Malaysia Airlines plane shot down in Ukraine near Russian border[Mod warning post#193

Several points, none of them in any specific order.

The routes over Ukraine were in use until this event, and they were as heavily used as the routes over Ireland to the USA, vast numbers of flights from many countries used this corridor on their way to and from Europe and the Middle East and beyond.

The Ukraine authorities had denied that any of their SAM systems were in the hands of the rebel forces, and it has also now been reported that Ukraine soldiers "disabled" the SAM systems before leaving. We have no way to confirm which story is accurate. As the equipment is Soviet manufactured, it would have been relatively simple for the rebel forces to get access to the necessary parts and skills to repair the SAM system unless they had been destroyed by the Ukrainian actions, which was not the implication of the reports.

There are many people whos hearts are broken by this event, and they are not just relatives of the people on the flight. The staff of MAH have to be struggling to come to terms with a second massive tragedy within such a short period of time, but the harsh reality is that there are a huge number of flights that crossed that area yesterday, and any one of them could just as easily have been the target, and the nature of the route over Ukraine is that most of the aircraft in that area are 777/A330 or larger, there are also a lot of 380's flying in that area on a regular basis.

It has however been implied that if SAM systems were in the hands of the rebel forces, the Ukraine authorities would have closed all the airspace, not just up to FL320. Hopefully, that will be a part of the investigation of this tragic event, and lessons will be learned from what on the face of it is a tragedy that should not have happened.

We should not be under any illusions, the people making decisions about routing will still be trying to get as cheap a route as possible, and the Ukraine ATC system would not have wanted to close their airspace, as they will be getting significant money from the ATC charges that are paid by overflights, so there are significant commercial pressures on all concerned, and the situation in Ukraine is still being seen as a "local" issue, which in hindsight may turn out to have been a tragic mistake. The implication of the reports being made at present are that there was no perceived risk to overflights from SAM systems, but clearly, that was an invalid perception, which has resulted in a massive loss of innocent lives.

We have to hope that this was a mistake by an individual who did not have the right information or skills to determine the validity of what he was about to do. If that is not the case, then the whole concept of international air travel has just been dealt a body blow in terms of where it is or is not safe to fly.

We can only hope that the loss of nearly 300 innocent and uninvolved people will make all the parties involved in the Ukraine stop and think very carefully about what they are involved with.