[Texas Eagle]

Okay. If the Russian Separatists (aka Terrorists) thought that that was a cargo plane full of Ukrainian supplies or troops, where did they think it was heading? Is there an airport somewhere that we can't see in that photo?

It looks like the plane was on its way OUT of Ukrainian territory and almost into Russsia.

[Uncle Chip]

It looks like the plane was on its way OUT of Ukrainian territory and almost into Russsia.

Bingo --

[Paul R.]

There’s no way, given the direction and altitude, that plane was likely to land anywhere in Ukraine, short of being shot down. Also, given the plane’s altitude, the BUK’s radar should have seen it perhaps as far as 200 miles out.

Someone should add the missile’s trajectory to that graphic...

[Rashputin]

Ukraine said there's a Mechanized brigade of theirs on the border with Russia that's surrounded by Separatists and dependent on air resupply. Unless they go into Russia, they don't have a way out of their situation. So, they're pinned right against the border.

The transport shot down not long before the passenger plane was in the same area but traveling more from a more Westerly direction than what is shown as the path of the airliner, but not from directly what seems to be the West in that illustration, more like 15 to twenty degrees off that line as best I could tell. If you're interested, you can find where the transport was coming from and going to probably if this hasn't pushed all that off into the bit bucket everywhere. The maps I saw are oriented a bit different, so without one in front of me all that I'm sure of is that it was passing through the same area headed directly toward the unit on the Russian border.

As for the unit on the border, I don't really know if they have an airfield available to them or it's all airdrop of stuff for them.