One thing that really surprised me is that how laid back the attitude was of commercial airliners about the Ukraine war zone. It was already in the news that they are shooting down the war planes. So basically they were betting on some Russian missile system that would identify war plane from commercial planes. I would cancel all flights from a region thats engaged in any form of airborne projectiles.
> So basically they were betting on some Russian missile system that would identify war plane from commercial planes.
That's not what they were betting on at all.
They were assuming (incorrectly, as we now know) that the rebels would have smaller missiles, for example shoulder fired missiles like Stingers. Those missiles are able to shoot down planes flying at lower altitude, but they are unable to reach an aircraft at cruising altitude.
I believe the eastern Ukraine already had a closure for flights under 32,000 feet before MH 017. The military planes that were shoot down in the days before were all flying at much lower altitudes.
Surface to Air missiles that can engage planes at cruising altitude are usually only owned by state actors. They also require specially trained personal to operate them. Obviously both missiles and personal were available to whoever shot down MH 017.
Assumptions that can kill hundreds of people. Its illegal to point a laser pointer at an airplane worrying that it would blind pilots even though most planes are on autopilot. At the same time they don't consider to assume that Russian backed rebels would have missiles capable of shooting down planes.
I hope they stay away from Israel/Gaza airspace as well and not wait for another incident. Maybe airlines should publish their flight paths to the public so that we can make our own decision!
> Its illegal to point a laser pointer at an airplane worrying that it would blind pilots even though most planes are on autopilot.
When they're at an altitude that they can be affected by a laser pointer, chances are they're not. The number of aircraft that can do a full Cat III approach with autoland is very small.
The problem is that we still don't know for sure exactly what brought down the plane. Reading various news articles, it seems that whoever decides closure of the airspace for commercial flight was betting that the longer range anti-aircraft systems would not be used in the area. Historic data seemed to support this with planes being downed either via shoulder-fired missiles or some sort of gunfire, neither of which has the range to go to the cruising altitude of a passenger liner.
This bet turned out to be bad, very bad.
I don't know of the economics involved, but I'm guessing that, aside from political reasons, the different flight paths avoiding this would have cost the airlines enough to where they didn't want to do it. Which is pretty disturbing...
