Think of it in terms of energy. A rocket only has so much energy in its propellant. For a surface to air missile, there's always a tradeoff between range and altitude. It's really pretty complicated. On the one hand, the higher you go, the less energy you have for horizontal range. On the other hand, you also have to consider the effect of denser air at lower altitudes. Denser air means higher drag which means less range. The airliner was at 11,000 meters (almost 37,000 feet) and about 160 miles from the launch site. The air is pretty thin at 37,000 feet so the drag on the missile shouldn't reduce the range very much. It wouldn't surprise me if the missile's maximum range would be for targets flying around 30,000 to 50,000 feet altitude.

The S-200 would be near the end of its range to go from the exercise area. The Ukrainian Army officials were saying earlier that they weren't even firing in that direction. A Navy official said they shot down the airliner. Clearly, someone is wrong and/or lying.

Even at Mach 3 (about 2,000 MPH), it'd take the missile about 5 minutes to go 160 miles. You'd think that someone would notice a problem in that amount of time unless they somehow confused their target drone with the airliner. It wouldn't be the first time a mistake like that happened. Remember the USS Vincenes (sp) that shot down an Iranian airliner in the 1980s? Even with a trained crew operating a very sophisticated Aegis system, they somehow confused a climbing airliner for an F-14 making an attack run on their ship. That error cost somewhere around 200 innocent Iranian lives. Is the US Navy that bad or do people make human mistakes?

When I first heard the idea that the airliner had been shot down by a missile, the speculation was that terrorists had done the deed. An S-200 missile is a pretty big piece of hardware weighing over 1,000 pounds. It needs radar equipment and launch equipment. It's not exactly the kind of thing a terrorist can carry around without attracting attention. That's why I was so skeptical of the missile idea. However, a mistake during a military exercise is another matter. People make mistakes all of the time. I'm still not completely convinced that a missile downed the airliner, but I admit it is possible. However, if it did happen, it almost certainly wasn't a terrorist incident.