On Sunday, in the airline’s efforts to reroute all its flights to and from Europe away from Ukrainian airpsace, Malaysia Airlines diverted a flight from Kuala Lumpur to London … and instead flew it over Syrian airspace, in what might amount to a wrong-headed approach to both avoiding future problems and salvaging a public relations disaster.
MAS Flight MH4 was recorded by Swedish tracking service Flightradar24 AB on Monday as changing its flightpath from its usual trajectory over Ukraine to passing over Syria instead.
Syria is currently in the midst of a brutal civil war. Since 2011, 170,000 Syrians have been killed in the conflict.
Fredrik Lindahl, Flightradar24 AB’s CEO, told Reuters it was relatively unusual for a transcontinental flight to fly over Syrian airspace.
“With Iraq you always see aircraft flying there. There is no other way to access parts of the Middle East than to use the Iraq corridor,” he said.
“But you don’t see Syria so often. We saw no other trans-continental flight that went through Syrian airspace [on Monday].”
Malaysia Airlines insists that its rerouting of Flight MH4 to fly over Syria was in accordance with the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) approved routes.
“As per the notice to airmen (NOTAM) issued by the Syrian Civil Aviation Authority, the Syrian airspace was not subject to restrictions,” Malaysia Airlines said in a statement. “At all times, MH4 was in airspace approved by ICAO.”
The ICAO, which last week stated it had no operational role in international commercial airflight, did not respond to repeated Reuters requests for comment on the matter.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it crashed late Thursday night over eastern Ukraine, with debris landing near the town of Grabovo. The Boeing 777 jetliner was carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members. There were no survivors.
As a response to the incident, Malaysia Airlines announced that it was rerouting all of its flights to and from Europe to avoid having to fly through Ukrainian airspace, with immediate effect.
See Also:
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Ukrainian rebels find two MH17 black boxes; sends one to Moscow
PM Najib wants bodies of MH17 victims home before Hari Raya
Transport Minister: “Ukraine can’t guarantee safe passage to MH17 crash site”
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