Russian Airliner, 'shot down'?

[Kaz]

Tales are coming through of the hotels charging tourists for late check-out. In this situation that is an unwise move I think, they need all the goodwill they can get if people are to return

[TheOstrich]

Reading between the lines suggests that the UK has shared its intel with the Russians and they have come to a similar conclusion - bomb. They also have the data from the black boxes to work with.

I hope to goodness that this was "post-event" intelligence; hindsight trawling of communications. It has been said that the West has not shared routine intelligence with Russia for a long time, since Putin's ascendancy and the Ukraine.

If Western intelligence knew that something was in the offing, and had failed to warn the Russians in advance about it, that would make the intelligence services as complicit as the bombers in my eyes.

[Kaz]

Yes, that would be truly awful

[Workingman]

I think it was Wednesday that the Joint Terrorist Analysis Centre (JTAC) met and later in the day Cameron chaired a COBRA meeting, this implies that it was only then that the bomb intelligence came to light.

It has been said in some reports that it was when JTAC revisited communications chatter following the crash that the link was discovered.

Given all the recent coverage of the "Snoopers Charter" that would be quite a hard admission for the security services to make. It shows, in some way, that all the intelligence in the world is of no use if it is not interpreted correctly and on time. For that reason I do expect it all to be post-event.

[Suff]

Given all the recent coverage of the "Snoopers Charter" that would be quite a hard admission for the security services to make. It shows, in some way, that all the intelligence in the world is of no use if it is not interpreted correctly and on time. For that reason I do expect it all to be post-event.

I think what is shows is the narrow band of monitoring on the communications net. Basically we are monitoring threats to NATO and the EU. When the plane went down they will have re-analysed the same comms chatter with broader terms and then found "bomb" and "Russia" and "plane or flight", a combination which was probably outside of the scope of our "bomb" and "NATO/EU" and "Plane" or "Flight".

BTW my post has now just hit and triggered the UK search....

Automated technology is only as good as the person or team who anticipate what they are looking for. Computers are the ultimate idiots. They will do exactly what you tell them to even if you really want something else. If you want something else, then you must tell them you want it.

I really feel for those Russian families more now. We have avoided this kind of thing in the Western world, mainly and so far, because our intelligence gathering is so good. Now I wonder how the information flow is going to go? Are we going to share with Russian and expand our scope to Russian flights? Because British people do fly on Russian flights, I know I have. Had we been looking and shared that information, those Russians might be alive right now.

[Workingman]

I also feel deeply for the Russians and their families, in some way. Up until the Crimea/Ukraine fiasco the West and Russia were sharing intelligence.

Once the Ukraine thing blew, as much our fault as the Russians, intel sharing stopped.

I am another who has flown on Russian airlines, and not always from Russia; and plenty of Russians fly on non-Russian airlines as well. If Russians are to now become a prime target for IS it is imperative that we start sharing intel again.