By Stephanie Jacob
The tragic MH17 incident means that Malaysia Airlines has been at the centre of two massive airline disasters this year. While the mystery of MH370 remains, what happened in the MH17 case is clearer. MAS cannot be blamed for the tragedy, and it deserves the support of Malaysians.
Late Thursday night as many Malaysians were turning in for the night, a horrible tragedy was unfolding over the skies of Ukraine. Somebody had aimed a missile at a plane full of innocent human beings and fired – just like that 298 lives, 80 of them children were gone.
Sitting in front of the tv screen, and monitoring Twitter chatter – disbelief seemed to be the overwhelming emotion.
Could it possibly be that another Malaysia Airlines plane had been involved in a tragedy? What more, that it had been blown out of the sky? Surely this was all some kind of hoax or sick joke. Unfortunately it was neither.
As reports confirmed that it was a MAS plane and that it in fact had been shot out of the sky over a conflict zone in Ukraine – disbelief and confusion turned into anger. Although most might not know the specifics of the Ukrainian conflict, many do know that it is a troubled area.
What on earth was MAS doing, flying in an area where other aircraft has been shot down over the past week? Should it have used that route?
The answer is overwhelmingly yes.
It is true that the area is a conflict zone, between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian government. However the fighting has been largely confined to ground battles, with airstrikes coming from rocket launchers with limited firing range.
It was largely assumed that neither warring party had a weapon capable of bringing down a plane above 30,000 ft, and therefore travel above that mark was deemed safe. This fact is crucial because although we sadly now know this to be false, at the point of the flight MAS and its pilots did not.
The instructions from the various aviation bodies was stay above 32,000 ft, and MAS was flying above that. In fact, various news reports say it requested a higher flying height of 35,000 ft, but were asked to fly at 33,000 ft by Ukrainian air control due to other traffic.
Assuming this is true, then it shows two things. First, MAS had been following all advice issued by the various aviation regulators, and second that it was not the only plane in that airspace on that tragic day.
It also must be emphasised that while some airlines chose not to overfly the Donetsk area, these were unilateral decisions taken by individual carriers and not regulatory bodies.
For example, the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates American airlines forbade flying over the disputed Crimea region, but no such prohibition was made for the Donetsk region. Airlines rely on the local authorities and international bodies to offer them guidance as to where to fly: MAS followed the advice on hand.
True, it did not take any extraordinary safety precautions, but more importantly it also did not take any extraordinary risks.
It simply flew the most effective route which was allowed by the civil aviation and Ukrainian regulators for commercial airlines. MAS has made mistakes, but this heartbreaking tragedy is simply not one of them.
Following the tragedy, MAS took the step of offering refunds to those who wanted to cancel or change their bookings. It was a generous step, considering the airline did everything by the book.
The decision should be viewed as an acknowledgement that there will be those too jittery to fly after last Thursday. But it should not be an acknowledgement of guilt because judging MAS’ capability to take its passengers from one point to another based on this tragedy would be grossly unfair.
The airline has been flying the skies for half a century and has had three tragic events – one which was a hijacking in 1977, the recent unsolved MH370 and now MH17.
It is questionable how much blame the airline can take for the first incident, which happened in a pre-Sept 2011 world – where security was much more minimal. It is also difficult to apportion blame over MH370 incident given that so much still remains a mystery.
The airline has an excellent safety, and service record. Horrible, tragic luck should not change that.
Over the past few days, people from around the world have said they will continue to fly our national carrier. Let us, as Malaysians, also give the MAS crews and staff the support they have earned.
We should also wholeheartedly reject any suggestions that the MH17 incident was some sort of divine wrath on MAS. It is bad enough that we speculate over God’s will on a regular day-to-day basis.
The airline is an international carrier, and it functions as one. The reason that one of its planes is lying in pieces in a field in Ukraine is because of the actions of humans. Let us leave the divine out of it.
GRRRRR!!!
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