Chance Encounter In Evading Death

Parts of an Air India plane that crashed on Thursday are seen on top of a building in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

 

"The police found one survivor in seat 11A. He has been in the  hospital and is under treatment." 

"The death toll may increase, as the flight crashed in a residential area."

Ahmedabad Police Commissioner G. S. Malik 

 

"I can't believe myself how I came out of it alive, because for a while I thought I was going to die as well." 

"But when I opened my eyes, I saw that I was alive. So I tried to open my seat belt, and I was able to get out." 

 "After takeoff, after 5-10 seconds, it seemed like the aircraft was stuck."

"When my door broke, I saw there was a bit of space. So I tried to get out and I was able to get out."

"I just walked out."

Viswashkumar Ramesh, sole survivor, Air India crash

 

"Typically in an airplane accident, being in the back of the airplane is better because you sort of have the front of the airplane as a shock absorber to take some of the impact loads."

"Because the tail hit first it would have then caused the whole fuselage to rotate forward and slam into the ground, and that would cause breaking of the fuselage."

"If he said he went through a break, that was what caused that break."

"In some cases you can survive the impact damage, but then the fire can be what actually ends up being the problem."

"Put your seat belt on tight, know where the exits are. And as was shown in this case, getting out quickly is really important. So don't wait and grab your stuff, just … get away as quickly as you can." 

John Hansman, professor of aeronautics and astronautics, MIT 

Viswashkumar Ramesh, the sole survivor of Thursday's Air India crash, meets with Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah at a hospital in Ahmedabad. Indian Ministry of Home Affairs/AP

 Air India Boeing 787-8 commercial passenger jet had just lifted off from Ahmedabad airport, in a city of four million people, in transit to London, with a full passenger load and crew on a routine flight. Barely clearing the airport, the plane's nose failed to lift and instead it appeared almost as though it was landing. And land it did in a sense, but not on an airstrip, but into the side of a building just outside the airport perimeter. As it hit the building, a fireball exploded, and all aboard were lost in the explosion. Except, miraculously, for one passenger, 40-year-old British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, seated in the first economy-class row behind business class, in a window seat.

 

Local video revealed a man wearing a stained white T-shirt walking away from the crash limping, headed toward an ambulance. He had injuries and blood on his face left side, where he would have faced the window. He had with him his folded boarding pass, matching the passenger name, flight and seat assignment in the plane's manifest. Proof was sought simply because it seemed impossible that anyone could walk away from such a catastrophic crash. 

"Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly."

"When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me."

"Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital."

Vishwash Kumar Ramesh 

Reuters

 

 At the hospital he was taken to, medical authorities found he had suffered "impact injuries" to chest, face and feet. He was placed in a general ward bed, the impression being that his injuries were of a relatively minor nature. Somehow, astoundingly, out of all those aboard the plane who perished, this man's life had been spared and the explanation why he survived eludes experts. While he survived, however, there was still a family tragedy in that he was travelling with his older brother Ajay Kumar Ramesh. Seated in a different row, his brother's crash outcome was the same as all other passengers and crew: death.

 

Onboard the plane were 169 Indian citizens, 53 British citizens, several Portuguese and one Canadian passenger destined to arrive at Gatwick Airport in London. Aboard there was a dozen crew members, along with the 230 passengers. Among the passengers were twelve children. None but Ramesh survived. Additionally there were other people on the ground killed and injured. The tally is rising. The jet had smashed into a hostel used by local doctors. At least three young doctors living in the hostel lost their lives. 

 

Less than a minute after take-off air traffic controllers had received a Mayday call from the plane, as it sank to the ground, burst into flames and clouds of dark smoke were sent up, visible from the airport. In a video, the plane is seen sinking through the lower atmosphere -- in appearance like a planned landing, not an errant crash. As it smashed through the building, the front of the plane penetrated deep into the building. 

 

The plane struck a doctors' hostel after crashing into the residential area of Meghani Nagar on Thursday  Reuters

 

In the  general aura of grief and disbelief, the plane's crash is under investigation as authorities attempt to discern what could have caused the plane to descend when it should have ascended, more seconds following takeoff. And with that mystery waiting to be understood, another that might be more difficult to discern; how out of the hundreds who perished, one man was able to walk away in a state of shock, suffering relatively slight injuries from the massive concussion.

 

  

 

 

Fateful Seconds of Living Hell, Then Death

"Nineteen seconds after the first missile hit the plane, the voices of pilots inside the cockpit indicated that the passengers were alive ... 25 seconds later the second missile hit the plane."                                                                                 "Therefore, no analysis of the performance and effects of the second missile was obtained from the aircraft's black box.”                                                                 "The data analysis from the black boxes should not be politicized."                           "What is evident is that Iran has accepted the responsibility for the mistake and therefore the country is ready for negotiations on paying full compensation."       Touraj Dehghani-Zanganeh head, Iranian Civil Aviation Organization

In this file photo from January 8, 2020, authorities stand near the wreckage of a Ukraine International Airlines plane that Iran said it accidentally shot down near Imam Khomeini airport in Tehran, killing all 176 people on board. © Abedin Taherkenareh / EFE

Flight PS752 was struck when two missiles 25 seconds apart hit the plane just moments after it left Tehran's main airport on January 8, with 176 passengers and crew aboard. After initially denying that it was responsible for the downing of the passenger jet heading for Ukraine on a regular route, Tehran finally had little option given the evidence, but to admit an 'accident' had occurred and indeed members of its al Quds branch of the Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down the plane.

They had been on high alert for incoming missiles from the U.S. military it was explained and mistook the airliner for a threat. No one survived the destruction of the civilian airliner. That very night Iran had launched a ballistic missile attack against a U.S. base in Iraq, responding to a U.S. targeted drone strike killing Qassem Soleimani on January 3 in Baghdad. A great hero in Iran for his terrorist exploits against the Islamic Republic of Iran's 'enemies', his death might be seen as a preventive against further attacks such as he had engineered.

