Why was Malaysia Airlines MH17 flying over Ukraine?

Alastair Jamieson

 

The likelihood that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was downed by a missile has raised questions over whether the plane should have been flying over war-torn eastern Ukraine—and could have profound consequences for air travel. 

The doomed Boeing 777 was following an air traffic routing between Europe and Asia that is issued by dozens of jets a day and was in a section of air space deemed safe by international aviation authorities.


Within hours of Thursday's disaster, all air space around eastern Ukraine was shut down. But some airlines had already been avoiding the area amid concerns over the deteriorating security. Two low-flying Ukrainian aircraft—a fighter jet and a military transport plane—were shot down by pro-separatist rebels earlier this week.

Aviation regulators—including the FAA—had issued a series of notices to pilots in recent weeks prohibiting air space very close to the crash site.


"This was a very commonly used route and passenger jets fly at high altitudes over many of the world's hotspots all the time," said Norman Shanks, professor of aviation security at Britain's Coventry University. 

"They chose the most direct and economic flight route possible, which keeps their fuel costs down and is something we expect as customers. They were no different from any other international airline." 

British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa and KLM are among the airlines to have used exactly the same routing over eastern Ukraine in recent days, according to website FlightRadar24. 

"Fifteen out of 16 airlines in the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines fly this route over Ukraine," Malaysia's transport minister Liow Tiong Lai said Friday. "European airlines also use the same route, and traverse the same air space."


Airlines can choose to avoid these areas. Australia's Qantas stopped flying over Ukraine several months ago and shifted its London-Dubai route 400 miles to the south. Korean Air said it had rerouted cargo and passenger flights in early March amid the worsening situation over the Crimean peninsula.