In the wake of the crash of Malaysian Flight 17, likely shot down over the Eastern part of Ukraine, several airlines have announced they will be routing flights around Ukrainian airspace. Real-time data from aviation firm FlightRadar24 seems to confirm this: it currently shows just a handful of flights over Ukraine. Many flights appear to be skirting around the eastern and western edges of the country, with just a small handful in Ukrainian airspace proper.
Luc Tytgat, the director of Eurocontrol, which directs air traffic across Europe, told the BBC that the airspace above eastern Ukraine had been closed to all commercial flights. The BBC quoted Luc as saying that four other commercial aircraft were in the same area as MH17 at the time of the crash, but that they continued their routes.
The European Cockpit Association, which represents pilots, released a statement saying that the route MH17 had taken was the most common one for flights from Europe to Southeast Asia.
Griff Witte contributed to this report from London.
The Malaysian airliner MH-17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian militants on Thursday, killing all 295 people aboard, a Ukrainian interior ministry official said. Dozens of bodies were scattered around the smouldering wreckage of a passenger jet that crashed in a field in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, a Reuters reporter said. An emergency services rescue worker said at least 100 bodies had so far been found at the scene, near the village of Grabovo, and that debris from the wreckage was spread across an area up to about 15 km (nine miles) in diameter.
WASHINGTON — The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Friday morning after two planes were downed this week over eastern Ukraine, including a Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 295 people.
Britain’s UN Mission said it requested the meeting and proposed a press statement calling for “a full, thorough and independent international investigation into the incident.”
The statement must be approved by the council members before it can be issued.
A US official said that American intelligence authorities now believe a surface-to-air missile took down the commercial jet as it flew from Amsterdam to Malaysia.
The official said the US was still working to determine additional details about the crash, including who fired the missile and whether it came from the Russian or Ukraine side of the border. But the official said US intelligence assessments suggest it is more likely pro-Russian separatists or the Russians rather than Ukrainian government forces shot down the plane.
The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity.
The US has sophisticated technologies that can detect missile launches, including the identification of heat from the rocket engine.
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