Iranian citizens demonstrated their anger at the  shooting down of the airliner with its massive loss of life by taking to the streets and vociferously blaming the regime and the IRGC. Most of the victims were Iranian civilians of whom 55 of the total were Iranian citizens of Canada, others Iranian students travelling to Canada to take up academic studies at Canadian universities. Other nations, Ukraine and France among them, lost citizens and await compensation from Iran to go to the families of the bereaved.

What is staggeringly beyond belief is that the regime's elite command military could have been so oblivious to the danger they were placing a commercial airliner and its passengers in, so consumed with its enactment of vengeance attacks they failed to take common-sense precautions, the most elemental of which would have been to close their air space to civilian aircraft at a time of such high tensions between Iran and the U.S., instead of placing so many lives in jeopardy.

Investigators at the scene of the wreckage.(AP: Ebrahim Noroozi/File)

The second missile to bring down Flight PS752 hit the aircraft mere seconds after the first had struck. the gap of time between the two hits, estimated at 19 seconds captured on the black box recordings reflecting the damage the jet sustained from the first missile hit. Difficult to contemplate is the conclusion that the passengers were all alive after the airliner was struck by the first missile. The second one that was dispatched for whatever reason, extinguished all lives. It is the brief intermission between the two strikes that expresses the horror that would have struck all aboard with the realization that their lives were over.

"Our important questions regarding the reason for the delayed takeoff and the pilot's communications within that hour, which should have been included in the report of the black boxes, have also been left conspicuously unanswered." Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims

The flight crew of the aircraft consisting of two pilots and an instructor travelling in the cockpit had exerted a desperate, last-minute effort to maintain control of the plane -- until the last possible moment, pointed out the Iranian spokesperson. United Nations aviation rules that call for investigations whose aim is solely to prevent future accidents separate from any judicial process, represents the guidelines under which Iran's investigation is being carried out. 

The Civil Aviation Organization of Iran on Sunday published a report on the downloaded data from the Boeing 737 flight and voice recorders which emerged as a focal issue to fully comprehend the prevailing circumstances at the time Flight PS752 was shot down. According to the report released through the French investigation, the recorders had but 19 seconds of conversation following the first explosion, despite the second missile -- according to Dehqani-Zangeneh -- hitting the plane 25 seconds afterward.

Two missiles hit the plane, less than half a minute apart.(AP: Ebrahim Noroozi)

Boeing's Opaque Mea Culpa

"These funds will support education, hardship and living expenses for impacted families, community programs, and economic development in impacted communities."
Boeing Co.

"We were once told that a statue in memory of the victims and a health post for the local community will be built, and they also promised that the road to the crash site will also be built so that it will be easily accessible for visitors."
Malka Galato, 47, farmer, Gara-bokka, Ethiopia

"We've been assessing a variety of ways to assist the families and communities impacted and determined that this is a constructive step that we can take now ..."
"We're working through the process. Boeing plans to partner with local governments and non-profit organizations to address family needs."
Peter Pedraza, Boeing spokesman

"I stayed enclosed in my little house, in my grief."
"How much would it cost Boeing to personally apologize to the families of the victims? To offer professional counselling for all families who are grieving?"
Paul Njoroge, Canada

"The first thing they [Boeing] should do is reach the families to give their condolences."
"The second thing, they should offer professional counselling."
Pawel Konarski, Poland

Debris recovered from Lion Air flight JT 610 in Jakarta in November 2018.

Photographer: Bay Ismoyo/AFP via Getty Images

When two Boeing 737 Max planes crashed in Ethiopia and Indonesia late last year and early this year, a total of 346 people died. Early investigations indicate that the pilots flying new 737 Max 8 model planes were unable to override an automated system that malfunctioned and pointed the aircraft's nose in a downward position, causing both crashes.  The result was a massive death toll, impacting passengers who hailed from all over the world.

The Boeing model in question was then grounded worldwide, given a second crash in Ethiopia, with all the signposts of the malfunction that caused the first crash of the Lion Air flight in Indonesia in October. Boeing has its work cut out for it in redesigning the electronics of the plane to re-instill confidence in airlines that their newly-purchased fleets of the 737 Max are airworthy.

Regulators will have to approve whatever engineering and electronic fixes the company completes and training for pilots will have to resume before the jets can be approved for flight. A week ago, Boeing Co. made an offer of $100 million with the intention of giving aid to families and communities that were affected by those deadly crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia.

An American Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 in Miami. The airline’s pilots union asked Boeing in November to take an emergency measure that would likely ground the Max. Company executives pushed back. tCreditJoe Raedle/Getty Images

Included would be not only the victims' families but also Ethiopian farmers whose fields have been fenced off, sites remaining littered with shards of debris, leaving the farmers shut out of farming their own agricultural land. These are poor farmers who cannot afford the expense of leasing land elsewhere, to plant. The money, according to Boeing would be given to local governments and non-profits to be dispensed.

This, aside from the many lawsuits launched by the families of the crash victims. Who will qualify or the offer timeline has not been made clear. But then, it is a highly unusual situation where it is a plane manufacturer and not an airline offering compensation. The Ethiopian and Kenyan governments have not yet been approached by Boeing; no details on the offer have been relayed to Ethiopian Airlines.

Farmers in Gara-bokka where the Ethiopian Airlines crash occurred are left to wonder what will become of their land surrounded by barbed wire fencing. With their fields fenced off they're unable to farm. There are questions from many involved as to whether funds given to government or charities might not even reach them. People from 35 countries had been aboard the Ethiopian Airlines flight; none of the families have heard from Boeing, the company has not sought opinions from any of them.

