MH 17 and Overflights

What to do?  Overfly or not overfly?  Which countries and when?   Who makes the decisions?.

 

IATA’s Tony Tyler has said the decisions are a government's responsibilty. But responsibilty to do what?  He's partially right.  Government must have a responsibility to share information with carriers. But the final decision must lie with the operator, and on the day , with the captain.  Relying on a phone call from the Prime Minister to say "cancel the BA123 this evening" is unlikely to be the best way forward.  Individual carriers and their crew make hundreds of operational safety decisions every day.  Sometimes these are made for them if a national regulator closes airspace for whatever reason,but at other times their own judgment is called for.

But is MH17 a game changer? The technology to bring down a civil airliner at 35.000ft or higher is not new but it being in the hands of irrational excitable people is.  Captain Jordaan, a former SAA Flight Operations Director, has said "Flying gets safer year by year with MH17 being an aberration".  But is it more than that?  Shoulder held rocket launchers or Manpads have been in the hands of some militias for more than 40 years. Remember Air Rhodesia’s Viscounts back in the 1970s ? More powerful weapons and systems will surely follow.  Comments on how to 'slap Putin' are many but we have seen nothing yet on what the industry thinks of ways to limit the possibilty of a repeat incident somewhere in the world.  Emirates is certainly giving it thought by inviting carriers to a session to discuss the issue.  Half of the UAE airline’s services fly to/from the west and the whole area is becoming increasingly unstable. Iraq, Syria, Israel and Libya are just the high profile ones.  Delta cancelled its Tel Aviv services before directed to by the US Government.

If nothing else there is a need to clarify lines of responsibilty and the form and content of information sharing.  Government Travel Advisories to passengers are of varying quality and reliability and often bring only confusion to many. Some are justified, some diplomatic posterior covering and some not. The world needs to do better than those. The FAA Advisories for airspace are though similarly vague and inconsistent, eg the guidance for Kenya is based on the Mombasa manpad attack some 10 years ago.  The common message in most is 'better not fly below 20-24,000ft, ie Manpad not full blown surface to air missile limits.

Be ready for the legal claims challenging responsibility for the tragedy.  Also be ready for aircraft insurance premium to rise on the perceived increase in risk.

 

John Williams