Talk:Crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17/Witnesses

Fighter jets

 * PROOF U.S. is Lying. Deleted BBC (Russia) Report into MH17 (Eng Subs)
 * ''The BBC pulled this broadcast in total panic when they realised the evidence of the eye witnesses did not...
 * "PROOF U.S. is Lying. Delete..." The YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement.

BUK missiles

 * ‘Reuters lied’: MH17 witness says reporter falsified testimony - RT, March 30, 2015
 * RT Exposes Reuters Falsified MH17 Witness Statement
 * Ukraine: Reuters 'invented' my statement says MH17 crash witness

BBC video

 * BBC Russian video since pulled? Did they really even produce this? The locals all say there was a fughter jet that turned and left a different way. I put it here until I transcribe the subtitles. --Caustic Logic (talk) 22:53, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Eyewitness #1: There were two explosions in the air. And this is how it broke apart. And [the fragments] blew apart like this, to the sides. And when …


 * Eyewitness #2: … And there was another aircraft, a military one, beside it. Everybody saw it.


 * Eyewitness #1: Yes, yes. It was flying under it, because it could be seen. It was proceeding underneath, below the civilian one.


 * Eyewitness #3: There were sounds of an explosion. But they were in the sky. They came from the sky. Then this plane made a sharp turn-around like this. It changed its trajectory and headed in that direction [indicating the direction with her hands].

(that was easy - Gleb already did it) At that page is the video of the lady fighter in Slovyansk (so sad) a month before - June 18 - relating how the air force there recently had a jet hiding behind a civilian plane as it bombed the city. She thought it was to provoke a shootdown of the airliner and get the separatists branded as terrorists. This both offers a precedent for a real July 17 possibility, and a precedent for some folks to think that's what they saw or should say they saw. It will come down to what lines up. Most of this is vague, but witness 3 seems fairly astute and describes a turn I believe Russian radar also described. --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:25, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Just an update. I thought she looked familiar. Do you know who the "lady fighter" is? the video was i June,in late July she married famous Donetsk Airport defender commander Motorola (he hardly reaches up to her shoulder) and rumour from months ago is that she's expecting. Hope they all make it through this. KatKan (talk) 17:22, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
 * No link is ok, too busy to click anyway, but I appreciate the update. Was worried about her fate after her town got smashed. Alive and then some, good. --Caustic Logic (talk) 23:39, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Reuters: “From my balcony I saw a plane begin to descend from a great height and then heard two explosion," said one separatist from nearby Krasnyi Luch who gave his name only as Sergei. He denied the rebels had shot the plane down. "This could happen only if it was a fighter jet or a surface-to-air missile (that shot it down)," he said, noting that the rebels did not have weapons capable of shooting down a plane at such a height."
 * Note, on seeing the video, this seems to be post-shoot-down. He probably saw it nose-diving as it "descended." Something booms as it falls (was it twice? or an echo?) - I suspect it's one of the wing fuel tanks., since one of the wings is fully on fire. This accounts adds nothing but a description of what we can see for ourselves already, and his assessment is opinion - a bomb on board could have done it for all he knows. --Caustic Logic (talk)


 * Daily Mail witness accounts emerge but they only share one, at the bottom of a huge pile of large photos and fat fingers pointing lazily.
 * A local farmer said: ‘I was herding my cows and heard a buzzing noise. ‘I lay on the ground and thinking only that it would not hit me and my cows. Then I looked and saw that something turns sharply and two big wings were flying. Bang. And something explodes. It came from eastern side, from the side of Sokholikha mountain.’ 


 * Paris Match reportage recorded two days after crash Paris Match reporter Alfred de Montesquiou traveled to Rasipnoye and interviewed two eyewitnesses. At 1:31 the second eyewitness seems to say: Самолёт, который заходил, он, видать, рядом с ним шёл, и потом зашёл вот так вот ему - спереди. Can some one translate this?  For various reasons this video seems to be an important piece of evidence.  It not only confirms the claims made by other witnesses, seeing another plane flying beside MH17, but also the attempt by the Western press to censor this interesting fact (see BBC example above).   --Pasparal (talk) 19:19, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * "That (other) plane, which was (making an approach/manoeuver) (=заходил), as it appeared,  ( видать  ) it was flying nearby, and than (hand gesture, an arc) approached it like that, from the front." He continues that it was cloudy and he saw only part of the maneuver, than it was hidden by the clouds. Interesting. But MH17 was at 10 km height, clouds starting at maybe 5 km, so it is not entirely clear how much of  this is an observation and how much is a reconstruction. It is also not clear how high was that other plane (it's smaller plane, if he could see it well, maybe it was because it was lower). Maybe this guy can give more details sometime. Interesting, thanks! --Resup (talk) 20:14, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
 * It seems all the eyewitnesses saw the Boeing flying in or just below the clouds during the (final) attack while clearly recognizing one or more (far smaller) fighter jets flying beside the airliner. So the assumption this was at cruising height (33K feet) must be wrong. But this raises the question why MH17 would have descended (just after making mysterious left and right turns and suddenly slowing down to 200 km/h, according to Russian MoD) without any distress call being made by the Malaysian pilots. Russian Air Force colonel Aleksand Zhilin speculated while flying at cruising altitude MH17 was first struck in the right-hand engine by an R-60 air-to-air missile, making it lose altitude and forcing the pilots to dramatically change course (Anna-News interview with retired Russian Air Force colonel).  But the absence of radio communication by the pilots made me question this scenario. This led me to the (admittedly outlandish) conclusion MH17 was somehow cyber-hijacked during its final moments. --Pasparal (talk) 10:57, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
 * We know with quite high confidence that the plane was at 10000 m, because preliminary Dutch report, Appendix A, page 33 has plane altitude data showing it at 33000 feet all the way until it vanished. It is not clear whether witness have seen military plane and Boeing close together. As I understand, they saw military planes (and this is important to establish, e.g because a military plane is a legitimate target). Shortly after that, within few seconds, they heard 1-2 explosions, and shortly after that they saw a crash. I am not sure any of the witnesses actually saw Boeing before the crash (I do not remember a clear statement to that effect). --Resup (talk) 13:21, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
 * That claim is based on the FDR data which was read-out by the British (certainly not an unaligned and neutral party). Question: have you ever heard of an FDR dying before the passengers? (Dutch Foreign Minister Timmermans says passenger wore oxygen mask) --Pasparal (talk) 16:11, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I read some comments, Russian pilot or somebody experienced, saying that one oxygen mask cannot possibly deploy, this is done from the cockpit (and apparently there is no record that oxygen masks were deployed). Somebody thought that it may be portable oxygen mask, some people with shortage of breath (or asthma) may need an oxygen mask handy. So it could be just that. But I don't know more than what was reported. I did not save link to comments suggesting it was medical-reason oxygen mask.--Resup (talk) 16:52, 18 October 2014 (UTC)