"Why does  take so long to acknowledge? Give our loved ones [the[ respect that they deserve", said Clariss Moore, of the death of her daughter Danielle, from Canada.

"Because there is still so much to learn about what occurred, it [Boeing's offer] also appears to be disingenuous. Frankly, Boeing's statement creates more questions than answers. Boeing does not understand that the families at this point in time are not interested in its money. The fact is that what is foremost on the minds of these families is getting back the human remains from the crash site. To date that process has been torturously slow without a great deal of communication from Ethiopia. If Boeing really wanted to help, it would take all that money and devote it to accelerating the remains recovery/identification process for these families", stated Robert A. Clifford of Clifford Law Offices

UNITED STATES - JUNE 19: Michael Stumo, left, and his wife Nadia Milleron, the parents of Samya Rose Stumo, hold up signs depicting those lost in Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610 during the House Transportation and Infrastructure

CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

The Profit Motive Sidelining Corporate Responsibility and Safety -- Boeing Dereliction

"As the pilots of the doomed Boeing jets in Ethiopia and Indonesia fought to control their planes, they lacked two notable safety features in their cockpits. One reason: Boeing charged extra for them.
For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons."
"Sometimes these optional features involve aesthetics or comfort, like premium seating, fancy lighting or extra bathrooms. But other features involve communication, navigation or safety systems, and are more fundamental to the plane’s operations."
Many airlines, especially low-cost carriers like Indonesia’s Lion Air, have opted not to buy them — and regulators don’t require them."

"Now, in the wake of the two deadly crashes involving the same jet model, Boeing will make one of those safety features standard as part of a fix to get the planes in the air again."
The New York Times

Boeing 737 Max 8 planes have been grounded in the UK.

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

"They’re [manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system (MCAS)] critical, and cost almost nothing for the airlines to install."
"Boeing charges for them because it can. But they’re vital for safety."
Bjorn Fehrm, analyst, aviation consultancy Leeham

"[The 737 Max will be grounded until] the problem is solved. This country was one of the first to ground the 737 Max planes. That is absolutely the right thing to do. There are clearly some very alarming circumstances around the two accidents [Lion Air flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302] that have taken place."
"It is something that Boeing clearly have to deal with because, unless and until the problem is solved, I can’t see countries like ours allowing those planes to fly again."
UK Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling

A Lion Air Boeing 737 Max 8 plane parked on the tarmac of Soekarno–Hatta international airport near Jakarta, Indonesia Photograph: Reuters

It has become standard for manufacturers such as Boeing not to include upgrades that can be critical to a plane's performance and ultimately the survival of its passengers and crew unless the purchaser is willing to pay an additional, hefty fee. Typically, low-cost airlines will consider upgrades as non-essential and opt not to spring for them. In the instance of both the Indonesian and Ethiopian carriers this has proven to be a massive error in judgement.

Almost as serious as the decision by Boeing to extract every last dollar possible out of their customers even if the end result might be airborne carnage.

Upgrades that in fact represent essential standard safety features eliminated because the buyer feels they're unnecessary and the seller feels their product can be used to squeeze every last bit of profit out of a reluctant buyer or they can face the consequences. It's hard to imagine that a 'reputable' manufacturer with global sales could not foresee that it too would face fallout as a consequence of their unwillingness to be responsible unless they're paid to be.

Now that the worldwide fleet of this model of a popular passenger jet is grounded and its future unknown after the entirely preventable mass deaths of two failures in air transport safety, the company deserves the censure coming its way. The company made the decision not to include a critical safety process leaving it up to airlines whether to pay to upgrade a standard plane and regulators are certainly at fault for enabling manufacturers to get away with a situation where low-cost carriers can opt not to buy 'optional' extras.

Safety is not optional.

The stunning communications failures all around demonstrate just how careless all major actors involved have been. When the downed Lion Air plane in a flight previous to the disaster exhibited the threat in its erratic performance and its pilots had no idea  how to respond, an off-duty pilot who happened to be flying with them leaped to the rescue, diagnosing the problem, instructing the crew how to respond to disable the malfunctioning flight-control system, saving the jet and its passengers and crew

That this air crew and the helpful pilot failed to report the incident and the plane once again took off with another crew having as lax training as the previous one, leading to a similar malfunction and the crash into the Java Sea where all 189 aboard were killed is beyond belief. But as hostile to reason as this event was, it evidently has aided investigators in understanding what happened to the Ethiopian airliner March crash and why it is some 737 Max pilots have no idea how to respond when the plane malfunctions.

Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee's report on the November crash contained no data that might have been useful to other carriers with this plane in their fleet, and their pilots inadequately trained in its operating details. The Lion Air crash on its second malfunctioning flight reveals through the cockpit voice recorder on investigation that the pilots desperately checked their quick reference handbook to attempt a response before crashing as the Indonesian officer called "Allahu akbar" as the plane hit the water.

Airline mechanics with Lion Air attempted to fix issues on the plane four times after reports from pilots of incorrect displays of speeds and altitude in two prior flights, replacing a key sensor. Both the plane manufacturer and Indonesia's safety committee are guilty of malfeasance in failing to tend to due diligent safety procedures. In requesting maintenance for the plane that had come close to disaster on its October 28 flight, no mention was made by the pilots of the stall warning and faulty sensor, still delivering false readings when it took off the next morning then crashed.

The March 10 crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 followed the same trajectory of events. Now questions are emerging over Boeing's design of the new 737 model, and how they were even approved. The inspector general of the U.S. Transportation Department is undergoing a review of the plane's certification while the U.S. Justice Department has struck a grand jury seeking records in a potential criminal probe of that certification.

The U.S. pilot's unions speak of the potential risks of the system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System as having not been sufficiently explained in training. Boeing, required by the FAA to notify airlines about the system in the wake of the Lion Air crash, sent a bulletin to its customers with the Max in their fleets reminding them of the disabling process in response to an emergency.

