8 ms·

It's incredible that 61 airlines flew over that area during those days. That day alone, 160 airplanes flew over East Ukraine before MH17 was hit. Even if it's s

by rogeryu 11y ago

It's incredible that 61 airlines flew over that area during those days. That day alone, 160 airplanes flew over East Ukraine before MH17 was hit. Even if it's safe to fly at 10k height, what happens if you have problems with your plane, like a failing engine? Next time I fly I'm going to check over which countries we fly.

Shivetya 11y ago
the take away is, do not fly over areas of conflict. why the international community allowed it, let alone individual airlines did not take their own action, is beyond me. On second thought, I wonder if an airline can elect to not fly on certain corridors because they declare a risk?
- ptaipale 11y ago
  > On second thought, I wonder if an airline can elect to not fly on certain corridors because they declare a risk? Of course they can. But it could be that alternative corridors also have their risks, or may have a significantly longer flight time.
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  My brother and my niece will be on the second leg of their journey to South Africa in a few hours. Continuing on from London. They will overfly a couple of areas of conflict. I dunno how else they could go, though.
- avar 11y ago
  Not everyone was continuing to fly over Ukraine. Some including British Airways and Air France had already stopped flying over Ukraine months earlier[1] due to heightened risk in the area. Malaysian Airlines decided the risk was worth it. 1. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28356745 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28356745 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17#Ba...
- tfgg 11y ago
  I think it's just so unlikely that a group that couldn't be held properly responsible would have AA missiles capable of reaching to normal cruising altitude that it's not normally considered a problem and why MH17 was exceptional. Or, at least, that's how it was explained to me by the captain of a 747 while we were flying over Afghanistan.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    That's probably how he rationalized it to himself, given that opposing the airline over this would probably cost him his job. People generally take risks and then tell themselves stories to justify them.
- tomlongson 11y ago
  Why not put responsibility with the group that fired the missile? This is victim blaming.
  - freehunter 11y ago
    Just because you put some blame on the victim does not mean you are victim blaming. Victims are not always 100% responsibility free. Bank tellers are often instructed to comply with the demands of a robber. If the teller instead sets off the alarm, locks the doors, and tries to fight the robber and the teller gets shot, sure, the teller is the victim and the robber should not have shot the teller. But the teller was also taking an unnecessary risk by trying to fight the robbery. If the teller had handed over the money, chances are the robber would have taken it and left without anyone getting hurt. That is not victim blaming, that is stating the facts. People can take steps to minimize their risk of becoming a victim. If they do not take those steps and as a result are injured in some way, it's prudent to explain how they could have avoided the negative outcome. Don't shoot down passenger planes flying over your war. But also, don't fly passenger planes over an active warzone.
  - trhway 11y ago
    >Why not put responsibility with the group that fired the missile? This is victim blaming. the rebels were constantly attacked from the air. They were shooting back using what was available to them - MANPADs and once they captured it in June - BUKs. It is obvious from their celebratory tweets first half-an-hour after shooting down the MH-17 that they were thinking it was one more military transport plane of Ukraine. Ukraine was using air forces for ground attacks. Obviously they should have closed the airspace, especially after their BUK systems were captured by rebels. That Ukraine was using air forces and that their planes were being shot down by SAMs more powerful than MANPADS was well known as well as it was reported in international news sources too (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28299334 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28299334). So airlines shouldn't have been flying there even without Ukraine failing to close the airspace.
ptaipale 11y ago
Depending on your destination, you will find out that you'll fly over Pakistani tribal regions, Iraq or other unstable areas. Or the Gobi desert or the Arctic ocean. Places where you would not wish to land. There was nothing particularly strange about flying over Ukrainian airspace, because you don't really expect civilian planes to be shot down, even by rogue militias that are in power in some areas. The very fact that dozens of airlines had been doing that safely all the time that the conflict was there shows that many pilots and airlines did not think there was much risk. The tragedy here was that there was someone with a BUK system there, and probably that someone was drunk and decided to give a lesson to those blasted Ukrainian fascists. I expect it will be futile to try to get the responsible to a court, because any small fish are already in shallow graves somewhere, to protect the big fish.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  "and probably that someone was drunk" It's a strange assumption. I doubt drunk people ever get to be around Buk launchers (even in separatists' camps) You should keep in mind that rebels shot down military plane allegedly carrying 40 Ukrainian soldiers (and crew) - month before MH17. This was a serious military transport plane Il-76, not some light planer. They shot other aircraft too. One could imagine that shooting at planes has become norm rather than unexpected at the area.
  - kilotaras 11y ago
    IL-76 was shot a lot lower and not from BUK missile. Until MH-17 there was no reason to believe separatists had any high altitude anti-aircraft weapons.
