Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was guided off its most recently used course as its pilots hoped to avoid thunderstorms brewing in the south of Ukraine, it has been claimed.
When it was shot down, the doomed jet was many miles north of the flight paths it had used on previous days to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.
Nico Voorbach, a pilot who flew the same journey earlier this summer for KLM, and who is president of the European Cockpit Association, said poor weather might have been the reason why flight MH17 found itself in the sights of a surface-to-air missile launcher. The aircraft was shot down in the separatist Donetsk region of east Ukraine.
Voorbach said: "I heard that they were diverting from some showers. I think there were thunderclouds. You would ask air traffic control to divert left or right, and they would give you the permission."
It also emerged that flight MH17 had initially filed a flight plan requesting to fly at 35,000ft above Ukrainian territory. On entering Ukrainian airspace, however, the plane's pilots were instructed to fly at 33,000ft by the local air traffic control due to other traffic. Malaysia Airlines said the pilots had to follow the lead of the local authorities.
Malaysia's transport minister, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, told a press conference: "MH17's flight path was a busy major airway, like a highway in the sky. It followed a route which was set out by the international aviation authorities, approved by Eurocontrol, and used by hundreds of other aircraft.
"MH17 flew at an altitude that was set and deemed safe by local air traffic control, and it never strayed into restricted airspace. The flight and its operators followed the rules. But on the ground, the rules of war were broken."
In response to claims that weather led to MH17 changing its flight plan, Malaysia Airlines director of operations Izham Ismail said that it had no reports from the pilot to suggest that this was the case. The airline has been keen to stress that after the International Civil Aviation Organisation in April identified an area over the Crimea peninsula as risky, its aircraft had "at no point" flown into or requested to fly into the area. The tragedy has, however, raised questions over the wisdom of commercial airlines continuing to fly over conflict zones.
19/07/14 Daniel Boffey/The Guardian
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When it was shot down, the doomed jet was many miles north of the flight paths it had used on previous days to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.
Nico Voorbach, a pilot who flew the same journey earlier this summer for KLM, and who is president of the European Cockpit Association, said poor weather might have been the reason why flight MH17 found itself in the sights of a surface-to-air missile launcher. The aircraft was shot down in the separatist Donetsk region of east Ukraine.
Voorbach said: "I heard that they were diverting from some showers. I think there were thunderclouds. You would ask air traffic control to divert left or right, and they would give you the permission."
It also emerged that flight MH17 had initially filed a flight plan requesting to fly at 35,000ft above Ukrainian territory. On entering Ukrainian airspace, however, the plane's pilots were instructed to fly at 33,000ft by the local air traffic control due to other traffic. Malaysia Airlines said the pilots had to follow the lead of the local authorities.
Malaysia's transport minister, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, told a press conference: "MH17's flight path was a busy major airway, like a highway in the sky. It followed a route which was set out by the international aviation authorities, approved by Eurocontrol, and used by hundreds of other aircraft.
"MH17 flew at an altitude that was set and deemed safe by local air traffic control, and it never strayed into restricted airspace. The flight and its operators followed the rules. But on the ground, the rules of war were broken."
In response to claims that weather led to MH17 changing its flight plan, Malaysia Airlines director of operations Izham Ismail said that it had no reports from the pilot to suggest that this was the case. The airline has been keen to stress that after the International Civil Aviation Organisation in April identified an area over the Crimea peninsula as risky, its aircraft had "at no point" flown into or requested to fly into the area. The tragedy has, however, raised questions over the wisdom of commercial airlines continuing to fly over conflict zones.
19/07/14 Daniel Boffey/The Guardian
