[paulhauggis]

"This is something that never, never happens, and it's unlikely to happen again. "

This wasn't an equipment failure or a natural disaster, so I don't really agree with this line of thinking.

"But we are not going to call for the government to go and catch the perpetrators or go to war."

If this was an intentional act, we do need to do something about it (so it doesn't happen again). Extreme pacifism just leads to bully nations like Russia taking over other nations with absolutely no intervention.

[dragonwriter]

> "This is something that never, never happens, and it's unlikely to happen again. "

> This wasn't an equipment failure or a natural disaster, so I don't really agree with this line of thinking.

And its simply, factually incorrect; military forces shooting down civilian airliners is not something that never, never happens, nor is it something that is unlikely to happen again. In fact, it seems to have happened more than once each decade for most of the history of civilian aviation (though there may have been only once incident in the 1990s).

EDIT: The one instance I had seen in the 1990s actually involved two planes of the same airline shot down by missiles by the same rebels on subsequent days, and a third hit while loading by mortar fire while loading on the ground on the next day. So, the 1990s aren't an exception to the "more than once per decade".

[diydsp]

2x in the 90s. 3.5x in the 2000s. 22x since the 1940s [0]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airliner_shootdown_inci...

[zeeed]

I, for one, am glad that hitting back is not the only strategy available to ensure that the chances of this happening again are minimized.

And I'm glad that there are governments in place in this world that share this perspective.

[paulhauggis]

"I, for one, am glad that hitting back is not the only strategy available to ensure that the chances of this happening again are minimized."

Hitting back should not be the only strategy, but it should be available as a last resort. There are still evil people (and governments) still left in this world and sometimes the only way to stop them is by force.

[rrss1122]

When you do not have the capability of hitting back, it is not a strategy available to you.

[astrodust]

Intentional or not, there have been, at most, three passenger jets hit by anti-aircraft missiles in the last thirty years.

Keep in mind that even if this happened once a year, flying would still be far, far safer than driving.

[dragonwriter]

> Intentional or not, there have been, at most, three passenger jets hit by anti-aircraft missiles in the last thirty years.

At most 3 is incorrect.

Not counting MH17, there are at least four civilian passenger aircraft that were definitively shot down by missiles, and more that were suspected to be (or were definitively shot down, but where I can't find definitive information on the "by missiles" part) in the last 30 years:

LN 602 (March 23, 2007): attributed to the Tamil Tigers using Manpad missiles

Siberia Airlines 1812 (October 4, 2001): admitted shot down by Ukrainian military

Two Transair Georgia flights (September 21-22, 1993): shot down by missiles fired by rebels

Iran Air 655 (July 3, 1988): shot down by the USS Vincennes

Air Malawi 7Q-YMB (November 6, 1987): shot down by Mozambique (can't find anything one way or the other about whether this was "by anti-aircraft missiles" rather than, say, guns, so maybe not technically within scope.)

[tigerente]

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerolinee_Itavia_Flight_870, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Rhodesia_Flight_RH825, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Rhodesia_Flight_RH827, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_902, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Arab_Airlines_Flight_114, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_3, T&G Aviation DC-7 and more shot down by fighter aircraft.

There are far more than a dozen incidents in the past decades.

[dragonwriter]

Those (and KAL 007) are all outside of the thirty year window, but within a 40-year window. But, yes, there are lots of past incidents.

[astrodust]

That's a good list. I was only thinking of the Tamil, Iran and Malawi incidents.

[mylons]

I realize this is a different mode of transportation, but what about German U-Boats (and I'm sure other nations) sinking passenger ships in the start of WW2? Attacks on civilian vessels shouldn't be tolerated.

[nashequilibrium]

I will take a car crash over a plane crash any day!

[astrodust]

Vehicle fatalities in the United States are at a new low, but are still 33,000 people per year.

If 30,000 people a year died in plane crashes the planes would literally have to be falling out of the sky on fire every single day.

[nashequilibrium]

how many cars on the road vs planes in the sky?

[Mikeb85]

Why on earth would it be intentional?

It's pretty much the worst PR possible for Russia. In fact, the only parties who have anything to gain from the plane going down are Kyiv and the US.

It was more than likely an unfortunate accident, as the separatists had shot down several fighter jets and military transports in the same area in the days leading up to MH17... On previous days MH17 had also flown south of Donetsk.

[dragonwriter]

> It's pretty much the worst PR possible for Russia.

Sometimes military actions are taken for reasons other than PR.

> In fact, the only parties who have anything to gain from the plane going down are Kyiv and the US.

Making civilian air travel perceived as unsafe through the Ukraine (and thus, also, into or out of the Ukraine) increases economic pressure on the Ukrainian government to reach an accommodation with the rebels (the PR downside may overwhelm that advantage, but its not impossible to conceive that the rebels might see it as a net gain.) Its not that uncommon of a reason for rebel/separatist forces to attack civilian transport (air or otherwise), tourist, or other targets.

That's not to say I think that it was intentional -- I think that an accident is, given other incidents in the region, the most obvious explanation. OTOH, its not inconceivable that it could be intentional, and there is a clear potential motive for doing it intentionally.

[rrss1122]

Why on earth would it be intentional? Because they launched a missile with the intent of bringing down an airplane.

It might be bad PR, but you would have to be one hell of a PR specialist to successfully spin this as an "unfortunate accident".