Had their clients, including the Ethiopian Airlines disseminated that 'reminder' to upgrade the expertise of its pilots, why would the pilots on the March flight not have known how to disable the system?

Priests swing incense over empty caskets draped with the Ethiopian flag at a mass funeral at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa on March 17. (Mulugeta Ayene/Associated Press)

Deep-Sixing Deconfliction Channels

In this photo, a Russian air defense system missile system Antey 2500, or S-300 VM, is on display at the opening of the MAKS Air Show in Zhukovsky outside Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, file)

"The presented objective data testifies that the actions of the Israeli fighter pilots, which led to the loss of life of 15 Russian servicemen, either lacked professionalism or were an act of criminal negligence to say the least. Therefore, we believe that the blame for the tragedy with the Russian Ilyushin Il-20 aircraft lies entirely with the Israeli air forces and those who made the decision to carry out such actions."
"[Those actions represented] an extremely ungrateful response to all that has been done by the Russian federation for Israel and for the Israeli people, recently."
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov

"[For Israel, training against the Crete S-300 would be] precisely what you need [to study the system’s radar frequency, pattern and reach]."
"If you know all these details then you are perfectly fitted to replicate this same signal, which means you have a chance to imitate, to sort of bluff-echo [the S-300]."
"You can brutally jam it. You can take the signal and return it, and then you send another ping which imitates the same signal. So instead of one target, the radar operator sees three, five or 10 and he does not know where to fire."
Igor Sutyagin, Russian military expert, Royal United Services Institute, London

"[S-300s in areas where Israel operates or might want to operate would challenge its advanced, U.S.-backed military - but not insuperably so]."
"In general, any system can be defeated this way or that. Some are harder and some are easier. The rule of thumb is that if your friends [the Greek military] have a system that you are interested in, you can learn all kinds of things about it."
Tal Inbar, senior scholar, Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv

Russian S-300 air defense missile systems drive during a Victory Day military parade marking the victory in WWII in Red Square in Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2016. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

"The information provided by the Israeli military… runs counter to conclusions of the Russian defense ministry [that the actions of the Israeli pilots had led to the plane being targeted by Syrian air defense systems]."
"The Russian side proceeds from the fact that the actions by the Israeli air force were the main reason for the tragedy."
"According to information of our military experts, the reason [behind the downing] were premeditated actions by Israeli pilots which certainly cannot but harm our relations."
Kremlin statement

Israel had been left with the impression, just several days earlier, that its delegation to Moscow led by IAF chief Amikam Norkin, explaining that it had provided considerable advance warning — 12 minutes according to Israeli reports — and precise information on the target area to the Russians before the strike; that its jets hadn't hid stealthily behind the Russian plane, and that its planes had vacated the airspace before the Syrians ineptly and "indiscriminately" fired one of 40 anti-aircraft missiles downing the Russian plane, had sufficed to persuade the Russian military that Israel had no part in the tragedy that led to the deaths of 15 Russian airmen.

The so-called 'friendly fire' incident whereby the Russian military’s reconnaissance Ilyushin Il-20 was shot down by Syrian missile defense systems responding to an Israeli airstrike now, it appears, in the Russian version, is completely Israel's fault. Data collected by Russian air defense systems in Syria ostensibly indicated that one of the Israeli F-16 fighter jets was flying close to the much larger Russian plane. When the F-16 was targeted by a Syrian missile it suddenly veered off, resulting in the missile homing in on the larger target, a version exonerating Syria. That version disputes the Israeli version that its fighters were gone long before the Syrian missiles were launched.

The Kremlin and its Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu are delivering a punishing resolution that Russia now plans to jam radars of military planes striking off the coast of the Mediterranean — measures obviously geared to complicate Israel’s defensive plans, inclusive of preventive airstrikes, to ensure that Iran's deepening of its military presence in Syria is foiled, and to effectively thwart the transfer of weapons in Syria to Hezbollah. "In regions near Syria over the Mediterranean Sea, there will be radio-electronic suppression of satellite navigation, on-board radar systems and communication systems of military aviation attacking objects on Syrian territory", assured Shoigu.

“This is absurd. The Syrians down a Russian plane and get the prize of an advanced weapons system, said Israeli Middle East analyst Ehud Ya’ari. Quite so. As absurd as a Turkish fighter jet downing a Russian warplane that had strayed into Turkish airspace, and after sanctions imposed to injure Turkish economic interests, Ankara and Moscow find themselves steadfast pals despite their clear differences. As absurd as the Kremlin failing to learn its lesson when it provided Ukrainian-Russian rebels with a sophisticated anti-aircraft missile which it used to destroy a Malaysian passenger airliner out of the skies over Ukraine, causing hundreds of deaths.

The unfortunate episode whereby 15 Russian airmen lost their lives stems from a confusion of actors in the region all of whom focus on their own special perspectives, advantages, priorities and influences. This is a regional tinder-box, apart from the fact that wholesale slaughter has been perpetrated by the leader of the country on his own civilian population in a sectarian rebellion. In the Syrian regime's determination to foil the efforts of the Syrian opposition and destroy its leaders, it has not hesitated to destroy its civilians as well. A half-million Syrian lives lost, and millions made homeless, more millions, refugees.

Without the intervention of the region's most infamous supporter of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran, its elite al Quds division of the Republican Guard Corps involved in blueprinting strategy along with Iran calling in its Shiite militias, including Lebanon's deadly Hezbollah group, Bashar al-Assad would never have been able to surmount the legions of Syrian Sunni rebels, much less the presence of foreign fighters and terrorist groups. The tide turned completely with Vladimir Putin's decision to make a place for Russia in the Middle East, abandoned by the Obama administration.

