According to BBC, major airlines like Air France and Lufthansa are only now rerouting their flights to avoid the conflict zone. So, until now it was assumed there was no risk in flying in that altitude.
Re:Malaysia B772 has crashed near Donetsk
by austenallred on Thursday July 17, 2014 @01:04PM
(#8048738)
The rebel army (there isn't really any government to "declare" anything in eastern Ukraine right now) warned that it was a no-fly zone, but Malaysian probably assumed they were referring to the Ukrainian air force, which had been shelling eastern Ukraine fairly heavily. A recent FAA notice warned of the potential of misidentification of civilian aircraft over eastern Ukraine, but surely nobody thought they would shoot a civilian aircraft out of the sky.
That being said, touching eastern Ukraine with a 30,000 ft. pole would probably be less than wise at the moment.
> A recent FAA notice warned of the potential of misidentification of civilian aircraft over eastern Ukraine, but surely nobody thought they would shoot a civilian aircraft out of the sky.
Yes, but without any direct communication, no organized Air Traffic Control, and without tracking satellites, it seems very easy for ground troops to mistake a civilian transport with a military transport.
Seems ludicrous for anyone to attempt to fly over Ukraine right now.
Re:Malaysia B772 has crashed near Donetsk
by TheAnimus on Thursday July 17, 2014 @01:38PM
(#8048959)
>Yes, but without any direct communication, no organized Air Traffic Control, and without tracking satellites, it seems very easy for ground troops to mistake a civilian transport with a military transport.
Except for the transponder...
Which can be spoofed.
not to mention, ground troops in a civ-war-like situation may not have the technology to detect a civilian aircraft's transponder, nor even expect one to be in the area (after all, it's more-or-less a war zone right now).
Just posting an update to my parent comment:
This is now starting to appear very-much-so as an accidental grounding. The rebel's posted on a social network bragging about grounding another military troop transport, then quickly deleted the post as soon as the news broke about a civilian airline going down over Ukraine.
I seem to recall (can't find the link now) that Ukraine declared their airspace closed to civilian aircraft after the Ukrainian Troop Transport plane was shot down recently.
Even if the airspace was open, it seems highly risky to fly over a battle-zone anyhow where direct radio communication with troops on the ground may not be possible, and opens a wide door for an accidental grounding, if not on purpose.