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THE DOWNING OF a Malaysia Airlines jet over rebel-held eastern Ukraine has raised questions over why the company persisted in flying in conflict-zone airspace that many other Asian carriers had abandoned months ago.
The air corridor over Ukraine has always been a crowded one for flights between Europe and Asia – particularly Southeast Asia – and re-routing around the airspace would mean an increase in flight time and fuel costs.
Nevertheless, a number of major Asian airlines, including South Korea’s Korean Air and Asiana, Australia’s Qantas and Taiwan’s China Airlines, said Friday that they had started avoiding the area as much as four months ago, when Russian troops moved into Crimea.
“We stopped flying over Ukraine because of safety concerns,” Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyo-Min said.
Korean Air moved its flight paths 250 kilometres (160 miles) south of Ukraine from March 3 “due to the political unrest in the region”, an official for the carrier told AFP.
A Qantas spokeswoman said its London to Dubai service used to fly over Ukraine, but the route was changed “several months ago”, while Taiwan’s China Airlines diverted its flights from April 3.
Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific and Pakistan International Airlines said their flight paths had changed “some time” ago.
‘Safe’ flight path?
Asked why Malaysia Airlines had not taken similar precautions, Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai stressed that international air authorities had deemed the flight path secure.
“The flight path taken by MH17 was approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization, and by the countries whose airspace the route passed through,” the minister told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
“In the hours before the incident, a number of other passenger aircraft from different carriers used the same route,” he noted.
But ICAO spokesman Anthony Philbin said the UN agency, which is headquartered in Montreal, “does not establish routes” for airlines to follow.
Tyler said an airline’s choice of flight route was “very similar to driving a car – if the road is open, you assume it is safe. If it’s closed, you find an alternate route”.
According to the European flight safety body Eurocontrol, the doomed plane was flying at a level known as “330″, or approximately 10,000 metres or 33,000 feet.
The route had been closed to level “320″ but was cleared for those flying at the Malaysian plane’s altitude.
In a statement late Friday, the airline said MH17 had filed a flight plan requesting to fly at 35,000 feet which was “close to the ‘optimum’ altitude”.
“However, an aircraft’s altitude in flight is determined by air traffic control on the ground. Upon entering Ukrainian airspace, MH17 was instructed by Ukrainian air traffic control to fly at 33,000ft,” it said.
European and US airlines re-routed their flights as Kiev said flight MH17 was shot down in a “terrorist” attack, and a US official said intelligence analysts “strongly believe” it was downed by a surface-to-air missile.
Analysts were divided on whether carriers like Malaysia Airlines had been negligent in opting to continue flying over Ukraine.
“I just find it astonishing. I am absolutely flabbergasted,” said Geoff Dell, an air safety expert from the University of Central Queensland in Australia, told Sky News.
“If there’s trouble spots on the globe, then you take a decision to avoid that area,” Dell told Sky News.
“You don’t put your primary assets – your passengers, your crew, your airplane – at risk unnecessarily,” he added.
Assessing risk
Malaysia Airlines was certainly not alone in persisting with the corridor over Ukraine.
A host of Asian carriers, including Singapore Airlines, Air India, Thai Airways, Air China, China Eastern Airways and Vietnam Airlines, had used the same airspace up until Thursday’s crash.
And European airlines such as Lufthansa and Air France, as well as US carrier Delta, said they were only now taking the decision to avoid Ukraine entirely.
Gerry Soejatman, a consultant with the Jakarta-based Whitesky Aviation chartered flight provider, said every airline had its own level of risk assessment.
Flying above 30,000 feet is generally considered secure given the level of training and sophisticated weaponry required to shoot down a plane at that height, Soejatman said.
“Ten years ago you’d be an idiot to fly over Iraq below 15,000 feet, but over 30,000 feet was very safe, so it’s about the level of risk.
“I think this will send a message to airlines to have a closer look at conflict zones when they choose to fly over them and gain a better understanding of what equipment is on the ground,” he said.
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14 Henrietta Street is fantastic for both tourists and locals. The guide takes you upstairs to huge staircase for the music room, drawing room and bedroom and you hear about the great and the good, eg Gardiner, Molesworth and names you know. Right out of a Jane Austin novel
Then a swift shock to the system when you go the corridor neglected by slumlords and to the basement how people in the 1900’s lived
You finish on the 1st floor when a family as recently as the 1970’s lived. Delph with the Chinese patterns, godawful smelling carbolic soap (some love the smell??), lucozade when it was a health product in a glass bottle and other products
The guides are super and love their job, buy a ticket :)
@Michael McLoughlin:
Still use the Carbolic soap , yer only man for the weekly wash. Can also be used as a deodorant and as paint remover. Mrs not too keen on it mind you.
Fantastic job done by all involved in putting this together, and the guides brilliant !! Couldn’t recommend enough .
Mother was a nurse in the old coombe hospital at Meath st. God she tells some horrific stories of calls to tenements in that area
@Eamonn O Connell: wow, I’m a nurse,would love to hear your mams stories.
@Gill Dempsey: Somme very sad stories of hard births and lost babies. The poverty was unbelievable but the people were very good she could walk up Meath Street and into any tenement building at any hour and got only the height of respect from people. no fear of being attacked are interfered with in any way
Once it got dark we had to use a bucket for the loo . The 2 toilets were in a little yard under street level. A back stairs led down to them. Rats were always around. No go area at night.
The tenements are making a comeback!
Does anyone know if Henrietta Street was the actual street used as the fictional Chandlers Court in the classic 1980 RTE rendition of Strumpet City by James Plunkett?
I’m a Bolton St DIT Eng graduate (1990) and remember well the near by cobbled stoned Street that is Henrietta St, leading up to Kings Inns.
I have a US version of the DVD and still enjoy watching it – Real Dublin entertainment! (It does however put my 3 US teen sons to sleep
I have a very intresting story from care at 16 into a tenement what a disaster who needs a mother she was not a fit mother
Does anyone know if Henrietta Street was the actual street used as the fictional Chandlers Court in the classic 1980 RTE rendition of Strumpet City by James Plunkett?
I’m a Bolton St DIT Eng graduate (1990) and remember well the near by cobbled stoned Street that is Henrietta St, leading up to Kings Inns.
I have a US version of the DVD and still enjoy watching it – Real Dublin entertainment! (It does however put my 3 US teen sons to sleep
@Roland Kelly: as they get older they will find it interesting I imagine
Over the last few days you have used a number of photographs to which I own the copyright [the Chinese New Year being another example] … my photographs are made available free of charge to anyone who wishes to use them [many are used by Wikipedia] but in order to use them you must clearly indicate who owns the copyright and you must supply a proper link to the source. Indicating that the source is Wikipedia Commons is the source is not sufficient. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Street,_Dublin. For copyright conditions please refer to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HENRIETTA_STREET_-_DUBLIN_(402556531).jpg
I visited 14 Henrietta Street last week. It is a brilliant experience and I would highly recommend it!
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