As relatives and friends gathered at airports for news of missing loved ones, it emerged that airlines had twice been warned about the risk of flying over an area where two Ukrainian military aircraft had already been shot down this week. Up to 100 children were thought to be among the 283 passengers and 15 crew who died when the plane was shot down in an 'act of terrorism' on the Russia-Ukraine border.
In April, the
International Civil Aviation Organisation advised carriers to consider alternative routes after outlining ‘the possible existence of serious risks to the safety of international civil flights’.
On Monday,
Eurocontrol – the body that coordinates all traffic across European airspace sent out an official note to airmen, known as a
Notam, repeating the warning and saying it
‘strongly advises’ avoiding the airspace. But many carriers continued to use the route because it was shorter and therefore cheaper.
Flight MH17 had taken off from Amsterdam at lunchtime and was flying at around 33,000ft on one of the main routes from Europe to Asia when it was struck by the missile. It came down near a poultry farm in the village of Grabovo, an area controlled by pro-Russian rebels about 30 miles from the Ukraine-Russia border. Witnesses claimed to have seen bodies falling out of the stricken plane over the village of Rassypnaya. Some residents feared they were being bombed.
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