Flights to Ukraine not insured

We have just been talking about this at the office.

There was no pressing need for that flight to go over the Ukraine, as is obvious from the GC route

I don’t know if they actually overflew Afghanistan but if so that would have been another bet on nobody down there having a 1960s+ radar guided missile.

Two months ago, I flow Stockholm-Bangkok-Singapore and back. The route was straight over Kabul. It didn’t feel all that comfortable, but from what I hear the taliban don’t have missiles and ordinary firearms don’t reach FL 350. Also it was in nighttime…

wouldn’t great-circle navigation actually make that a detour?

That map is in Lambert Conformal Conical projection, on which a GC is a nearly straight line – as seen above.

I think the issue with the missiles is that all the shoulder launched ones (of which many have fallen into dodgy hands) are designed to not go above 10000-12000ft. The radar guided ones don’t have that problem (Gary Powers, and later) but it was assumed that only more technological people have them and know which knob turns it on, etc.

Haywards wrote to us a few weeks ago withdrawing Ukraine from our area of coverage. I seem to recall if you really wanted to go that way a call to get a quote was required.

The only thing I don’t understand is why eurocontrol and airlines stopped flights only now. So extremely stupid idea to fly over area of war controlled by terorrists.

Regarding Kabul, on my experience few years ago, our flight was accompanied by 2 NATO Falcons clearly seen through the windows.

Haywards wrote to us a few weeks ago withdrawing Ukraine from our area of coverage. I seem to recall if you really wanted to go that way a call to get a quote was required.e

I can image the quote is “are you sure?”

But in all seriousness in half of the world (or more maybe) there is some credible threat of terror or terrorist activity. I guess most of us expect it to be generally at ground level and not interfering with activity at 32000 feet. You can’t give all of these places a wide berth can you?

I believe they have good source of serious weapons…

The only thing I don’t understand is why eurocontrol and airlines stopped flights only now. So extremely stupid idea to fly over area of war controlled by terorrists.

For quite some time, overflights of the area were restricted to FL300 and above. You’re always smarter in hindsight but until the incident, the risk was considered to be very low. After all, none of the parties involved have an interest in shooting down civilian aircraft.

What I found quite surprising is which airlines claimed immediately they would not fly such routes for months already and then a cursory look at FlightRadar24 shows that they have been flying these routes until the day of the incident…

Weapons like this in the hands of terrorists creates a whole new danger. With equipment for 20 EUR, they can be used to target specific airliners. Just use the transponder to identify the airplane you want and once it passes by, target it with the microwave beam and send up a missile.