O.T. Re the Plane.

[Quigs]

Serious - My sympathies are with all those lost souls that were murdered on the Malaysian Plane, and to their families and friends.

It was terrible that is for sure.

But I can't help but notice during todays non stop broadcasts of it, that questions have been asked about the plane flying over the Ukrains.

I had questions about a flight I took 20 plus years ago and now looking at todays incident it has reminded me of my trip.

Nothing much changes with Airlines and International Flightpaths.

In 1990 I went on a Rugby League Supporters tour to the UK. The Declared flight (KLM) ex Brisbane to the UK with only ONE stopover. An 8 hour stop at Hong Kong. That is all we were told.

It was around the time that the first Iraq war was about to start. The threats of action were loud and serious.

As the plane departed from Hong Kong heading I thought to Heathrow - we were in the air for a little time and an announcement was made that owing to the dangerous situation in Bahrain we will be landing in Dubai to exchange Cabin Crew. (now i might be confused here and the places could be reversed). We landed in Dubai and did the crew change.

The plane took off from Dubai - new announcement - we will be landing in Bahrain to refuel. Down went the plane into Bahrain. At the time I thought ... "To dangerous to land in Bahrain for crew exchange, but safe enough to refuel - strange days indeed"

FOOTNOTE: As we were landing in Dubai four fighter jets were taking off on a duel runway.

 

[Generalzod]

In all seriousness Quigs have the executives of Malaysian airlines been living in a coma in the last 5 months, didn't they know that separatist in the Ukraine have been shooting planes out of the sky and here was this plane flying through a war zone, how stupid can the pilot be?? Especially after the EU have warned Europoean carries to stay away from Ukraine...

 

[Quigs]

There has been heaps of them flying over that very busy flightpath Zod. It is all about cost cutting and saving bucks.

 

[Jaegerex]

And make the situation have a slight cronullafied twist, guess how we worded on facebook and twitter being thrashed by the Cowboys...

 

[Tucky]

And make the situation have a slight cronullafied twist, guess how we worded on facebook and twitter being thrashed by the Cowboys...

Wow, just read about that in the main forum. Very poor form from whoever is in charge of social media at the club.

 

[Card Shark]

In all seriousness Quigs have the executives of Malaysian airlines been living in a coma in the last 5 months, didn't they know that separatist in the Ukraine have been shooting planes out of the sky and here was this plane flying through a war zone, how stupid can the pilot be?? Especially after the EU have warned Europoean carries to stay away from Ukraine...

They have had their minds on another of their planes at the bottom of the ocean..... They are having a bad run.

It's a terrible thing that's happened & must've been a terrifying way to die. Poor buggers.

 

[carcharias]

I flew over the same joints in 1990 Quigs .
It did cross my mind why.
I recall looking down and thinking who'd wanna live there
I figured we were too high .

It was qantas going to Germany .

 

[Card Shark]

How high was the plane - I'd have thought a passenger jet would be too high as well?

 

[DJShaksta]

33,000ft
No handheld/shoulder launched missile has that range.
Was fired from a launch vehicle.

 

[Quigs]

Probably not the best timing to relay this story.... so sorry if it offends some.

Our 1990 plane left Bahrain and flew across the Gulf and over Kewait, and up along the border between Iran and Iraq and then crossed over Turkey.

This is a true story. During our trip over - it was with the Rugby League Week, so getting on the plane was the first time as a group we met. Well a lot of us - for the exercise lets say there were about 50 of us on that plane.

There were 2,000 all up on the RLW tours.

As you can imagine it was mainly all single blokes and things got around to yacking and drinking copious amounts of piss. We would all meet up the back of the Jumbo, just stand around and get on it.

Now as a group we were all laughing and carrying on about us being rerooted and what the pharque was going on. It was getting dark in the outside world and of course you could see the route the plane was flying by the big screens around the interior.

Well we are all standing around drinking, giving the hosties the Aussie how you do when all of a sudden this loud mouth yank started running up and down the aisle ranting and screaming.

Words to the effect "Why are we flying over here, if this plane is captured etc" "I am a citizen of the United States of America, this isn't right" "I will be the first to die" blah blah blah.

You can imagine the considerate reception he got at the aussie end of the jumbo.

Pharque off you loudmouth yank idiot.!!

Anyhow one of the blokes slowed him down and as he was looking at the aussie the bloke went over and looked out the window - turned to the yank and said, "Whats that bright red light flying up to us for?"

The yank ran down the front of the plane screaming.

True story.

 

[Card Shark]

33,000ft
No handheld/shoulder launched missile has that range.
Was fired from a launch vehicle.

Wow !!!

 

[Inferno]

Wow, just read about that in the main forum. Very poor form from whoever is in charge of social media at the club.

What did it say?

 

[DJShaksta]

"Sharks shot down by Cowboys"
Honestly, people need to not be so precious.

 

[sharkadelic]

Physically impossible to be shot "down" when you are riding this low anyways

 

[Vin Fizz]

Operations snafu Mr Quigs is my guess. Sounds like they were always going via Bahrain. Could've been a slot/ramp / terminal position problem at Bahrain though. If there was delays getting into Bahrain that may have pushed the crew over the duty time they may have elected to get underway and land at Dubai to swap crew. If they waited on the ground at Honkers and delay the whole flight they could miss their Heathrow slot which would be a nightmare. Id have another wild guess and say that they didn't have a favourable fuel deal at Dubai but could get their original one at Bahrain so they took that one. Just a wild stab in the dark.

 

[Quigs]

It was 1990 Vinny and all I wanted to do was to get me to my seat at Wembley for the first test.

 

[husky65]

There has been heaps of them flying over that very busy flightpath Zod. It is all about cost cutting and saving bucks.

It seems that they didn't believe that anyone would be so stupid as to give the "separatists" (run by an ex FSB officer and largely manned by Russian troops) anything along the lines of an SA-11 heavy surface to air missile system or the expertise to use one. it turns out that the Russians are in fact that stupid.

Had the "separatists" just had Stinger, SA7, RBS70, SA14 or similar shoulder launched SAMs the aircraft would have been well above their range and was flying above the recommended safe height for that area.

 

[Quigs]

It just makes you scratch your cynical heads when you watch what is happening with this plane and all the poor souls onboard.

Within minutes the world is producing film, flightpaths, voice recordings from the Separatists commanders to and from the bloke that allegedly fired the rocket. Even film of the launcher being taken back across the border.

Yet the other Malaysian Plane with the other poor souls that went missing without a trace - they can't even tell you where it crashed.

Smells really bad to me.

 

[Inferno]

"Sharks shot down by Cowboys"
Honestly, people need to not be so precious.

Very precious.

 

[Vin Fizz]

It was 1990 Vinny and all I wanted to do was to get me to my seat at Wembley for the first test.

Life long memories no doubt. If my memory is correct we lost that game. Won the series but lost the first.