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      I'm not talking about how it was shot. I'm talking about whether it could be a rational decision (possibly fueled by incomplete knowledge) instead of "being drunk". It could. They shot other planes before.
  - ronmacgill 11y ago
qaqy 11y ago
The problem area was very small in size you would be at most a 150+/- km from an airport in a safe area
mc32 11y ago
Yes, this is pretty incredible. I somewhat can see the Ukrainians being too busy with other things to recategorize their airspace, but the carriers as well as international airtraffic control didn't think to recategorize the airspace, that's a failure of leadership and responsibility.
- armabiz 11y ago
  Officially Ukrainian govt call that Civil War happening in the country as "Anti-Terror Operation". To be clear, rebels occupy territory of 15K square kilometers with population 4M people. Closing the air space would look like sign of loosing control over situation in country from the official govt side. So this looks like not "too busy with other things", but more like miserable politics.
  - tremon 11y ago
    Actually, the airspace was closed. Up to 20,000ft, that is. The cruising lanes (10km, 30,000ft) were still open because up to then, the rebels did not have surface-to-air missiles with that range. Which, of course, is why Russia have been spinning this since day 1. Where did the missile system come from, and who operated it? On that day, both the Russian News and the rebels' twitter account reported downing a (what they thought military) plane. Both items were quickly redacted afterwards.
    - trhway 11y ago
      >the rebels did not have surface-to-air missiles with that range. they had it since end of June when Donetsk BUK battery was captured. Using those BUKs during the first half of July before the MH-17 the rebels dawned 2 Ukrainian AN-26 transport planes which were flying at about 7km height, much beyond the reach of MANPADs. The MH-17 was flying much north of the civil corridor and the rebels thought that they got another AN-26. June 29, 2014 Russian source http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=1741703 http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=1741703 (In English http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussia/news/2014_06_29/Donetsk-militia-takes-control-of-Ukrainian-anti-air-installation-1561/ http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussia/news/2014_06_29/Donetsk...) Pro-Ukranian source http://www.unian.net/politics/934238-boeviki-chastichno-zahvatili-voennuyu-chast-protivovozdushnoy-oboronyi-v-donetske.html http://www.unian.net/politics/934238-boeviki-chastichno-zahv... Somebody's personal twitter mentioning capturing of the BUK systems in Donetsk https://twitter.com/lennutrajektoor/status/483281165479313408 https://twitter.com/lennutrajektoor/status/48328116547931340... Read the tweets, people were clearly saying that airlines need to stop flying over Ukraine now.
aikah 11y ago
> Next time I fly I'm going to check over which countries we fly Can you really get that info before hand(well I guess one can access previous flight plans) ? If the passengers knew that, would have they cancelled their trip ? I certainly would have. Never the less, the risk assessment was bad and too many people died that day. Should a war be blamed for being a war? Or should companies be blamed for being too greedy and put passengers at risk to save a few thousand dollars ? I think the latter makes more sense.
- ptaipale 11y ago
  > Can you really get that info before hand? That question is not new and is rather simple to google, see for instance http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-find-the-route-your-plane-is-taking-1406133503 http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-find-the-route-your-plane... I dislike the message here, which shifts the blame on the victims (the captain who chooses the flight path, and who was killed). The blame belongs with the operators of that BUK system. (Incidentally, this victim-blaming has been one theme of the Russian troll factories, and this in turn implicates Russian leadership in my eyes.)
  - Caprinicus 11y ago
    Nobody is blaming them for someone shooting a missile at them, but from here on I am going to check if I am going to be flying over an active warzone beforehand.
    - tremon 11y ago
      While I can understand your reasoning, what will you do if your plane's flight path does take you over a warzone? Will you stay home? Try to persuade the captain to alter the flight path? Try to persuade other passengers not to board the plane? I think there's 0% chance of your ticket being refunded if you don't show up at the gate, and serious chance of finding yourself on a no-fly list if you do show up and refuse to board. Probably near 100% if you are vocal about why. Keep in mind that most passengers of MH17 were not business travelers. This was at the start of the summer holidays, so many families were travelling together on a holiday. Even if you would have known the flight path, would you have canceled your family holiday (and lose the money) for the perceived risk? Keep in mind that even that day, 159 out of 160 civil flights crossed Ukraine succesfully.
falsestprophet 11y ago
Three other commercial aircraft were flying in the area at the time MH17 was shot down. Presumably, any one of they could have been downed rather than MH17. EVA Air Flight 88 (Paris to Taipei) Singapore Airlines Flight 351 (Copenhagen to Singapore) Air India Flight 113 (New Delhi to Birmingham)
- trhway 11y ago
  the thing that seems to have probably condemned MH17 was that it was flying north of the corridor (check the flight24 data of it). From the rebels' positions (25km north of Torez, ie. 25 km north of where the report puts it) using the BUK launcher vehicle's radar (they didn't have the command&control vehicle with its more powerful 360 radar and the things like transponder identification system, etc...) they could only see the sector about 120 degree in front of them, and giving that sector and the radar working distance, they probably didn't see the other planes (which happened to be flying pretty much inside the corridor).

