[wetphoenix]

~Not so. These are not fire-and-forget systems. They have to be guided into the target. You have to be technically proficient to operate them. A guy I know who was a Soviet bloc SAM operator, while a draftee, is as sharp as a tack. I don't think he was assigned to the SAM battery by accident.~ That is how this exact Buk operator's station looks from inside. Not exactly a Nintendo arcade but it is not much more difficult than MS Flight Simulator. It is fire-and-forget indeed. You don't have to manually guide your missile to target, it is radar-guided. And you don't actually need to learn all the buttons to fire a missile and hit aircraft with that.

[driftdiver]

If you believe some punk rebel drive this Sam battery, set it up, and shot down the plane all by himself without Russian training and assistance then I have a bridge to sell you.

[RayChuang88]

While the 9K37 Buk system dates from circa 1979, this SAM system has been continually upgraded since then, and the latest versions introduced around 2003 are VERY potent SAM systems that can intercept most targets from low-flying cruise missiles to slower trajectory short-range ballistic missiles. It's possible that the missile that shot down MH 17 was Buk M2 system, and that system is more capable than the famous S-76 Dvina (NATO designation SA-2 Guideline) system from the 1960's.

Being such a sophisticated system, it takes a lot of training to properly operate them, especially in terms of target recognition. It's possible if the separatists were operating them, they didn't know how to use the target recognition system fully, and as such when they fired a missile at what was supposedly another Ukrainian Air Force An-26 military transport, it ended up hitting a commercial jet airliner instead with tragic results.

(By the way, I've read that two Singapore Airlines jets were flying fairly close by at the time MH 17 was shot down. Just a few minutes' change in the time the missile was was and we could be right now trying to explain why a Singapore Airlines Airbus A380-800 carrying circa 455 passengers and flight crew was shot down in the second-worst single plane crash in aviation history.)

[NYFriend]

I’m guessing the GO button is under the flap on the panel with nothing else around it? The switch or keyhole next to it is the ARM switch? My Russion Missile knowledge comes from Spys Like Us, and I’d be Chevy Chase with the rock. I don’t doubt that someone could learn to select a target from the screen and fire in a 10 minute session. Knowing what to shoot at would be harder. The kind of scenario where an airline gets shot down.