MH17: Pilots demand review of flight path rules after Malaysia Airlines flight disaster

Updated

A former chief pilot of Malaysia Airlines has questioned the worth of rules that were supposed to keep aircraft safe over Ukraine.

Aviation authorities had deemed it safe for passenger aircraft to fly over troubled eastern Ukraine before last Thursday, when Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down, killing all 298 on board including 37 Australian citizens and residents.

Pilots flying above the war zone were told they were not to go below 32,000 feet. Captain Nik Huzlan says altitude restrictions ignore the realities of flying.

"What happens if you're flying over that area and you lose an engine? You cannot maintain 32,000 feet and you descend to 22,000 feet," he told ABC's 730 program.

"What if you have a decompression and passengers are gasping for air and the procedure calls you to descend to lowest safe altitude?"

Flight MH17 was flying at 33,000 feet when it was destroyed.

Mr Huzlan says it is clear why airlines were taking the route over Ukraine.

"There's a bloody reason you fly over there: to take commercial advantage, and you do your risk-management accordingly," he said.

Mr Huzlan, who now runs a charter plane operation, says the global rules about flying need to be strengthened.

"There must be some form of international detente that says 'don't fly' rather than 'it is better not to fly'," he said.

Mr Huzlan has flown with both pilots in charge of MH17 and says Malaysia is dealing with its grief calmly.

"I am glad there is no rolling on the floor and banging of heads on the wall," he said.

"People are quite rational here, perhaps like Australia. Australia has a high level of opinionated public. Malaysia is a little bit more subdued. People turn to God maybe, that's the way I see it."

The inner strength of Malaysia is most apparent among those who have lost the most.

Chief stewardess told daughter to study hard

Diyana Yazeera, 15, is the daughter of Dora Shahila Kassim, the chief stewardess on flight MH17.

"I don't feel like she's gone entirely so I wrote on Twitter that she's greatly missed by everyone. I love her, but God loves her more," she said.

Ms Yazeera often travelled with her mother.

"I started travelling with her when I was eight months old," she said.

"We went all over the world. My first trip was to Vienna, then she brought me to Rome, then Paris, then went to Sydney, to the US - practically all over the world."

Ms Yazeera and her aunts last spoke to Ms Kassim as she was about to leave Kuala Lumpur.

"Ten minutes before she was about to go on the aircraft, I called her from school and she said 'I'm off to Amsterdam and back Friday morning', so I can call her then," Ms Yazeera said.

"Her last words to me was to not ... waste all my efforts, I've done this well and I study hard. She'll never stop reminding me to study hard."

Her mother's plane disappeared from radar screens on the return leg of the Amsterdam flight.

"Before assembly, a student came up to the microphone and spoke about the tragedy," she said.

"[They] said it was a flight coming from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and I remember mum once said she was supposed to arrive in Kuala Lumpur that morning, so I wasn't sure if it was her on that flight.

"So I kept a positive mind and then later in class, the teacher came to get me and told me the news."

Ms Yazeera's family cannot begin the formal mourning process for Ms Kassim until her body is returned.

Like the families of the 43 other Malaysians aboard MH17, Ms Kassim's family is hoping the identification process is swift.

In the meantime, Ms Yazeera is comforted by her mother's words.

"One friend of my mum messaged me about the things my mum would say about me to him and she told him that I'm the strongest of all the girls my age and I must have took that from her, she told him that I'm a survivor," she said.

"That gave me the motivation to be strong for my family."

Security expert says current theory wrong

A former pilot has joined calls for a review of how airspaces are declared safe for civilian aircraft, in a bid to avoid any more tragedies.

The International AVSEC Management Association's (IAMA) acting regional director, Desmond Ross has told ABC NewsRadio the downing of MH17 will change how we fly.

"If this sort of weaponry is now available to rebel groups or anyone else then there has to be a complete rethink," he said.

"The current theory of the Malaysian flight being at 33,000 feet was that it would be safe from ... a shoot-down but it was wrong so it needs to be completely reconsidered.

"There are crisis management teams meeting all around the world at the moment and looking at what can be done."

Mr Ross says like airport security has intensified over recent years, measures to secure the safety of planes once they leave the tarmac demands an overhaul.

"The whole aviation security side of the industry has to rethink how to try and prevent this sort of thing and that's actually why aviation security is getting closer and closer to working with counter-terrorism authorities," he said.

"We need to have a broader view of how this sort of thing can be handled."

Captains bear ultimate responsibility: former pilot

With several conflict zones laying directly below popular long-haul flight paths, questions have been asked about who is responsible for opening and closing airspaces.

Emirates president Tim Clark is calling for an international meeting of airline carriers to rethink how threats are assessed and to agree on an industry-wide response to the MH17 incident.

"The international airline community needs to respond as an entity and say this is absolutely not acceptable and outrageous and that it won't tolerate being targeted in internecine regional conflicts that have nothing to do with airlines," he said.

"We have traditionally been able to manage this. Tripoli and Kabul were attacked, Karachi was attacked and we have protocols and contingencies and procedures to deal with this.

"That was up until three days ago. Now I think there will have to be new protocols and it will be up to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association and the aviation community to sort out what the protocols have to be."

Mr Ross says those bodies have no authority to close airspaces.

It is the responsibility of the captains where the aircraft is taken and what altitude it operates once the wheels have left the ground Desmond Ross

"It is the sovereign nation over whose airspace you are flying so in the case of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, the Ukrainian authorities had the control of the airspace," Mr Ross said.

"Airspace is divided into flight approval information regions and these are approved by 192 member nations of the ICAO. ICAO does not open or close airspace but it sets the standards and those standards are then applied by the member states who have signed the treaty."

ICAO is an agency of the United Nations and Ukraine is currently listed on its register of member states.

However, Mr Ross says ultimate responsibility for the aircraft is held by its pilot.

"When the flight plans are being prepared, all the factors should be taken into consideration by the operations officers and the airline who basically prepare the draft," he said.

"Then the captains have to sign off on the flight plan because it is the responsibility of the captains where the aircraft is taken and what altitude it operates once the wheels have left the ground.

"In this case it appears that they wanted to go the most direct route and probably that was advantageous with the weather conditions but the risk assessment was unfortunately incorrect."

ABC/Reuters

Topics: air-and-space, accidents, disasters-and-accidents, air-transport, industry, unrest-conflict-and-war, australia, ukraine

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