This is not the first time there has been a downing of a commercial flight, and, as in most such cases, there is more to the story of Malaysian Airlines MH17 than the first impression suggests. One particular case from the past gives us clues as to what this “more” might be.
On September 1, 1983 a Korean Airlines flight, KAL007 was shot over Kamchatka, Russia, whilst conducting a spy flight. It was piloted by a Captain Chun, who like many other key Korean Airlines pilots in the 1980s had been trained by Captain David H.
Adrian, a former U.S. Air Force flyer, commercial pilot for ONA [Overseas National Airline] and Evergreen and professor at The Citadel Military University. (part one and two)
After the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 one of Captain Adrian’s now adult children recalled that Capt. Chun must have known that he was about 200 miles deep into restricted Soviet airspace, and that this could not have been accidental, but just kept on flying, like an automaton, with his crew and passengers completely unaware. Capt Chun realized by then that he was on a possible suicide mission, designed to create maximum international outrage and media manipulation during the Reagan years.
It is obvious that the fatal flight over Donetsk, which pilots know very well, is a war zone, and its shooting down were planned long ago. It doesn’t just happen that commercial flights pass over war zones, and Ukrainian International Airlines has suspended a number of routes in order to avoid doing so, as its in-flight magazine tacitly confirms. Furthermore, if the plane was downed by a rebel rocket system “locking on” to it, as has been reported, a lot more planes would have been shot down in exactly the same way.
Most of the world’s leading airlines rely on an organisation called Inmarsat for their aviation safety. This claims that through its 24/7/365 Network Operations Security Center (NOSC), highly skilled and cleared personnel maintain onsite Communications Security (COMSEC) capabilities. It works closely with IA certifiers to ensure adherence to all government requirements. Significantly however it employs (U.S. and NATO cleared personnel in support of its customers’ Authority to Operate (ATO), Information Security (INFOSEC) and IA process requirements.
Therefore aeroplanes fly where the US and NATO tell them to. Did the US and NATO not know that Donetsk is in the middle of a war zone? If they didn’t, which general will lose his job?
The hidden hand
Inmarsat has a great many contracts with the UN, NATO, the Department of Homeland Security and national air traffic control towers. It also has the bulk of the world’s Controller/Pilot Data Link Communications (CPDLC) contracts, and under these it ensures direct contact between flight deck and controller for in-flight re-routing, due to wind changes and other operational reasons.
Therefore, even if a commercial flight accidentally strays into a war zone, Inmarsat knows about it, supplies the equipment for ensuring something is done about it and can alert others of possible dangers. Yet for some reason there were three commercial jetliners in this dangerous air zone around the same time of the day. This might seem confusing. Maybe that was the point.
It is not unreasonable to speculate that another phantom plane, of much smaller dimensions – such as a fighter jet armed to the teeth with air-to-air missiles – was in the region awaiting a cash cow passenger airliner which could be a red heifer sacrifice. After all, that is what happened with KAL007.
On that occasion a shadow military reconnaissance plane of similar proportions and size “merged” with it in the air at the same time, totally baffling Soviet radar. Now systems are more sophisticated, it might need three planes which suddenly appear together over a war zone to achieve the same effect.
Black box and black propaganda
Much has been made of the non-appearance of the black box for the MH17 black box. The implication is that is has been stolen by the rebels and sent to Russia to prevent anyone finding out what happened. However, the KAL007 case suggests something different.
Following that crash it took forever for the world to be informed that the black box had been found – it was certainly in the possession of technicians long before that announcement, not the usual state of affairs. Furthermore, there are also accurate backup archive systems in Germany which could have been consulted, and still are today.
After the Soviets held the black box for a while the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)’s final report was heavily redacted. Present day technicians can pull out a much cleaner recording than those in 1983 could, but the ICAO, a United Nations agency based in Canada, has continually refused to let them.
Furthermore the CIA, FSB, Mossad, NATO and British Aerospace continually monitor the border of Russia-Ukraine with their best technology, from deep space and the stratosphere, due to the decision of Crimea’s electors to leave Ukraine and its potential to usher in World War 3. All these agencies are sitting on proof of the MH17 swerving deeper into the Donetsk region than any other commercial jet has in ages, probably sent there by a mysterious air traffic controller whose name we will never learn, most probably using Inmarsat communications channels.