 * ^ This reminds me of an episode of the RT selfie "News Team" I had intended to plug, Episode 32 where their reporter Roman Kosarev arrives very early at the scene. Episode 30 has some human interest stuff about how he went there against the fears of his wife. Both more for the record than for big revelations. --CE (talk) 19:30, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

All versions of the BBC video have been deleted from YouTube because of BBC copyright claims, but there is a version on Vimeo linked to from this article. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 14:32, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Who cares for MH17 eyewitnesses? – Max van der Werff, November 3, 2014

Виктор Галенко, Victor Galenko, VP of the Russian Aeronautic Society, for russvesna:"An air traffic controller opinion". He tells us that there were several witnesses in NOvorossia military who seen the plane with their own eyes, and tell that it was SU 27. That was endorsed by Khmuryi (Pertovskii). Victor Galenko than gives an argument why 1TV photo was a fake, his argument is essentially similar to ours. He than discusses Rostov radar info. He does not tell anything we did not figure, I guess, but he gives his opinion that this shows a military plane from the left side of MH17 (as he expects to be the case, I guess). He tells us that labels normally show altitude and speed---(but that signal at issue is passive and as I recall that information was not show). Thanks, Victor Galenko ! Did not know that witnesses told about SU 27. --Resup (talk) 20:00, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Reutersclaims witnesses located at Chernyi Zhovten claimed that they saw missile overhead, as they say before the crash. There are some problems with the account: Buk in single stage, so nothing to separate; witness give conflicting account, blaming Ukraine, changing story to Novorossia; claim is made long time after the event and could be not genuine; no video provided to get some idea about trustworthiness. Also, this location will give right-side-and front hit, with anything else much less likely. According to report, they were not able to find launching side. "Corroborated by rebels"-but no evidence for this provided, and may be fake. Even according to the authors, this does not prove anything. (I'd say, with such late report and problems noted, I am not convinced that the account is genuine, or that it is about MH17 event.-- And why not to publish video at least, if reporters believe the story themselves?) --Resup (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
 * reporter produced inaccurate report in the past, refuted later by Khodakovski --Resup (talk) 21:24, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

"Ramzes"
Former Russian GRU officer 'Ramzes' (years of service 1994-1999), as reported in Saker interview, 29.5.15.   "I have a special attitude regarding this. I was in the sky on July 17th at the exact time MH17 was shot down. I saw a military military plane in the sky. There is only one military plane that can be in the sky at this time. Only a Ukrainian military jet could be in the airspace at that time. I was not the only person who saw this military plane. Many of us saw it. I saw it with my own eyes.

The state that media then reported that Ukrainians denied having a plane in the air at that time. So ask yourself why are they lying?

I checked an American run flight path tracking website and I saw my commercial flight, I saw MH17, I saw that at that exact time (20 minutes after MH17) my commercial plane’s flight path was logged on this website. The next day discussing this with fellow officers and friends we looked at the website again and in less than 24 hours my commercial flight was not on this web site. Why would they delete the flight record of a commercial flight? This is a daily scheduled flight from Greece to Russia. This flight appears on the July 16 and on July 18, and it was there on July 17 as per its regular schedule yet it was removed from the record on July 17th.

If a BUK was also involved it makes sense, as military redundancy is always a practice employed when striking a target. It makes sense to have it hit by military jets, then by a BUK then by a bomb inside the aircraft and so on… This all points to a high level of preparation for this attack. However I do not think this was executed by high level professional operatives, it was most likely done by someone who could order ground units and planes to attack (read Oligarch) but not someone slick enough to have a bomb on board or make this look like an accident (read CIA or Special Ops). It could be CIA if they wanted to make it look like an Oligarch to trigger anger and a response. Again anything is possible but we know 100% it was not local fighters from the DNR or LNR. Especially not with Russia in any way supporting such craziness.

The event was made to be the most important news, which implies it was a diversionary tactic for public consumption while on the ground troops were amassing and preparing for and initiating battles. Again, it was a cover for engagement. Clearly the LNR and DNR are suing for peace as is Moscow.

So this tragedy was a clear and important pivot to make the world to pay attention and while the world paid attention to MH17 other orders were being executed on the ground to create the pretext for a full war". :--Resup (talk) 15:07, 29 May 2015 (UTC)