Malaysian Airlines MH17 Crashes in Ukraine

[dajop]

Iran is one of the better places to be flying over.

And it's not a small dot on the map. It's a big enough country such that an airline could still overfly Iran but avoid the corridor between the Caspian Sea and Iraq/Syria as per map above.

 

[jb747]

You previously mentioned an alternative route via Saudi Arabia. Would that route go over Jordan and Israel or Egypt?

No.

I've never flown it, but, I think it's Saudi and Egypt.

 

[defurax]

No.

I've never flown it, but, I think it's Saudi and Egypt.

Ok, thanks. I was just referring to this post you wrote in 2013: http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ssion/ask-the-pilot-30478-466.html#post890089

 

[basso]

I trust SQ, the Singapore Government, and Singapore intelligence agencies that they won't be allowing one of their aircraft to fly without doing a risk assessment.

Of concern in the abc news article linked by drron (above) is that SQ is saying it only uses routes 'cleared by authorities'. Is that 'ICAO/EuroControl' or 'Singaporean intelligence' authorities? If the former, it clearly ignores the findings of the Dutch report into MH17.

Err, what are you basing your trust of Singapore Airlines on?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Err, what are you basing your trust of Singapore Airlines on?

Indeed!! That was 'before' SQ came out and said things re Iran. Potentially misplaced. But, as with QF, you'd want to see the proposed flight path and whether it skirts the firing position and possible trajectory.

 

[dajop]

Indeed!! That was 'before' SQ came out and said things re Iran. Potentially misplaced. But, as with QF, you'd want to see the proposed flight path and whether it skirts the firing position and possible trajectory.

Although, not sure if related to flying conditions, great circle or other, SQ's actual flight paths do not match their statements re Iran. They seem to now avoiding most of the corridor of concern, whereas QF continue to use that area (although obviously it is not a big detour enroute from SIN-Europe to fly further north or south, but is from DXB-LHR).

Three pictures of SQ 346 that tell a story of their flight planning (tend to be representative of SQ's flight paths except SIN-NW Europe, in westerly direction, tend use a more northerly route which almost goes over Moscow):

6 OCT:


10 OCT:


15OCT:

 

[MEL_Traveller]

One Australian family has settled with MH over the shooting down of MH17: No Cookies | Daily Telegraph

But sadly it looks like MH is going to fight the other familes with cases pending before the Federal court. MH maintains it did nothing wrong, even though they flew into a known war zone: Major court battle looming with Malaysia Airlines over MH17 tragedy (this is an older article posted in January this year).

Looks like the case might be coming up soon.

 

[Major]

Arrest warrants have been issued for 4 men believed responsible for this tragic event

Narrative conference MH17 (June 19, 2019)

Speeches by Mr. Fred Westerbeke, Chief Public Prosecutor of the National Public Prosecution Service in the Netherlands and also Coordinator of the Joint Investigation Team, Mr. Wilbert Paulissen Head of the National Criminal Investigation Service of the Netherlands and Mr. Peter Crozier...

www.om.nl

 

[Flying mermaid]

All credit to them for continuing this investigation. Coming up for 5 years - hard to believe. Never forgotten.

 

[Franky]

Because any one of us lay people, if presented with the same facts the airlines would have known at the time of planning their routes, would have deemed it an unacceptable risk. The G2A missile is perhaps a bit of a side issue. Even if that was unexpected, it shouldn't be unexpected that there might have been an emergency - such as a depressurisation - that might have required the aircraft to decend into closed airspace. That would have put it in range of other missles.

Airlines and ATC were perhaps a bit complacent. 'It's always been that way so it must be ok this time'. They didn't do a risk assessment for this particular danger zone. Well, some airlines did.

I'm not convinced of the merits of secrecy in the airline industry. From the top down passengers are told 'you won't understand' or 'you don't understand'... so we don't get told. But I think we've moved on from that now.



This is a bit more of an interesting issue. Should FAA or other regulator approval absolve carriers from doing independent investigation before they press a new aircraft into service? If we accept that Boeing may not even have told airlines about MCAS issues, should airlines have continued to fly that model after the cause of Lion Air became apparent? At least until the issue was understood and resolved?

