--- title: Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident? | TIME description: Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident? canonical: https://time.com/video/zb0CANL5/ og:title: Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident? og:description: Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident? og:url: https://time.com/video/zb0CANL5/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zb0CANL5/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident? twitter:description: Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident? twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zb0CANL5/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident? [Watch (HLS stream): Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zb0CANL5.m3u8) (2:08)  _Published 2014-07-18. Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident?_ --- Jul 27, 2023 5:01 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Air India's Lone Survivor Says He Can't Believe He Got Out Alive](/video/6ZSFzrOa/) ### Air India's Lone Survivor Says He Can't Believe He Got Out Alive [The Search for Missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 Is Ending After Four Years](/video/Yx1ggJL4/) ### The Search for Missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 Is Ending After Four Years [Experts Say Missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 Was Intentionally Crashed](/video/Oe5J43XG/) ### Experts Say Missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 Was Intentionally Crashed --- ## Transcript The reason behind the downing of this aircraft is unclear and it may turn out to be any number of things. But it is entirely plausible, given the circumstances, that this was an accident. The systems we're talking about so for example the BUK. It's not something you can just sort of show somebody in five minutes how to use. It has a command post so you need a lot of training to interpret the radar imagery, and to actually make the missile track the targets. So this is, you know, it's not the most complicated system in the world, but it's something you, you can't teach somebody. Shortly. If the Ukrainian separatists were able to use it. They either received additional training presumably from Russia. Or perhaps they had military officers that had left the Ukrainian military, that had been train on the system. It's quite difficult to interpret radar imagery. And you have to put yourself in the, in the frame of mind of the, of the operator. Here. They've had a lot of success in, targeting Ukrainian aircraft. Including transport aircraft. Which, you know, at least in terms of basic shape look a, a, a good bit like a commercial airliner. So they've had success but they're also scared. And then they see this radar image coming at them from the west which is where Ukrainian military aircraft would be coming from as well. It's entirely possible that with a few errors this could happen, and of course even professional militaries very successful professional militaries have had problems in downing aircraft accidentally. So in 2003. The U. S. military surface to air missile battery shot down a British jet at the beginning of the, the war in Iraq. In 1994 U. S. fighter jets shot down two U. S. helicopters over northern Iraq. So it, it, it does happen so you can imagine you know, maybe these Ukrainian separatists have, have been trained but they're, they're probably not professionals. Their under a lot of pressure and, and they've had some success and it's really the only success they've, they've had over the past few weeks is, is downing these aircrafts so it's very easy to imagine the situation where this is accidental. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident?","description":"Was the Malaysian Airlines Plane Shot by Accident?","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zb0CANL5/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-07-18T21:03:30.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zb0CANL5.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/zb0CANL5/","duration":"PT2M8S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/zb0CANL5/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```