Suspected russian attacks on the west.

[clv101]

Ha, it's the GSM-R system, this is old 90s tech which I'd expect would make it pretty secure. No one under the age of 45 knows how it works!

[adam2]

Recent reports on a railway forum suggest that the railway communications problem was due to a hardware fault, and not related to foreign interference.

[Potemkin Villager]

Folk do seem to be increasingly assuming when something/anything goes wrong
it must be the fault of perfidious foreigners whilst a more likely explanation maybe poor maintenance,
crap software or some clapped out old PC that is years overdue replacing!

[clv101]

Absolutely! As collapse progresses, there'll be a look of scapegoat hunting.

[Ralphw2]

Finland to Estonia power cable outage. Cause unknown.

[adam2]

News report re above https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr56l7prj2mo

[Ralphw2]

Russian shadow fleet tanker seized by Finland after cable severed.

[adam2]

Estonian navy are to protect submarine power cables, against what is generally accepted to be russian sabotage.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1elq7lx9qdo

[BritDownUnder]

Estonian navy are to protect submarine power cables, against what is generally accepted to be russian sabotage.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1elq7lx9qdo

Well, it's a good thing they are not expecting the UK or US Navy to protect it for them. Maybe they should put some well anchored snags around the cable to snag the dragging anchors.

[Ralphw2]

This is probably a false alarm, but there are worrying similarities between the South Korean 737 crash and the Kazakhstan crash. The plane crashed on landing with wheels up, and video suggests no flaps, so it suggests a major hydraulic failure. Altitiude and Directional control seems to have been maintained. Public Flight data was lost for the last moments of the flight.

Too early to say, and the severity of the crash will delay investigation, but this level of technical failure is rare in modern aircraft. The pilots reported bird strike, but the pilots in GRozny did too.

edit

video shows engine blow out which may have been a bird strike. An uncontained turbine failure could have sent broken turbine blades out like shrapnel, severing hydaulic lines and damaging other systems. looking like a convential crash

edit

The ultimate cause of the high fatality rate in this crash was the presence of an immovable object (concrete wall and embankment) only a short distance beyond the end of the runway. The plane hit it at very high speed and exploded in a fire ball. This is a very unusual feature in a modern airport, and a lot of questions will be asked why it was there.

Apart from that, there are a lot of unanswered questions. It is extremely unusual for a bird strike to cause a catastrophic failure of a modern jet engine, they are designed to be almost indestructible. It is hard to find a cause for the pilots to land wheels up, and for them to attempt a landing without discussing options with air traffic control first - they must have been in a real panic mode, or have been very lacking in training. There was no visible presence of fire fighting equipment near the runway when it landed, suggesting they did not have time to deploy.
We will have to wait for the investigation, and the level of destruction will not make that a quick process. Foul play cannot be ruled out at this stage.

edit

it is now being reported that the same aircraft declared an emergency and diverted a flight to China only two days previously. There is no public record of what caused that emergency call but it will be of very great interest to the investigators, and its servicing records and the budget airlines policies.

[Ralphw2]

The Baltic states, UK and Poland have agreed to start boarding Russian shadow fleet ships out of St Petersberg and checking their "insurance papers and export licenses". As these ships are ancient rust buckets that are sanctions busting and have Russian "insurance" that isn't worth the paper it is written on, it will be interesting to see what the result will be. Of course, some of these ships will be found to have military spying equipment on, like the one the Finnish have boarded for cutting the sea cable. Is this sabre rattling by the West, or an escalation into genuine shipping embargo on Russia? The timing in the lead up to Trump V2 and the cessation of Ukrainian transit of Russian gas suggests Europe is preparing to escalate the hybrid warfare.

[Ralphw2]

The black boxes on the South Korean plane crash stopped recording 4 minutes before the crash, suggesting total power failure. Unlikely that there will be a quick resolution to this mystery. Lots of speculation of possible combinations of events, for example bird strike destroys one engine, the pilots accidentally shut down the wrong engine, the APU could not be started in time to resume control, etc. even that does not explain why the pilots did not drop the landing gear manually.

May remain a mystery

[Ralphw2]

Russian "shadow fleet" oil tanker lost power and is adrift in German waters of the Baltic sea. Tugs in attendance. Will be interesting to see ig Germany lets it go again.

[BritDownUnder]

Maybe the Danes should insist on proper non-sanctions insurance before any ship transits the Danish straits. Also a prepayment to cover any possible damage caused by dragging anchors.

[Ralphw2]

Fourth attack on Baltic undersea cable. Sweden sizes suspect ship.