The Kremlin-backed Syrian regime is guaranteed its survival. Turkey, which serviced the needs of a number of Sunni terrorist groups, could have intervened at an early stage of the rebellion to remove the Syrian ruler it detested, but Turkey, despite having the second largest armed forces in NATO, awaited action by NATO and the U.S. to intervene. Now Turkey, a member of NATO, has aligned itself however reluctantly with Russia and Iran, swallowing their insistence that Assad prevail. Russia has succeeded in ingratiating itself with Syria, Iran and Turkey, a grim balancing act, but one the Kremlin is well suited to.

And Vladimir Putin appeared, while negotiating all of these ties and juggling the various interests with his own, to have had a soft spot for Israel and its existential dilemma, threatened by all the actors, governmental and non-governmental that he dances with. The agreement between Putin and Netanyahu that Russia would countenance Israeli strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah transfers of weaponry being stockpiled for the purpose of destroying Israel was built on slender trust. It appears now to have been shredded.

Sunday's announcement that Russia is now prepared to deliver the advanced anti-aircraft systems it had held off in response to Israel's appeals, testifies to that. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Monday call to Vladimir Putin for a last appeal was rebuffed. Israel, having ensured its military was schooled in methods [war games with Greece] whereby it could strategically bypass detection by the more technically advanced system to be released in two weeks' time to Syria will likely manage the additional challenge to its Syrian overflights to destroy the weapons threatening its survival.

But its very survival is at stake here, which is vastly different from the reason that Russia is in Syria; to advantage Russian political ambitions and military expansion.

A computer simulation released by the Russian Defense Ministry, Sunday, September 23, 2018, purports to show Israeli jets near a Russian reconnaissance plane, in red, off Syria’s coast before it was accidentally shot down by Syria forces responding to the Israeli air strike. The Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday again blamed Israel for the downing of its plane, as Syrian government forces are thought to have mistook the Russian Il-20 reconnaissance plane for an Israeli jet and shot it down Monday, killing all 15 people aboard. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Deadly Missile Strike Source: Russian Federation

"State responsibility comes into play when states fail to uphold provisions of international law and that's clearly the case [where the Russian military involved itself in the ethnic Russian Ukrainian revolt, supplying the rebels with guidance, military irregulars, and deadly equipment]."
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, The Hague

"If military weapons can be deployed and then used to bring down civilian aircraft in what was essentially a war zone, then international security is at risk and we call on all countries to inform the Russian Federation that its conduct [in this  very grave incident] is unacceptable."
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop

"It is time for Russia to acknowledge its role in the shooting down of MH17 and to cease its callous disinformation campaign."
"As the findings of the joint investigative team made clear, the BUK missile launcher used to bring down the passenger aircraft is owned by the Russian Federation and was assigned to the Russian 53rd anti-aircraft brigade near Kursk."
"It was brought into sovereign Ukrainian territory from Russia, was fired from territory controlled by Russia and Russia-led forces in eastern Ukraine, and was then returned to Russian territory."
Heather Nauert, spokeswoman, U.S. State Department

"The Kremlin believes it can act with impunity. The Russian government must now answer for its actions in relation to the downing of MH17." "This is an egregious example of the Kremlin’s disregard for innocent life."
"The UK will continue to offer its full support to the efforts of the joint investigation team, the Dutch and Australian authorities and other grieving nations to deliver accountability for this terrible act and justice for all those who died."
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson

In this July 17, 2014. file photo, people walk amongst the debris at the crash site of a passenger plane near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine. . (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, File)

Nothing new about the conclusion reached by international prosecutors  holding Russia fully to account for the downing in 2014 of Malaysian passenger jet MH17, flying some 10,000 metres over eastern Ukraine, to be torn apart by a Buk missile known to have been fired from a geographic area then in control of pro-Russian rebels. A reporter had seen the Buk missile in transit and had photographed it.

That evidence was available from day one. And a radio conversation that took place between a Russian-Ukrainian rebel leader and a Russian military officer whose transcript had the rebel leader revealing to the Russian that they had shot down the passenger jet was additional undeniable confirmation of the source of the disaster. The shredding of the lives of 298 passengers and crew of the airliner was clearly the responsibility of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin for whom the rebel cause was their cause.

So, now that the Netherlands and Australia have finally zeroed in on holding Moscow to legal responsibility for its undeniable role in the missile attack, how will they enforce their accusation and demand for accountability? Relations between the Russian Federation and the West are already beyond strained. Mutual hostility between NATO countries and a Russia that is bellicose in a way that harks back to the bad old days of the Cold War when the Soviet Union was a world power cannot conceivably become any more bitter.

Vladimir Putin has thrown around casual and not-so-casual nuclear threats, from his address a year ago to graduating students of a military academy in Russia to his video showcasing of technologically advanced, powerful stealth missiles, nuclear submarines and doomsday weapons Mr. Putin declares places his nation in the military driver's seat, are not exactly empty of warning that he feels the West is pushing Russia around and he won't stand for it.

A damaged missile is shown by the joint investigators at a press conference on Thursday  Reuters

Russia, on the other hand, really has resorted to pushing and shoving on the international scene, in the air, on the ground, in the waters adjoining the near-abroad and the globally distant nations who continue to note actions meant to alarm Russia's adversaries and instill caution in dealing with its eruptions of provocations. Putin's foray into Syria, his support for a ruthless slaughterer of Syrian civilians, his ability not to bat an eyelash at chemical weapons targeting unarmed civilians does him no credit.

But as long as he can continue persuading the Russian population that once again, it is their proudly honourable nation against a hostile world jealous of Russia's prowess in military technology, its progress in establishing itself as a country to be reckoned with, the internal blinkers work to his advantage, while those who advocate against his rule have succumbed to lethal accidents or are arrested, charged with espionage or corruption and incarcerated, politically neutralizing challengers.