by rogeryu 11y ago

Shivetya 11y ago

the take away is, do not fly over areas of conflict. why the international community allowed it, let alone individual airlines did not take their own action, is beyond me. On second thought, I wonder if an airline can elect to not fly on certain corridors because they declare a risk?

ptaipale 11y ago
> On second thought, I wonder if an airline can elect to not fly on certain corridors because they declare a risk? Of course they can. But it could be that alternative corridors also have their risks, or may have a significantly longer flight time.
waterlesscloud 11y ago
My brother and my niece will be on the second leg of their journey to South Africa in a few hours. Continuing on from London. They will overfly a couple of areas of conflict. I dunno how else they could go, though.
avar 11y ago
Not everyone was continuing to fly over Ukraine. Some including British Airways and Air France had already stopped flying over Ukraine months earlier[1] due to heightened risk in the area. Malaysian Airlines decided the risk was worth it. 1. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28356745 http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28356745 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17#Ba...
tfgg 11y ago
I think it's just so unlikely that a group that couldn't be held properly responsible would have AA missiles capable of reaching to normal cruising altitude that it's not normally considered a problem and why MH17 was exceptional. Or, at least, that's how it was explained to me by the captain of a 747 while we were flying over Afghanistan.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  That's probably how he rationalized it to himself, given that opposing the airline over this would probably cost him his job. People generally take risks and then tell themselves stories to justify them.
tomlongson 11y ago
Why not put responsibility with the group that fired the missile? This is victim blaming.
- freehunter 11y ago
  Just because you put some blame on the victim does not mean you are victim blaming. Victims are not always 100% responsibility free. Bank tellers are often instructed to comply with the demands of a robber. If the teller instead sets off the alarm, locks the doors, and tries to fight the robber and the teller gets shot, sure, the teller is the victim and the robber should not have shot the teller. But the teller was also taking an unnecessary risk by trying to fight the robbery. If the teller had handed over the money, chances are the robber would have taken it and left without anyone getting hurt. That is not victim blaming, that is stating the facts. People can take steps to minimize their risk of becoming a victim. If they do not take those steps and as a result are injured in some way, it's prudent to explain how they could have avoided the negative outcome. Don't shoot down passenger planes flying over your war. But also, don't fly passenger planes over an active warzone.
- trhway 11y ago
  >Why not put responsibility with the group that fired the missile? This is victim blaming. the rebels were constantly attacked from the air. They were shooting back using what was available to them - MANPADs and once they captured it in June - BUKs. It is obvious from their celebratory tweets first half-an-hour after shooting down the MH-17 that they were thinking it was one more military transport plane of Ukraine. Ukraine was using air forces for ground attacks. Obviously they should have closed the airspace, especially after their BUK systems were captured by rebels. That Ukraine was using air forces and that their planes were being shot down by SAMs more powerful than MANPADS was well known as well as it was reported in international news sources too (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28299334 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28299334). So airlines shouldn't have been flying there even without Ukraine failing to close the airspace.

ptaipale 11y ago

Depending on your destination, you will find out that you'll fly over Pakistani tribal regions, Iraq or other unstable areas. Or the Gobi desert or the Arctic ocean. Places where you would not wish to land. There was nothing particularly strange about flying over Ukrainian airspace, because you don't really expect civilian planes to be shot down, even by rogue militias that are in power in some areas. The very fact that dozens of airlines had been doing that safely all the time that the conflict was there shows that many pilots and airlines did not think there was much risk. The tragedy here was that there was someone with a BUK system there, and probably that someone was drunk and decided to give a lesson to those blasted Ukrainian fascists. I expect it will be futile to try to get the responsible to a court, because any small fish are already in shallow graves somewhere, to protect the big fish.

guard-of-terra 11y ago
"and probably that someone was drunk" It's a strange assumption. I doubt drunk people ever get to be around Buk launchers (even in separatists' camps) You should keep in mind that rebels shot down military plane allegedly carrying 40 Ukrainian soldiers (and crew) - month before MH17. This was a serious military transport plane Il-76, not some light planer. They shot other aircraft too. One could imagine that shooting at planes has become norm rather than unexpected at the area.
- kilotaras 11y ago
  IL-76 was shot a lot lower and not from BUK missile. Until MH-17 there was no reason to believe separatists had any high altitude anti-aircraft weapons.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    I'm not talking about how it was shot. I'm talking about whether it could be a rational decision (possibly fueled by incomplete knowledge) instead of "being drunk". It could. They shot other planes before.
- ronmacgill 11y ago

qaqy 11y ago

The problem area was very small in size you would be at most a 150+/- km from an airport in a safe area

mc32 11y ago

Yes, this is pretty incredible. I somewhat can see the Ukrainians being too busy with other things to recategorize their airspace, but the carriers as well as international airtraffic control didn't think to recategorize the airspace, that's a failure of leadership and responsibility.

