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Tracking Flight MH17 in Google Earth

Last week, Malaysia Airlines flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine by a surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 people on board. While blame is still being passed around for the crash, there are some places using Google Earth to try to better understand what happened.

First is the photo below, found via Twitter, which is using Google Earth to show the path of the flight, the path of the missile, and the crash site. At this point I’ve not been able to find a KML file for this image, but the image itself is rather striking:

MH17 in Google Earth

Next is a series of images of the crash site, provided by DigitalGlobe. As they often do after a major news event, DigitalGlobe was able to capture imagery of the crash site to help document it from the air. They were unable to capture imagery on July 17 due to cloud cover, but have some from a few days around it.

MH17 DigitalGlobe

They’ve also released two KML files to show some of the imagery:

That info comes to us from Amy Svitak at Aviation Week, who has a full article with more photos that is worth checking out.

About Mickey Mellen

Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.

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Comments

  3. George Stiller says

    If you want to see the actual crash site in Google Earth or Google Map, plot a line along these coordinates:

    Field A: 48°08’56.3″N 38°31’58.9″E
    Field B (end point): 48°08’15.4″N 38°38’17.8″E (photo shown in the above article)



PLEASE NOTE: Google Earth Blog is no longer writing regular posts. As a result, we are not accepting new comments or questions about Google Earth. If you have a question, use the official Google Earth and Maps Forums or the Google Earth Community Forums.