The Thursday announcement of the international investigators of evidence that the Buk missile system that shattered the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight was the responsibility of a Russia-based military unit, the 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade in Kursk is old news in a new package. There are no shiny new revelations, so why has it taken four years for the official accusation to be aired?

At the time of the air disaster, Putin had said Russia would be fully compliant in the investigation; his dour sense of puckish humour. The shooting down of the the Boeing 777, Putin said at the time was done by Ukraine, targeting the aircraft and counting on world condemnation pointing at innocent Russia, as an elaborate smear job. Nor much has changed there; from St.Petersburg President Putin suggests the Ukrainian military might have been responsible; a replay of an old theme.

Besides which, since Russia was not invited to take part in the international investigation, how could it trust any conclusions brought to bear by an investigation undertaken by countries with a clear bias?

Image copyright AFP

Image caption The remains of the Boeing 777, photographed at its crash site in 2014

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Still from Video

"They say brand is culture and culture is brand, and what is happening at United is a very serious cultural problem."
"The leggings debacle is one thing, but then the fact that there were clearly no lessons learned after that happened shows that this is a brand that has completely lost its way."
"This is brand rot starting at the top. You could crash an airplane with a drunk pilot and not get this much negative press, and it is totally well-deserved."
Andris Pone, president, Coin Branding marketing, Toronto

"A cultural change is definitely something they need to explore."
"This clearly sends a message that the company values a 'profit over people' mentality and that is the kind of thing that comes from the CEO and trickles down from the top."
Anthony Kalamut, professor, Seneca College School of Marketing, Toronto

"I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard."
"I want you to know that we will take full responsibility and we will work to make it right."
Oscar Munoz, CEO, United Airlines

"PR 101 is first you admit the mistake, then you apologize sincerely, and then  you talk about what you are going to do to make sure it will not happen again."
"CEOs are hired to respond to what the board sees as the biggest threat to the company (at) the time of their appointment. The reason Munoz is CEO at United, and his support at the board level has nothing to do with PR, and was more about the general drive to maintain margins in the face of falling oil prices."
"If that CEO [given the uproar and the liability to United's stock] is not fired, then his contract certainly should not be renewed."
Ken Wong, marketing professor, Queen's University School of Business

A man was forcibly removed from a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Louisville, Ky., after the flight was overbooked. (Jayse D. Anspach/Twitter) 

Public relations unconcernedly kicked aside into the ditch of public discrimination by an airline company that clearly thinks of paying passengers as cargo with the right to occupy a seat to their destination on the airline's sufferance. The flight out of Chicago was 'overbooked' only in the sense that all seats were sold, the most ideal conditions for any company to meet their profit margin and beyond. But inconvenient when the company felt it was more important to find seats for four employees than to discommode paying passengers.

There were no volunteers when the usual explanations and 'regrets' were aired and offers made to sweeten the sour taste of being requested to leave the plane where you reserved a seat in good faith. So airline employees took it upon themselves -- as they have been empowered by their head office to do -- to assign departees from the flight. One man, identifying himself as a doctor needing to report to the hospital he serves where he had patients awaiting his presence, refused to leave as ordered. And so, strong-arm tactics were employed, brutalizing the man in the process.

Scandalized passengers took videos of the man being forcibly dragged out of his seat, face bloodied and as they witnessed the gross stupidity of the airline, they resolved never to use it again. After the event, and a brief return by the passenger to the plane, leading to his final escort off, he was taken to hospital; as one passenger noted dryly; he entered a doctor and exited a patient. His own fault, obviously, said CEO Munoz, since the passenger had been "disruptive and belligerent", refusing to leave when invited to.

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That disruptive passenger will quite likely not have to pay the law firm representing his suit up front, since United Airlines is certain to either settle handsomely to make that end of the problem go away, or have a settlement imposed upon it in a court of law. It will be debatable whether that will be more costly to the airline than the loss of custom by air travellers choosing to take their business elsewhere. This airline won't really require a 'three strikes and you're out' pattern to its loss since two has proven to be sufficient for it to voluntarily reduce the public trust and interest in using its services.

From refusing to allow two teens passage on a flight resulting from disapproval of their leggings while taking advantage of passes given to family and friends of the airlines employees, to strong-arming a passenger to force him to 'agree' with a decision out of his hands. An online petition for the CEO's resignation quickly collected over 24,000 signatures. Mr. Munoz's initial statements via the media, a rather incomplete apology, failed to resonate with horrified passengers and the condemning public.

And nor did the initial reaction to this massive public relations disaster bode well for the future of a company hoping to turn its fortunes around, with shares in its parent company falling four percent before rebounding.

Nearly 63,000 passengers voluntarily gave up their seats in exchange for compensation on United flights last year. (Mel Evans/Associated Press)

The Mysterious TU-154 Crash

"[The FSB has found] no indications or facts pointing at the possibility of a terror attack or act of sabotage on board the [Russian Defence Ministry Tu-154] plane."
Federal Security Service report

"Possible malfunctions . . . certainly wouldn't have prevented the crew from reporting them."
"[An] external impact [seemed, in his experience, the most likely reason for the disintegration of the Syria-bound plane on take-off from Sochi airport."
Vitaly Andreyev, (former) senior Russian air traffic controller

AFP : Russian boats have been searching the sea for bodies and wreckage

If security and counter-terrorism states with assurance that terrorism can be checked off the list of possible reasons why 92 people lost their lives on Monday, yet suspicion has been aroused that none of the flight crew appeared to have noticed anything awry, technical or otherwise which the retrieved black box validates, and the wreckage was spewed from the air over a wide distance, it is little wonder that belief in that authoritative conclusion is suspended.