armabiz 11y ago
Officially Ukrainian govt call that Civil War happening in the country as "Anti-Terror Operation". To be clear, rebels occupy territory of 15K square kilometers with population 4M people. Closing the air space would look like sign of loosing control over situation in country from the official govt side. So this looks like not "too busy with other things", but more like miserable politics.
- tremon 11y ago
  Actually, the airspace was closed. Up to 20,000ft, that is. The cruising lanes (10km, 30,000ft) were still open because up to then, the rebels did not have surface-to-air missiles with that range. Which, of course, is why Russia have been spinning this since day 1. Where did the missile system come from, and who operated it? On that day, both the Russian News and the rebels' twitter account reported downing a (what they thought military) plane. Both items were quickly redacted afterwards.
  - trhway 11y ago
    >the rebels did not have surface-to-air missiles with that range. they had it since end of June when Donetsk BUK battery was captured. Using those BUKs during the first half of July before the MH-17 the rebels dawned 2 Ukrainian AN-26 transport planes which were flying at about 7km height, much beyond the reach of MANPADs. The MH-17 was flying much north of the civil corridor and the rebels thought that they got another AN-26. June 29, 2014 Russian source http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=1741703 http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=1741703 (In English http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussia/news/2014_06_29/Donetsk-militia-takes-control-of-Ukrainian-anti-air-installation-1561/ http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussia/news/2014_06_29/Donetsk...) Pro-Ukranian source http://www.unian.net/politics/934238-boeviki-chastichno-zahvatili-voennuyu-chast-protivovozdushnoy-oboronyi-v-donetske.html http://www.unian.net/politics/934238-boeviki-chastichno-zahv... Somebody's personal twitter mentioning capturing of the BUK systems in Donetsk https://twitter.com/lennutrajektoor/status/483281165479313408 https://twitter.com/lennutrajektoor/status/48328116547931340... Read the tweets, people were clearly saying that airlines need to stop flying over Ukraine now.

aikah 11y ago

> Next time I fly I'm going to check over which countries we fly Can you really get that info before hand(well I guess one can access previous flight plans) ? If the passengers knew that, would have they cancelled their trip ? I certainly would have. Never the less, the risk assessment was bad and too many people died that day. Should a war be blamed for being a war? Or should companies be blamed for being too greedy and put passengers at risk to save a few thousand dollars ? I think the latter makes more sense.

ptaipale 11y ago
> Can you really get that info before hand? That question is not new and is rather simple to google, see for instance http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-find-the-route-your-plane-is-taking-1406133503 http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-find-the-route-your-plane... I dislike the message here, which shifts the blame on the victims (the captain who chooses the flight path, and who was killed). The blame belongs with the operators of that BUK system. (Incidentally, this victim-blaming has been one theme of the Russian troll factories, and this in turn implicates Russian leadership in my eyes.)
- Caprinicus 11y ago
  Nobody is blaming them for someone shooting a missile at them, but from here on I am going to check if I am going to be flying over an active warzone beforehand.
  - tremon 11y ago
    While I can understand your reasoning, what will you do if your plane's flight path does take you over a warzone? Will you stay home? Try to persuade the captain to alter the flight path? Try to persuade other passengers not to board the plane? I think there's 0% chance of your ticket being refunded if you don't show up at the gate, and serious chance of finding yourself on a no-fly list if you do show up and refuse to board. Probably near 100% if you are vocal about why. Keep in mind that most passengers of MH17 were not business travelers. This was at the start of the summer holidays, so many families were travelling together on a holiday. Even if you would have known the flight path, would you have canceled your family holiday (and lose the money) for the perceived risk? Keep in mind that even that day, 159 out of 160 civil flights crossed Ukraine succesfully.

falsestprophet 11y ago

Three other commercial aircraft were flying in the area at the time MH17 was shot down. Presumably, any one of they could have been downed rather than MH17. EVA Air Flight 88 (Paris to Taipei) Singapore Airlines Flight 351 (Copenhagen to Singapore) Air India Flight 113 (New Delhi to Birmingham)

trhway 11y ago
the thing that seems to have probably condemned MH17 was that it was flying north of the corridor (check the flight24 data of it). From the rebels' positions (25km north of Torez, ie. 25 km north of where the report puts it) using the BUK launcher vehicle's radar (they didn't have the command&control vehicle with its more powerful 360 radar and the things like transponder identification system, etc...) they could only see the sector about 120 degree in front of them, and giving that sector and the radar working distance, they probably didn't see the other planes (which happened to be flying pretty much inside the corridor).