Malaysian plane crashes on Ukraine-Russia border - live

[Peter Lemkin]

The speculation and proposed scenarios are now all over the map. Some of it is quite interesting, and all leads need to be followed up. But the best evidence would be at the crash site. It would be fairly easy to tell if the plane exploded from inside, or was hit by shrapnel/rods from outside. Also to be kept in mind, is that both Ukraine and Russia stated [without yet providing their proof, if any] that a BUK SAM was used to bring down the plane. The radar traces, any heat tracks of a SAM, and even voice communication between flight controllers and pilots should exist somewhere. All too many [all?] of the likely players in this have reasons to obscure aspects of the evidence, or thwart a real unbiased investigation. To me, most everyone looks suspicious. I noted the strange timing of both the attack in Gaza and the MAL-17 being brought down when the attack began. That doesn't automatically point to Israel as the culprit [nor rule them out] - they could have just used it as convenient cover. Very upsetting is that the separatists are not allowing full access to the crash site yet, and there are some claims of tampering with it. It is not a good situation in which to do an investigation as to what happened. Also, it doesn't much make one feel confident to get on any airplane. First it was only the horrible security searches - now, one's very life is endangered, as planes are increasingly used on the 'grand chess board'. What next?!