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Comment by HideousKojima | Hacker News Reader

Fear of a threat from Russian (or Russian-aligned/equipped rebels) forces shooting down FedEx planes, or a secret DoD plan to convert FedEx's fleets into weapons platforms?

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>a secret DoD plan to convert FedEx's fleets into weapons platforms?

Related: China Building Long-Range Cruise Missile Launched From Ship Container. Disguised weapon turns freighters into warships, ports to missile bases

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-building-long...

That's not entirely unrealistic. In the 70s and 80s there was a USAF program to convert passenger 747 airplanes into surveillance planes and missile launch platforms (under the designation "E-4"). Soviet fear of those militarized 747s contributed to the shoot-down of KAL007.

Is it supported by fact? You know as noted then it was one of the first death of IT workers in those days. I do not think I would accept Soviet Union justified that in any way. They can send in plane to fight eve it down and show to the world that if truth. Not shooting it down.

The fear was that it was a military-operated plane using the same shape as a civilian plane, which was a real thing the USAF was using at the time. The plane had, completely by accident, flown directly over a missile test in progress. It didn't respond to attempts to contact it because the pilots weren't listening on the right channels, and they didn't notice the warning shots across the nose because it was too dark and cloudy.

When, by complete coincidence, KAL007 climbed to a higher flight level for fuel efficiency moments after the soviet interceptors obtained missile lock, the air defense commanders took that as confirmation that it was a USAF E-4 taking evasive action, not a civilian 747, and ordered the shoot-down.

> moments after the soviet interceptors obtained missile lock

So it would have been shot down anyway, with or without "confirmation". This is just the Soviets being paranoid trigger happy like they were when they downed flight MH17 and also one of their own flights shot by mistake in 2001 during an Ukrainian/Russian military exercise.

No, you you misunderstand the incredible coincidence here. The pilots, thinking they were about to arrive in Japanese airspace, requested and recieved permission to climb to a higher altitude. At that very moment, the soviet fighters had obtained missile lock.

The plane suddenly began to climb, losing speed and resulting in the interceptors overshooting and needing to maneuver to get back in line with the plane. From their perspective, it was a well timed and effective evasion of the first missile, but the Korean pilots still had no clue.

I mean think about it from their persepctive, this plane is visually indistinguishable from a military plane built specifically built to conduct surveillance operations doing a perfectly timed flyover of a missile test, not responding to communications or warning shots, and apparently dodging an AA missile. The soviets were paranoid, sure, but that situation is one in a million.

> a secret DoD plan to convert FedEx's fleets

There is the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, of which FedEx is a member.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Reserve_Air_Fleet

FedEx plane are everywhere some of them are probably doing signal intelligence for a long time.

Last time those rebels used Buk^, which is radar-guided, so IR-countermeasures won’t help.

^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buk_missile_system

“On 19 June 2019, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service charged four people with murder in connection with the shooting down of the aircraft: three Russians, Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky, and Oleg Pulatov, and one Ukrainian, Leonid Kharchenko.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

The only rebel on that list is possibly the last one, the Ukrainian guy, although I'm not so sure about him either. All the others are vereran Russian military officers who fought in Afghanistan and Northern Caucasus. The first guy is a former FSB officer. Currently all of them are wanted war criminals.

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