common sense airways

[chris macrae]

Flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was flying at around 33 000 feet over eastern Ukraine when it was brought down.

Ukrainian authorities had closed the flight path from the ground to around 32,000 feet, according to Eurocontrol, the agency responsible for coordinating European airspace. Flight MH17 was flying 1,000 feet above that.

Airlines including Qantas Airways and Air Berlin altered their flight paths months ago to avoid Ukrainian air space after fighting flared up in the region, raising questions about why others did not do the same.

International civil aviation regulators had imposed no restrictions on crossing an area where pro-Russian rebels were fighting Ukrainian forces, and the majority of carriers had continued to use a route popular with long-distance flights from Europe to southeast Asia.

But the fact that a handful of companies decided to circumnavigate the disputed territory underlined inconsistencies in airlines' approach to passenger safety.

Aviation experts said piecemeal and potentially conflicting advice from aviation regulators further confused the situation, and called for clearer guidance on which areas to avoid.

In addition to Qantas and Air Berlin, Asiana Airlines Inc , Korean Air Lines Co Ltd, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd and Taiwan's China Airlines decided to avoid Ukrainian airspace several months ago.

wld ukraine site
Armed pro-Russian separatists stand at the site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region.
REUTERS
“Although the detour adds to flight time and cost, we have been making the detour for safety,” said a spokeswoman for Asiana, which has been diverting its once-weekly cargo flight 150km below Ukrainian airspace since March 3.

The European Aviation Safety Agency did issue a safety bulletin, accompanied by recommendations from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and Brussels-based Eurocontrol, on April 3, advising that Crimean airspace should be avoided. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March.

But those directives did not apply to the airspace over Ukraine being traversed by Flight MH17 when it was brought down.

A Malaysian Airlines executive, who requested anonymity, said the downed carrier “followed every safety procedure.

“Some airlines are saying that they avoided the area, but that is a red herring,” the executive said. “There was no reason to avoid this area in question,” he added, noting that airlines regularly flew over conflict areas like Afghanistan.

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said on Friday that the national airline took no undue risk in flying over Ukraine, a route he stressed was approved by the ICAO and widely used by other airlines. ICAO closed the route after the plane crashed.

“We've flown this route for many years, it's safe and that's the reason why we are taking this route,” Liow told a news conference where reporters repeatedly questioned why the airline chose to fly over a war zone.

Thai Airways International, which had also continued to fly over the area until the crash, said there was no reason not to do so.

“Ukraine is not a war zone. Crimea is war zone,” spokeswoman Charlene Suddhimondala said.

“Whether we flew over Ukraine really depended on fuel and weather conditions. If the weather was good, sometimes pilots opted to fly over Russia which meant passing through Ukraine.”

Some independent experts did not agree.

Geoff Dell, an accident investigation and safety specialist at CQUniversity in Australia, said airlines had their own intelligence operations which should be making decisions in such situations.

“It's blatantly obvious they shouldn't have been anywhere near it,” Dell, who was working as a senior safety manager for Qantas during the first Gulf War, said of Flight MH17.

“Any sort of unrest breaks out, civil wars or such, you change your flight path so that you don't have to go anywhere near it. Of course it comes at a cost, because you have to fly further.”

Diverting planes is expensive for airlines, requiring more fuel and more time in the air and making some reluctant to do so without clear directives.

[chris macrae]

On April 23, the FAA issued a notice prohibiting U.S. air carriers from operating within... until at least April 2015. Although written in aviation jargon, the notice was clear: U.S. airlines were to cease all flying within the specified zone, with no exceptions. By Thursday night, the FAA went even further, issuing an updated notice that expanded the no-fly area for all U.S. airlines.

Earlier in April, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued a warning terming the region around Simferapol in Ukraine an “unsafe situation” and advising that “consideration should be given to measures to avoid the airspace and circumnavigate.” That same month, EuroControl — the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, which facilitates communication between the patchwork quilt of European air traffic control agencies — noted that “traffic in the Ukraine has reduced significantly since ...

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a U.N. agency that is supposed to develop global aviation standards but often has little power to enforce them, said shortly after the downing of MH17 it had issued a prior warning. Its notice pointed out “the possible existence of serious risks to the safety of international civil flights.” ICAO also noted “alternative routings are available for those operators choosing to avoid the Simferopol [region].”

Though nearly every nation in the world is a signatory to ICAO, experts maintain that he real problem is the organization’s inability to enforce its own recommendations. "ICAO has no teeth," said an FAA inspector, who asked not to be named. "They can’t prohibit member states from doing something; they can only suggest it.”

Although media reports in recent days have referenced the shootdown of Korean Air Flight 007 by the Soviet Union in 1983, in which 269 people were killed, that event was not necessarily anomalous. In fact more than two dozen commercial aircraft have been shot down since the 1940s.

A Ukrainian military exercise led to the downing of a Siberia Airlines flight in 2001. And in 1988, the U.S. Navy shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing 290.

Many of these incidents in recent decades occurred in developing nations and global hotspots, including Mozambique, Georgia, Ukraine and Iraq. Most recently, in March 2007, a TransAVIAexport Airlines flight was shot down during the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.

Can an airliner really fly safely over a war zone? Not according to one veteran dispatcher, who said that "missiles are capable of reaching well above commercial altitudes.” Another dispatcher explains: “There’s a difference between a MANPAD [portable] missile and a guided missile. We were taught a MANPAD can’t reach an aircraft at 32,000 feet.” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power made a similar statement about air-to-ground vs. portable missiles in her statement Friday at an emergency session of the security council.

There’s one other factor to be considered. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was a code-share operation with the Dutch carrier KLM, meaning both airlines were selling tickets for the same flight. Code-sharing is problematic for many reasons, but this accident adds another concern. When booking a flight on Airline A, a passenger needs to worry about the safety and security policies maintained by Airline B.

Experts say the bottom line is that not all countries — let alone all airlines — view risk in the same way. And with fuel topping the list of all airline expenses, there’s no denying how tempting it can be for a carrier to shave miles and minutes — and therefore gallons of fuel — by taking a shortcut through a hot zone. As one FAA inspector says, “Since the end of the Cold War, airlines have found tremendous economy in flying over the Black Sea.”

Another dispatcher for a major U.S. carrier puts the issue this way: “Some things are approved, but we still don’t do them. For what? To save 10 minutes and about 2,000 bucks of fuel?”