Reuters

But the Kremlin has stated unequivocally that it is more likely that a technical malfunction or pilot error led to the crash and subsequent deaths that have devastated Russia. The famed Alexandrov Ensemble en route to entertain a Syrian-located Russian air base has lost one-third of its talented and internationally recognized troupe. Elite members of the Russian military, the air crew, and a Russian doctor renowned for her humanitarian work, all gone, leaving Russia the poorer for their untimely deaths.

No efforts have been spared to retrieve the bodies of the dead, intact or in parts, with 3,500 people deployed on 43 ships and 182 divers sweeping the crash site for any vestiges of the victims' bodies and the plane's debris. One of the plane's black boxes has been retrieved in shape sufficient to offer some clues as to what had occurred to produce this disaster. Despite the Kremlin's assurances that they know best, experts in aviation however, remain unconvinced.

It has been pointed out that the Kremlin has no wish for the Russian public to believe that their country has become a target of terrorists who feel entitled to bomb them just as Russian warplanes are bombing rebel militias, Syrian citizens and terrorist groups alike in Syria, in conjunction with the barrel-bomb-dropping Syrian helicopters where the regime has been deliberately targeting its own people. But Islamist jihadists who exist under cover in Russia could very well be sympathetic to their counterparts in Syria, and to exercise their option to demonstrate that sympathy.

After all, it is no secret that Chechen jihadists, among other international terrorists have been operating in Syria, although it is not necessarily the terrorists that Syria and Russia have held in their gun sights, but the rebel opposition in Syria eager to dislodge Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the new Butcher of the Middle East. To admit that a terrorist attack on a Russian military transport caused the catastrophic explosion would be to draw the Russian public's attention more closely to the deployment of thousands of Russian soldiers in Syria.

Their government, after all, has been describing its actions in Syria as a noble enterprise, countering the evil of Islamist atrocities against defenceless civilians, at the very time when the Russian military has been busy itself committing what even the haplessly dysfunctional United Nations has declared to be "war crimes". Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov appears to favour the theory of pilot error resulting in the crash, although technical fault would also be acceptable.

Who knows what the black box will be revealing ... or how it will be interpreted?

Tupolev-154: Russian workhorse : AFP

The plane originally took flight from the Chkalovsky military airport outside Moscow, stopping in Sochi to refuel. Border guards and military servicemen, according to the FSB, were on duty, protecting the plane on the tarmac, and even the chief pilot along with the flight engineer were there personally to monitor the refuelling exercise. Moreover a border guard officer and customs official were the sole brief boarders in Sochi, both beyond impeachment as loyal Russians.

Annoyingly no doubt, some in the Russian media point out lax security prevailing at Chkalovsky where the aging plane had been based, unlike the stricter security at civilian airports. To add to the doubts, former chief of the FSB special forces unit, Alexander Gusak, spoke of security breaches at the military airport. But even the much more secure Sochi airport could be vulnerable, he added: "It's possible to penetrate any facility.

"It depends on your skills."

Mystery Waiting To Be Solved in Egypt

"The question now is whether the fire that caused the smoke was the result of an electrical fault – for example a short-circuit caused by damaged wiring – or whether some form of explosive or incendiary device was used."
David Learmount, aviation expert, editor,  Flightglobal magazine

"If they lost the aircraft within three minutes that’s very, very quick. They were dealing with an extremely serious incident."
"Fires happen aboard aircraft, but they don’t usually result in the destruction of the aircraft in three minutes."
Philip Baum, aviation security expert

EgyptAir plane's flights on Wednesday 18 May

MS834 - Asmara to Cairo (Departed at 05:53 local time)

MS843 - Cairo to Tunis (09:28)

MS844 - Tunis to Cairo (14:47)

MS803 - Cairo to Paris (18:26)

MS804 - Paris to Cairo (23:09)

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

 

Two years earlier, EgyptAir's Flight 804 aircraft had been involved in a threat directed at the government of Egypt, warning "We will bring this plane down", written on the jetliner on its underside, in Arabic. At that time, it was 'political vandals' who were accused of sowing terror in the wake of the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi as President of Egypt. The graffiti was placed on the aircraft by aviation workers at Cairo Airport.

The plane's registration, SU-GCC was used as a phonetic link with the surname of Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, Egypt's current president. Whom some of the workers identified by writing on the aircraft: "traitor" and "murderer", obviously referring to the violent crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood supporters occasioned by Brotherhood-supporters staging explosive protests against the removal of the Brotherhood by the military, led by el-Sissi, responding to popular Egyptian demand.

That threat had been responsible for the airline placing a variety of new security measures into effect. The political turmoil in 2013 demanded such a response, as did the growing jihadi violence, led at first by the threats in the Sinai from Bedouin Salafists, by al-Qaeda-linked militias, and later the emergence of links to Islamic State in the Sinai region. The bombing aboard a Russian plane killing 224 people in October of 2015 increased vigilance and concern, leading to stepped-up crew searches.

Unarmed, in-flight security guards were considered a needed response to the ongoing threats, and three were aboard Flight 804, tasked with dealing with unruly passengers and being responsible to search workers who clean the plane, and checking crew member credentials at foreign airport stopovers. They do not, however, monitor baggage handlers loading the plane's hold in Europe since this is left to local handlers by agreement.

Since European airports do not permit EgyptAir security details to search local cleaning workers, it is now left to French authorities to question the Paris airport staff with access to the plane, including the cleaning crews. Particularly given the theory that a bomb could have been placed in the plane while on the Paris tarmac. Even earlier at one of the two African airports the plane had stopped at, in previous days.

It was noted by Sylvain Prevost, a trainer for Paris airport personnel, that workers have been known to have been threatened in the past, into co-operating with criminals. Whatever the efforts undertaken to secure the safety of an aircraft and the well-being of all aboard there are always ways to be found where vulnerabilities can be breached.

