Malasia Flight 17

Groups of traders working together influence the markets all of the time.

Quote: AZDuffman

Hardly any trader is able to do this. To try is to become bankrupt if the market does not follow you.

'Don't try this at home', anyway. The thing is, you must be able to make your move early, not after it's in the news.

The scenario I favor is that the Russian Military procured the BUK's for the Ukraine before the Vote to Separate. A few weeks ago the insurgents captured an area Ukraine supply/fuel depot, and one of the BUK's (at least 1) fell into insurgent hands. So it stands to reason that an area checkpoint/company/detail may have fired the weapon.

The Ukraine Security Service is reporting that they have an intercepted communication from an insurgent field commander in the area near the time of the crash stating they had shot down a plane. The problem I have is was the plane broadcasting on civilian or military beacon frequencies? The latter or both in this case is instant target. But then, we are looking at a situation where the BUK may have been put into an auto-targetting mode, and launched "blind" towards a con-trail.

IIRC CNN was reporting at the time of yesterday's incident no fewer than 20 civilian planes were in that area, and afterwards, just six. Furthermore, the plane's route was diverted east from normal flight path. Typically Flight 17 (KLM 4103) would not be anywhere near the "conflict zone". So, I see tragic errors on both parties, more so with the airliner for putting the plane at risk by chosen routing. Malaysia Air probably can't get a flight booked, and shoudn't.

Quote: 98Clubs

The problem I have is was the plane broadcasting on civilian or military beacon frequencies?

Commercial aircraft can't quite pick and choose how to transmit. They have to use the frequencies used by air traffic control and the tower.

But all airliners have an operational transponder which identifies them in any radar, as well as broadcasts their position and air speed. Military planes have htem, too, but on missions they shut them down so they won't get picked up by the enemy. A professional crew of soldiers handling an SA missile system, would most likely recognize it for what it is (though to be sure there was that incident in the Gulf back in the 80s when an american ship shot down an Iranian airliner).

Furhter, are Ukranian regulars habitually shooting down insurgent or Russian aircarft? I have heard nothing to that effect.

How is this Malaysian Airlines fault? It's not like they were flying at 10,000 feet over restricted airspace!

Plenty of planes used that exact routing. In this case, Flight 17 moved north of their routing due to weather. They were not travelling over restricted airspace. Planes fly over Afghanistan and Iraq all of the time and are not subject to the normal missiles because shoulder launched missiles don't have that range. No alert went out to stop flying over that area because the rebels had possession of SAMS capable of taking them out, and maybe that's the question that needs answering. If the EuroZone authority knew about the Rebel activity, they should have restricted that airspace (it was already restricted up to FL320).

Russia screwed up big time. They provided the Rebels with the weaponry to overtake the depot to begin with and the rebels have been attempting to and successfully been shooting down Ukranian planes.

Hopefully this turns the screws on the rebels and peace can be achieved.

Quote: odiousgambit

'Don't try this at home', anyway. The thing is, you must be able to make your move early, not after it's in the news.

I spent a few hours practicing in what can be called a "trading arcade" once. No cash to invest but wanted to see what a trading floor was really like. I wish I could do it for a living. But the biggest surprise was not that they had CNBC on monitors all over the place, nor that the guys played online poker when conditions were right. It was that they had this thing called "newsreader" which was just raw news. The second they announced something about Kuwait doing something the oil stocks moved.

No, you can't do it at home, not without lightning-fast internet and Level II and a bunch of other stuff.

Nobody ever talks about it, but Russia is very aware
that we have 40,000 troops stationed at 21 bases
in Germany. And have had for almost 70 years.
Drive across Poland and you're in Ukraine. 3 hours
away in a B2 bomber.

What's disgusting to me is that there are 295 bodies rotting at the crash zone because inspectors can't get to the site and they are receiving resistance from the rebel group.

This conflict is not really America's problem to resolve, nor can you expect America to return to Cold War conditions. The US and the West took a good solid 40 odd years for the Soviet bloc to collapse, and you can't expect the Americans to be able to intervene militarily in Ukraine.

Eventually all of Ukraine will return to Russian control, and there's very little that the world can and willl do about it.

Something like 190 passengers were from the
Netherlands and they are warning Putin that
they want answers. Or what. They'll cut off
cheese exports to Moscow? Piss Putin off and
he'll cut off their supply of natural gas.

Quote: Nareed

Commercial aircraft can't quite pick and choose how to transmit. They have to use the frequencies used by air traffic control and the tower.

But all airliners have an operational transponder which identifies them in any radar, as well as broadcasts their position and air speed. Military planes have htem, too, but on missions they shut them down so they won't get picked up by the enemy. A professional crew of soldiers handling an SA missile system, would most likely recognize it for what it is (though to be sure there was that incident in the Gulf back in the 80s when an american ship shot down an Iranian airliner).

Furhter, are Ukranian regulars habitually shooting down insurgent or Russian aircarft? I have heard nothing to that effect.

Decoding transponders is proprietary information only released to third parties (like flightaware.com) in arrears of real-time events, just so that this kind of targeting can't take place (of specific aircraft). It's not just out there to be read by any receiver; they'd have to hack the central EuroControl ATC computers to get the transponder data. The tracking radar would be primary only, with the size of the reflection relative to the distance from the antenna giving some idea of the size of the airplane (which is probably why they thought it was a Ukraine transport; the AN26 is about the same size). The primary signal, if digitized and processed, can calibrate speed with some accuracy and project straight-line flight path, both with some lag depending on distance including altitude. It can't tell actual altitude or identity. It can home in on a target moving faster than the blind speed of the antenna tracking the target (stationary and ground-based but radio-linked to the missile, and assuming the radar's been calibrated to the site) and that antenna system can provide further guidance as it lifts, but it has to be launched on a calculated intercept angle like a duck-hunter leading a mallard. It is possible that the missile has an electronic sniffer on board and homes in on the presence; not my area of expertise, but I heard during the reports that the missile system is NOT heat-guided, so that seems to me the most likely other method for zeroing in on the target.

Military aircraft don't shut down their transponders; they have more than one, a commercial Mode A transponder for use during normal flight, one that broadcasts an IFF (international friend/foe) signal during operations, and if they're stealth, they have other ways of discretionary tracking and telemetry. If the intercept system had any way of reading a transponder, it would have been the IFF portion (I still think it's operating off the primary reflection and didn't have any interrogator ability) which MH17 didn't have. The lack of an IFF signal alone, if they had the capability, would have been a big red flag about it not being a military transport.

They are reporting that the rebels had shot down 3 Ukrainian aircraft in the previous weeks; what information they've released already makes it circumstantially clear that it was the rebels, that they had Russian support and training, and they didn't know they were shooting down an airliner until they saw the mess on the ground. I'll be very surprised if it turns out to be anything different, though they seem to be doing their best to stymie and confuse the investigation so far.