Must Know About The Tragic Shoot Down Of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 17

Today flight travel is considered as one of the safest modes of transport with airlines traveling at cruising altitude of more than 33,000 ft. Such altitude is considered very safe for a flight to travel upon. But what if a plane gets shot down by a Buk missile? A similar type of incident happened with Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17. MH 17 was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur it departed from Amsterdam Schipol Airport at 12.31 PM local time on 17th July 2014 after departing from Amsterdam it crossed Germany, Poland and entered the Ukrainian airspace after entering Ukraine the pilot noticed that there were some thunderstorms on the way so pilot asked for a route diversion which was approved by Ukrainian ATC so at this point flight diverted towards eastern Ukraine which was a war zone area where it was shot down by a Russian surface to air Buk missile at 16.20 PM Ukraine local time in Grabovo village near Donetsk area in eastern Ukraine 40 Kms away from the Russia Ukraine border killing 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board. Spreading the debris of the plane in a 50 sq km area. Making it the deadliest airline shoot down in the history of the aviation industry. This shootdown of flight Malaysian airlines flight MH 17 shocked the world and it high-lightened the issues of aviation safety as well. 

Deutsche team investigating the wreckage of flight in eastern Ukraine

Now coming to the whole background in early February 2014 Russian military intervened in Ukraine by annexing Crimea from Ukraine creating a full-fledged war between Russia and Ukraine. Thereafter the Russian military also invaded eastern Ukraine which resulted in an armed conflict war between Russian rebels and the Ukrainian government and Russia had also provided advanced weaponry to the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Seeing the tensions growing up between Russia and Ukraine the civil aviation warned to take extreme caution while flying over eastern Ukraine and Crimea as those areas had become unsafe for civil airline traffic. So most of the airlines started to avoid the Ukrainian airspace in early March 2014 but still, there were many airlines flying over the dangerous war zone of eastern Ukraine where the tragic shoot-down of Malaysian airline flight happened despite so many red flags. The entire world knew the fact that the weapons used in the war included surface to air Buk missiles and much other advanced weaponry which were easily capable of drowning the civilian airplanes at any altitude.

Here are some of the Red flags that were ignored by MH 17

• 2-3 months before the shootdown of the flight there were many Ukrainian jets shoot down by the Buk missiles
• constant fighting between the Russian rebels and Ukrainian government using advanced armed equipment   
• A Ukrainian air-force plane was shot down on its way to Luhansk International Airport, Donetsk killing 49 people on board by a Buk missile on 14th June 2014.
• Another Ukrainian air-force plane was shot on 14th July 2014 by the Russian Buk missiles
• Handover of Buk missiles to the local Russian rebels before the crash it was known that the surface to air Buk missiles was given to the local rebels thereby posing a big threat to civil airlines.

Seeing the alarming situation over eastern Ukraine why the airspace of Ukraine wasn't closed by the Ukrainian government when the war between Russia and Ukraine erupted four months prior to the crash? Why the civilian airlines continued flying over the dangerous armed conflict zone of eastern Ukraine? Despite knowing the fact that the Buk missile systems designed can easily harm the passenger flights? These questions still remained unanswered after getting a warning from civil aviation authority. Had these precautions been taken earlier such a deadly airline shoot out MH 17 wouldn't have happened at all. What's more shocking to this incident that there were 80 children on board in this flight who died in this shoot down out of the 298 passengers. The rebels even stole credit cards and belongings of the passengers at the crash site making it the most shameful act thereby adding more grief to the relatives of innocent passengers.

Memorial of MH 17 passengers at Schipol airport, Amsterdam

                         

What locals saw at the crash site:

As per the locals in the village, they saw the burning plane blasting on the ground and there were bodies raining from the sky. According to some experts who visited the crash site, there were burned dead bodies of passengers attached to their seat belts with the wreckage of plane spread around a very big area. After the tragic shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines flight, MH 17 happened that too in a very deadly manner.

This flight radar 24 data shows how flights are avoiding the Ukraine airspace

Aftermath:

When the missile struck the plane it broke into 3 pieces mid-air before crashing on the ground. This incident had made a very shocking impact on the aviation industry as passenger safety was at risk after that incident.  This incident highlighted the fear of airline shootdown thus, the airlines made a point not to fly over active war zones. Following this incident, Malaysian airlines retired the number MH17 to MH19 with the outbound number being unchanged from 25 July 2014 but terminated its service to Amsterdam in January 2016 due to the retirement of the old Boeing's 737. Now Malaysian airlines run the Amsterdam Kuala Lumpur service in codeshare agreement collaboration with KLM airlines. Following the two Boeing losses of MH 370 and MH 17, Malaysia airlines were re-nationalized in 2015 as it suffered huge losses.