Story So Far: Test
No, but it was close. Aviation and intelligence officials have said Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was cruising about 1,000 feet above restricted airspace when it was struck by a missile.
Because of ongoing violence in the region, including the recent downing of military aircraft, Ukrainian aviation officials had closed the airspace in Crimea, but only below 32,000 feet in altitude.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was about 33,000 feet in the air when it vanished from radar screens, according to European aviation authorities.
Both American and European aviation officials have warned commercial airlines against flying over the Crimea region since April, but both agencies reiterated that the location where the plane was downed Thursday was outside the warning area.
Since the crash, both Eurocontrol and the FAA have barred all flights over the larger eastern Ukraine region.The FAA has said all U.S. commercial airlines have agreed to avoid the region near the Russia-Ukraine border, and several international carriers have issued statements saying they are steering clear of the area.
--Shouldn't the airlines have avoided the area anyway?
Malaysia's transportation minister and Malaysia Airlines have defended the pilots' decision to use the flight path. At a news conference, transportation minister Liow Tiong Lai said Flight 17's path had been approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization, and by the countries that controlled the airspace the plane was set to travel through.
In a statement Friday, Malaysia Airlines also said the flight path had been approved by Eurocontrol, the governing body responsible for flight paths over Europe.
The airline denied wading into airspace that had previously been deemed "risky" by U.S. and European aviation officials. "At no point did MH17 fly into, or request to fly into, this area," the airline said in a statement. "At all times, MH17 was in airspace approved by the ICAO."
--What brought down the Malaysia Airlines jet?
An official in Ukraine’s Interior Ministry alleged that the plane was shot down by a Buk missile from territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
A senior U.S. official said Friday that U.S. intelligence had reached the same preliminary conclusion.
A single Buk missile has a 60% to 90% chance of downing an aircraft and requires a well-trained crew to operate.President Obama said in a news conference Friday that the separatists had received a steady flow of support from Russia, including arms and heavy-weapons training.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said Friday that while Ukrainians do have Buk missiles in their weapons inventory, the United States does not know of any such Ukrainian-owned missiles in the area where the plane was downed.
“More importantly,†Powers said in her remarks, “since the beginning of this crisis, Ukrainian air defenses have not fired a single missile, despite several alleged violations of their airspace by Russian aircraft.â€
http://ukobiw.net./la-fg-missile-launcher-ukraine-20140717-story.html--Why didn't the plane avoid the missile or call for help?
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said Thursday that the aircraft did not make a distress call before being shot out of the sky.Most commercial jets are not outfitted with missile warning and defense systems, which are standard on many military aircraft. So it's unlikely that the Malaysia Airlines pilot would have been aware that the missile's guidance system had locked onto the aircraft.
--Are planes still flying over the area?
Since the crash, both Eurocontrol and the FAA have barred all flights over the larger eastern Ukraine region.
The FAA has said all U.S. commercial airlines have agreed to avoid the region near the Russia-Ukraine border, and several international carriers have issued statements saying they are steering clear of the area.
--When was the flight last in contact, and when did it crash?
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was scheduled to leave Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport at 12 p.m. Thursday for Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport. It actually left at 12:15 p.m., and was due to arrive at 6:10 a.m. the next day.
Ukrainian air traffic notified Malaysia Airlines at about 4:20 p.m. that it had lost contact with Flight 17 about 20 miles from Tamak waypoint, or about 30 miles from the Russia-Ukraine border. The Boeing 777 crashed in the Donetsk region in Ukraine about 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
--Were any Americans on board?
So far, only one American citizen has been identified as a passenger on the crashed Malaysia Airlines jetliner. Quinn Lucas Schansman, a dual Dutch and American citizen, was on the plane en route to meet his family for a vacation, a cousin said.
The cousin said Schansman was born in New York, but had lived in the Netherlands for most of his life. A Facebook page appearing to belong to Schansman indicates that he lived in Amsterdam as of April, and was attending the International Business School at Hogeschool van Amsterdam.
No other Americans have been identified, but an Indiana University graduate student was on the plane when it crashed.
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