I think your'e drawing a long bow calling a G2A missile a side issue. The worst that could have been expected would have been a shoulder fired missile of no danger to high flying aircraft. Given the number of countries using that route I am sure they would all have been given similar advice that it was safe to do so. Your'e guessing what the airlines were told. Nobody expects the unexpected all of the time, except those that are experts after the event. I might remind you that the patrol that fired the G2A had not been deployed in that area, it was a Russian patrol which crossed into Ukraine overnight, having crossed from well inside Russia, and then slunk away in the middle of the night like the criminals that they were.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I think your'e drawing a long bow calling a G2A missile a side issue. The worst that could have been expected would have been a shoulder fired missile of no danger to high flying aircraft. Given the number of countries using that route I am sure they would all have been given similar advice that it was safe to do so. Your'e guessing what the airlines were told. Nobody expects the unexpected all of the time, except those that are experts after the event. I might remind you that the patrol that fired the G2A had not been deployed in that area, it was a Russian patrol which crossed into Ukraine overnight, having crossed from well inside Russia, and then slunk away in the middle of the night like the criminals that they were.

I've had another look at the final report into the investigation. It suggests, based on the observations of Ukranian authorities and reported in the media at the time, that the Antonov shot down at 6500 metres was using weapons that were beyond the range of MANPADS.

So while the particular missile in question might have been beyond consideration by MH, the potential for another type of weapon perhaps should not have been (but the same applies to other airlines that flew over the area).

The report goes on to state in its findings that Malaysia Airlines might have complied with applicable reguations but it did not perform any additional risk assessment.

Further the report states that, 'operators - including Malaysia Airlines - assumed that the airspace above FL32 was safe despite the fact that the conflict was expanding in to the air and according to Ukranian authorities weapons systems were being used that could reach aeroplanes at cruising altitude'.

See 7.9, sub-conclusions (on flight path): Crash MH17, 17 July 2014

There were multiple failings here... systems in place at the time and the failure to close the airspace and assumptions as to the safety of the airspace. (MH was questioned on the issue of 'drift down' but stated this was extremely unlikely.) But airlines did not perform any additional risk assessments.

When reading the report as a whole the disappointing element is the perception of complacency by multiple stakeholders. The 'it's always been that way' mentality. But is that acceptable?

 

[juddles]

..........When reading the report as a whole the disappointing element is the perception of complacency by multiple stakeholders. The 'it's always been that way' mentality. But is that acceptable?.....

I have little interest in this particular event, so have not researched it to any extent. But I feel there is a lot of "hindsight 20:20" here. What could be perceived as "complacency" in hindsight may just be perfectly normal. It is very easy to say that an airline (or anyone/thing else) should have been more cautious, after an event like this occurs. But in general, caution involves costs - diversions / changes of schedules / cancellations, etc etc etc. Which noone wants to pay for.

It took ages for the world's best military and other authorities to work out what happened in this case. Yet an individual business is criticized for not actually predicting it beforehand??

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I have little interest in this particular event, so have not researched it to any extent. But I feel there is a lot of "hindsight 20:20" here. What could be perceived as "complacency" in hindsight may just be perfectly normal. It is very easy to say that an airline (or anyone/thing else) should have been more cautious, after an event like this occurs. But in general, caution involves costs - diversions / changes of schedules / cancellations, etc etc etc. Which noone wants to pay for.

It took ages for the world's best military and other authorities to work out what happened in this case. Yet an individual business is criticized for not actually predicting it beforehand??

With 16 aircraft shot down, and at least one of those reported to be by a weapon capable of reaching an aircraft at cruise altitude, that doesn't appear to be a case of wondering about a hypothetical event, or just being cautious. That becomes a real risk. There were multiple failings, obviously, by mutliple parties. Perhaps it was too much of a 'closed shop'?

 

[juddles]

There were multiple failings, obviously, by mutliple parties. ....

No, there was one massive failing - by a group of idiots who fired the missile.

To stop arguing perpetually about this incident, let us just concede that one point.

In any case, I choose not to fly Malaysian. Or many of the carriers from that region. But this is due to my risk-assesment of them, which is based just on snippets here and there of information. Mainly due to cultural issues about safety (culture as in company culture). But in my whole risk assesment, the shooting down of that plane has NO influence on my decisions - that was sheerly bad luck on their part - could have equally happened to a number of carriers.