However, the same agencies are trying to tell us that no one knows at this stage what actually happened. If the presence of those other planes is known, it seems very odd that nothing else can be ascertained when the plane was sent there by the same company they all employ, one way or another.
Who shot what
The weapon that can be responsible for the crash may as well be a BUK – still there is no evidence that the separatists have any capable of launching a missile. The Ukrainian Army has them. A team of 17 people is required to operate one effectively, and it is known that a number of US experts have been imported into what is left of Ukraine to support new president Poroshenko, via Blackwater, Academi and Carlyle.
What we do know is that a wing of the MH17 was blown in half. Though a missile could have done that, surface to air missiles do not explain the large holes blasted into passenger tube by what is clearly a machine gun. Nor do they explain the aircraft plunging to the ground in an open field, near a farmhouse, with its fuel section still somewhat intact, as a missile blast would certainly have ruptured it – as was proven when the body of the plane hit the ground and it exploded straight away.
Nor does a surface to air missile strike explain why body parts were falling from the sky BEFORE the explosion on the ground. If a missile had caused those deaths the plane would also have exploded in mid-air. People’s bodies don’t just fall apart during a plane crash, some form of explosion is necessary, and that would have ruptured the fuel tank, calling that to explode too. If flight MH17 had been shot down by another plane however, all the above would be consistent.
Exploiting the dead
We know who was on the MH17 because it has a passenger manifest. We know that amongst them were a number of Dutch doctors travelling to an AIDS conference.
Like all other passengers, these doctors would have been instructed to keep both their tickets and their passports with them throughout the flight. They would have to present them with their boarding passes when they got on the plane and keep them on their person, for security reasons, ready to display if needed if there were any security concerns on the plane itself.
The passports of the doctors have been recovered. They were not in the clothing of their bodies but in a separate box, all together. If there is some sort of procedure for collecting the passports of a particular group of passengers during flight and putting them together in a separate box it must be buried very deep in the Malaysian Airlines manual, along with the purpose of it. But it does conveniently show, in the event of a fatal crash, that not just one but a whole group of doctors died together in the line of duty.
Similarly there are now reports that people are looting the crash site and moving bodies around. Looting might be understandable, but for the fact that investigators are allegedly not being allowed near the crash site. If they can’t get to it, it is being guarded, so random looters won’t be able to access it either. Nor would the guards be looting, as this would destroy the point of guarding the site.
If bodies and objects are being moved around, it is right to suggest that somebody doesn’t want others to see certain things. Whoever shot the plane down is not going to be any further implicated by the contents of the passenger racks or the bodies of the dead. Unless there is some evidence that links people on the plane to anyone who might have shot it down. Given that it was an international flight, that evidence is less likely to point to Ukrainians, but to other forces from other countries.
Furthermore, people who enter a crash site can put tings there as well as take them away. As Gordon Duff of Veterans Today told me before this piece was sent off for publication, “we are also getting wild reports of planted evidence, some total hoaxes but some very much “nanothermite” type false leads designed to start a flood of bizarre internet stories.” Yet none of those stories yet implicate the US and its allies, only the rebels in Eastern Ukraine – so either this is a botched job, or a very thorough one.
So what happened?
The videos of the KAL007 incident show how laughable is the possibility of a lone Malaysian airliner suddenly descending deeper into dangerous war zone skies without any record of what happened to it, no documentation, no Inmarsat or similar failsafe tracking system record, no air traffic control records for the 30 minutes before and after the MH17 dropped off the radar, no truly revealing radar records.
It is also not difficult to understand why the Ukrainian side has not been given access to any of the “black boxes”, or flight recording equipment, from the plane. As Security Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said at a briefing in Kyiv on July 19, their location remains unclear. So it will continue to do, until the contents are deemed satisfactory by those who will have to release them – who are not the Eastern Ukrainian rebels.
It is incredibly stupid trying to blame the Russians. They have no possible motive. They have no reason to inflame the anger of the world by shooting down a civilian aircraft – they know the story of the Lusitania as well as anyone.
Hopefully forensic evidence will demonstrate part of what happened, if it is still there, and if not manipulated by outsiders for political reasons. So will all those mysteriously missing records and recordings. But if the story and accusations continue to run, the official version will demand that someone is held responsible to assuage public anger. That is what this tragedy is about – and once again, the callous disregard for human life involved is a far greater crime than anything that can be alleged about any possible culprit.
Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs together with Dutch National, On Special Assignment, Marcel Marie Brandsma, Holland exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
