Seconds before impact

Netizens doubted the authenticity of a satellite image of an attack on a Malaysian Boeing, shown by Channel One

On November 14, Channel One, as part of Mikhail Leontyev’s analytical program “However,” showed a “unique” satellite image, which, according to presenters and experts, captured a fighter attack on a Malaysian Boeing that crashed in the Donetsk region on July 17, 2014.

Netizens immediately doubted the authenticity of the photo. TJournal also discovered some interesting facts.

On November 14, the presenter of Channel One reported that a “sensational photograph allegedly taken by a foreign spy satellite” had fallen into the hands of journalists.

Following him, already within the framework of the “However” program, the first vice-president of the “Russian Union of Engineers” Ivan Andrievsky added that the letter with the photo was received by his organization on the “twelfth”, while in the subsequent demonstration the text of the message indicated the date of writing 9 November, respectively, we are talking about November 12th.

The sender, as stated on air, introduced himself as George Bilt, an MIT graduate and an aviation expert with twenty years of experience. According to Andrievsky, we are talking about a satellite image taken from a not very high orbit, by an American or British apparatus. He stated that as a result of the examination of the frame, no signs of forgery were identified: it actually depicted a fighter attack on a passenger plane.

At the conclusion of the transfer, from the documents presented, Mikhail Leontyev concluded that “there is every reason to believe that a state crime has been committed.”

Immediately after the broadcast of the program fragment, netizens reported that the photo had been available online for about a month.

this photo is already a month old - http://t.co/vHn76yANY2 pic.twitter.com/q9sbTnxheH

— Abu (@abunyasha) November 14, 2014

They also began to discuss other inaccuracies shown on air, including the size of the aircraft and errors in the time code.

and in the future, Boeing is 30-35 times larger than this miga-su pic.twitter.com/zLBbccTcVQ

— Abu (@abunyasha) November 14, 2014

Regarding the photo on Channel One, it’s a fake. It says 1:19 UTC (i.e. night, UTC counts without AM/PM), and the disaster occurred at 13:19.

— Svyatoslav Torick (@retropcan) November 14, 2014

Well, the last thing, in short. The picture shows Donetsk, and communication with the plane was lost in the Snezhnoye area. and the Malaysian airline logo is in the wrong place.

— Abu (@abunyasha) November 14, 2014

@abunyasha http://t.co/XGnx3GZ6vR everything is fine with the logo

— Touch 9 (@touchIssi) November 14, 2014

The picture shown on air was indeed published on the forum of the website obkon.ucoz.com on October 15, but it is not possible to confirm that the date was not assigned to it after the fact. The Wayback Machine service only has a version of the page with the image from November 14th.

TJournal checked the fragment of the satellite image shown on “First” with images from Bing, Here Maps and Google Maps, and they revealed discrepancies in the boundaries of some ground objects.

At the same time, the fragment of the Yandex map with that shown on TV coincides down to the smallest detail, with the exception of airplanes and clouds, and the one published on obkon.ukoz.com is completely identical to the “sensational” picture of Channel One.

When comparing the photos with the map, it was discovered that in the photo with the planes there is a shadow from the cloud displayed on Yandex.Maps, while the cloud itself is not there.

According to the user obkon.ucoz.com , the silhouette of the Boeing coincides in angle with the photograph posted on one of the sites with desktop wallpapers.

Direct comparison shows that the angle is indeed similar, but the photographs have differences: for example, drawings on the fuselage.

The crash of a Malaysian Boeing 777 killed 298 people. According to an investigation by Dutch experts, the plane crashed due to “structural damage caused by the external influence of numerous high-energy objects,” but those responsible for the incident have not yet been identified.

Update as of November 15, 13:40: Advisor to the President of Rosneft and host of the author’s program “However,” Mikhail Leontyev commented on statements from network users about the unreliability of the photo on the radio “Echo of Moscow.”

I didn't claim that this proved anything. [...] We don't prove anything, we tell. Experts must prove it! I don’t know what the bloggers proved there. I know one thing - that there is data of objective information. Russia presented different data. Not everything, maybe. [...] Show your details, you bastards! Mikhail Leontyev, host of the author’s program “However”

Update on November 15, 23:08: Channel One released a second report about the photo. It already states that almost nothing is known about the sender of the photo.

The author of the letter could clarify the situation. A man who called himself George Build and sent a photo to the e-mail of the Russian Union of Engineers, an organization that has been analyzing the Malaysian Boeing crash for several months, collecting, literally, bit by bit data about the tragedy. But the sender cannot be contacted. Everything that is known about this man is only from his words in a letter. [...] However, among the graduates of the University of Massachusetts over the past quarter century, an alumnus named George Bild has also not yet been found. There are currently two possible answers to the question of where he got this photograph from: did he take it himself or is the photograph real. Image quality, detail... Experts at the first glance at the picture say: it looks very much like the real thing. Mikhail Akinchenko, correspondent

In the new version of the report, the channel’s journalists note that previously an error could have been made in determining the model of the attacking fighter, but this does not matter.

However, the question of which fighter shot down the Malaysian airliner is hardly that important. Rather, this is an additional argument in favor of the version that the missile could not have been launched from the ground from the Buk system, which is confirmed by radar data. Mikhail Akinchenko, correspondent

It goes on to say that to verify the version of the plane, it is necessary to carefully study the wreckage, but in any case, the photo has again launched an important discussion about the disaster.

The photo, allegedly taken at the moment when the fighter opens fire on the Boeing, only reinforces this picture. But the version requires additional verification. It is necessary to carefully examine all fragments of the aircraft. However, it is still not possible to remove them from the scene of the tragedy. Ukrainian security forces are constantly shelling this territory. The only, undoubted result of the appearance of the photograph is a catastrophe, which in the West has been so carefully kept silent lately, and is again one of the most discussed topics in the world. Mikhail Akinchenko, correspondent

Netizens still adhere to the version of photo montage.

Even the source code for the photoshopped “package post” has been found. Those who so wanted to frame Ukraine were not smart enough for this pic.twitter.com/Vw6f0gBldQ

— Timur Khorev (@TimurKhorev) November 15, 2014

Update on November 16, 13:40: BuzzFeed News claims that it managed to contact George Bilt, whom the Channel One correspondent called “Build” (blogger Ilya Varlamov also reported contact with him ). According to the man, who did not disclose further details of his identity, he did indeed send a letter to the “Russian Union of Engineers”, but found the photo on a Russian-language forum and directly stated this in his message.

I don't have the knowledge or means to prove and research whether this is a real satellite image or not (it's been available since mid-October, so it's not much of a discovery). George Bilt

According to Bilt, he was very upset when he learned that his private letter to Andrievsky became public knowledge.

These guys are either completely desperate or completely unprofessional. George Bilt

#Scandal #First_Channel #Malaysian_Boeing #satellite_image