proper national militaries who know better than to target airliners. It seems that we have an exception to that here, but it still looks like it was reasonable to assume that they'd be safe.

“Typical rebels” might be unlikely to be able to shoot down a high-altitude plane. But the rebels in Eastern Ukraine had just demonstrated that they could shoot down a plane at 21000 ft. With that information who would conclude that there was less than a 1% chance the rebels were capable of downing a plane at 33,000 ft?

And even the most well-trained military force in the world has shown that it can mistakenly target civilian planes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

> I sure wouldn't buy any stock in anything connected to them.

This sounds like a good reason to buy stock in them.

Most airlines were avoiding the eastern Ukraine corridor...

See this article: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28356745

Looks pretty heavily trafficked to me. And a lot of airlines are now saying that they will avoid that area, when they were presumably using it before.

Many did cross - even Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines. Spiegel gathered some flight data from flight radar.com. The article is in German but you can scroll to the bottom to see the list: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/malaysia-airlines-mh17...

One should note that though Air France from from Paris to Bangkok used to take the route south from the Ukraine, the KLM from AMS to Kuala Lumpur was going through the country, both later merging to the same route over Turkmenistan.

Given that Air France-KLM is a one corporation since 2004, it's pretty surprising. Paris is a bit more south than Amsterdam, but not that much.

[1] http://cdn1.spiegel.de/images/image-726710-galleryV9-ocpi.jp...

According to the linked article, Air France and some other foreign airlines were the only ones to avoid Ukraine.

Proof?

See: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/17/world/europe/m...

I don't know if "most" is true, but Air France and British Airways were avoiding it at least, and I recall reading Delta had been as well.