Missiles

Some educated if possibly out-of-date notes on shooting down aircraft:

• The former Soviet Union had an air defense system covering the entire country from Riga to Crimea to Khazakhstan to Sakhalin. 
• Francis Gary Powers was shot down while flying over the Soviet Union in a U-2, two to three times higher than commercial aircraft fly. The missile that brought him down was the SA-2 (Guideline). Considering that was in 1960, it was 1950s technology. The Buk system used to attack MH17 is about 50 years more advanced. The answer to the question "How difficult is it to shoot down a commercial airliner"  is "Not difficult in the slightest if using modern military equipment."
• Northrup Grumman chose yesterday to run a full page ad in the Los Angeles Times on the 25th anniversary of the first B-2 (Spirit) stealth bomber flight. When procured and designed, it was intended to penetrate that country-wide air defense system. Doing The Math, the first flight was in mid-1989. Tienanmen Square has been a month before, Hungary had already opened their section of the Iron Curtain, the fall of the Wall was four months away. When requests for operational squadrons of B-2s was made, its original mission - evade Soviet air defense missiles and fighters for deep interdiction strikes - was effectively obsolete. 

• KAL 007 was shot down by a SU-15 ( Flagon) which was old if not obsolete even at that time. The Soviets were likely trying to hide their full air defense capabilities, particularly if they suspected the U.S. had set the plane up as part of an intelligence gathering mission. 
• Regardless of how the United States says it identified the MH17 shootdown, it will be attempting to hide its more useful intelligence assets and capabilities. Automated missile launch detection has been a known capability for a long time, so it may be put forth as the source - even if SIGINT, covert operations, or other options were actually used.