Athens-based air traffic controllers had attempted to contact the EgyptAir flight in a routine handing over of monitoring from Greek to Egyptian authorities. Repeated calls elicited no response. Simultaneously, a sensor detected smoke reaching the plane's network of computers and wires controlling the plane. And two minutes afterward, Egyptian airspace was reached and alarms blared.

Within seconds of those alarms warning of the plane's autopilot and wing control systems facing serious structural problems, radar contact was lost. "It just leads us into an area where smoke is a major contributor to the incident, either by destroying the aircraft’s equipment or suffocating the pilots", said Egyptian aviation expert Hossam Elhamy Shaker.

A picture uploaded on the official Facebook page of the Egyptian military spokesperson on May 21, 2016 and taken from an undisclosed location reportedly shows some debris that the search teams found in the sea after the EgyptAir Airbus A320 crashed in the Mediterranean.

The Unravelling Mystery

"What we had seen so far were IS-inspired lone wolves, but this attack appears to be the result of close, consistent operational support."
Mokhtar Awad, Centre for American Progress

'Russians and everyone who is with you in the alliance: Know that you are not safe on Muslim soil or in Muslim airspace."
"The daily murdering of dozens in Syria by your airstrikes will bring disaster on you. Just as you kill, so you will be killed, God willing."
ISIL statement 

"What happened in Sharm al-Sheikh last week, and to a lesser extent with the ... (Germanwings) aircraft, are game changers for our industry [Germanwings airliner in the French Alps in March, believed crashed deliberately by its co-pilot]."
"They have to be addressed at industry level because no doubt the countries -- US, Europe -- I would think will make some fairly stringent, draconian demands on the way aviation works with security." Emirates Airlines President Tim Clark

Military investigators from Russia stand near the debris of a Russian airliner at the site of its crash at the Hassana area in Arish city, north Egypt, November 1, 2015.    Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

Some unnamed American officials are quietly claiming that they have been asked for assistance in the Russian forensic analysis set to determine what it was that brought down Airbus A321-200. Russian investigators have collected some fragments of the plane for Russian analysts to examine and it's hard to believe they need much help in that mission. There have already been some results surfacing, which are yet to be confirmed, but it seems that the original Russian assertions that an explosion caused by a bomb was out of the question, is now the answer to the question.


According to Debkafile, an exclusive report is unequivocal that Russian investigators have discovered residue and allied evidence that an explosion did indeed rip the plane apart from the interior. The discovery was made that holes produced by iron balls of the type planted within bombs were scattered throughout all parts of the plane. Also seen were large tears in the outer walls, obviously emanating from a powerful explosion. Those samples and conclusions were presented to a meeting of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee.



Forensic examination of the remains of some of the victims indicate that those unfortunates died from the results of a horrendous explosive blast, and that news is of no solace whatever to the families grieving their lost ones. There is certain now to be pressure on Moscow over Vladimir Putin's entrance into Syria; not only will there be increasing numbers of Russian soldiers dying in that conflagration, but now there is clear evidence that Islamic State affiliate Sinai Province conspired with ISIL to produce an atrocity costly to Russia.

Additional intelligence now in Moscow's hands appears to point to plans by Islamic State for a follow-up event where additional terrorist attacks are to take place targeting Russian and European passenger jets. And then there are the as-yet-unconfirmed but fairly confident reports of the involvement of British jihadists in the attack. That British intelligence was in the forefront of concluding a bomb was the likeliest explanation for the plane's disintegration in flight, leaves some further explanations to be aired, though they are not likely to be forthcoming.

The "chatter", for example that alerted intelligence agencies, comprised of communications between the Sinai chapter and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Raqqa, speaks of a rather lax attitude among intelligence agencies themselves, since that "chatter" pre-dated the actual explosive attack, and might have been averted had they been adequately alerted before the event, as presumably they should have been, since this is the purpose of poring over communications by the agencies to begin with. Excited reports of "something big in the area", should logically have been tapped beforehand.

That U.S. intelligence has admitted Israeli intelligence officials provided American and British intelligence agencies with intercepted communications between Islamic State terrorists about the crash, points out major deficiencies in their own intelligence communities in gathering vital data to aid in avoiding such disasters.

The British-accented jihadists implicated in this successful attack causing such great glee in jihadist circles is reminiscent of the Brit who was prominent in Islamic State beheading videos that caused such fear and trepidation among civilized societies, in the knowledge that among them, living as neighbours, were people who were assumed to be loyal citizens who would view with loathing and disgust the delight that jihadis take in committing atrocities deliberately prolonging the agony of death for their victims. Instead, they realized soon enough, they were being championed.

It transpires now that just days before the Russian jet explosion, a senior British minister warned the aviation industry that the penetration of security at foreign airports was being targeted by terrorist plotters. And now, investigators are uncovering details that relate directly to those warnings that authorities appear not to have taken quite seriously enough back then, though they're being given full attention after the fact:

1. Egypt’s investigators state that a clamour was heard in the last second of the cockpit voice recording on the jet, reinforcing the likelihood the aircraft was brought down by an on-board bomb;
2. The Islamic State terror group claiming responsibility [Sinai Province] was trained by an ex-Egyptian special forces officer, who had turned to jihadism;
3. UK aviation and security officials shown CCTV footage from inside Sharm el-Sheikh airport alarmed at the lack of security measures, ordered cancellation of all further flights from Britain to the Red Sea resort;
4. Downing Street admitted it would take much longer than previously felt to evacuate stranded Britons from Sharm el Sheikh whose numbers are second only to Russia's tourists.

The actions and precautionary measures to be taken now by the international flight community and national security forces represents a matter whose disarray and panic delights and validates Islamic State and its subsidiaries. Another victory on their long and determined passage to international conquest and the much enhanced prestige of the Caliphate.