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Originally Posted by searchingheaven Just FYI, The BUK can engage upto 78000 ft and not just 42000. It's not a matter of what altitude the BUK could engage. The question is why did the ATC gave an altitude with a vertical separation of 1000 ft from the no-fly ceiling knowing about the NOTAM. If the aircraft was at FL390, it would have been a clear case of targeting the MH-17 deliberately. At FL330, the perpetrators might plead that it was a mistake since the ceiling was just 1000 ft above at FL320(Just like with IA 655, KAL007, SA1812). |
Very simple: the NOTAM restricts a certain stretch of airspace. In this case up to FL320 or 32000. Anything above is available, no restriction. Everything above is considered "normal airspace, i.e. no risks. There is no reason to have a higher separation. FL330 was fine as it was above FL320 If that was not the case, the altitude in the NOTAM would have been higher!
NOTAMs are part of normal operation in aviation. At any given moment of time there are hundreds if not thousand of NOTAMs in effect. NOTAM don't necessarily tell you why the restrictions are in place, only what the restrictions are, i.e. geographical area, altitude, date and time.
Here's what I learned from a professional commercial pilot friend of mine:
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Eurocontrol validated the route. The Ukraine is managed by Eurocontrol as far as airspace structure goes.
When I heard of the accident, I ran a test plan in my flight planning system at work, and it came back with essentially the same routing. Had we had had a flight in the same city pair, if that route had been returned as the most optimum track, I would have had no reason not to use it. The A1493/14 NOTAM that Avherald has is the key - FL320 and below was no go (there was another notam for the same airway segments at FL260 and below), 330 and higher was open for business. My system at work had the same NOTAM.
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Even so, certain carriers, for instance KLM had decided several weeks ago to fly around the area. Just because it's "legal" doesn't mean you can be more conscious. I do think Malaysian airway will come under attack why it choose to fly this route, even though technically it was fine. Still, makes for a very poor excuse if other carriers do fly around it. In this particular case KLM was actually code sharing this route. It is a good example how ridiculous this whole idea of code sharing is. So I could have booked this flight with KLM, ended up on the Malaysian plane and crashed, whereas KLM routes their own planes around this area! Look on the carries websites how they plug code sharing to the punters; Their code share partners offer the same service, safety standards etc. NO they don't!
As usual, the most factual data collected here:
http://avherald.com/h?article=47770f9d&opt=0 It even has the NOTAMs.
There could well be another reason that this plane was at FL330. Pilots of commercial jet engines like to fly as high as possible, because it gives them better fuel efficiency. When a wide body plane such as the 777 takes off with a (near) full compliment of passengers, cargo and fuel it is to heavy to reach it's maximum cruising altitude. So they start cruising at say FL290. After a while they have burned sufficient fuel of to lower the the plane's weight and to climb to a higher altitude. In most parts of the world these so called step climbs are done in increments of 4000 feet. Theoretically you should be on a very shallow constant climb to get the most optimum fuel burn, but ATC can't cope with that, so you do it in steps of 4000 feet. If you ever find yourself on a long haul route you will notice this; every few hours the engines will spool up for a few minutes as the aircraft climbs to its next cruising altitude.
ATC needs to clear you for every step climb. Depending on their route this flight plan would have been about 5500 nautical miles. It crashed before it was 1/3 of the way, so it would not have had a chance to burn of much fuel. I would need to look it up, because 5500 is well below max range for a 777, so they were probably not carrying max fuel. So they might have been able to go a bit higher, but not much. As I said, these pilots like to get as high as their weight allows them unless the jet stream are unfavorable, or ATC won't let them. FL330 was a safe altitude as far the aviation planning systems were concerned.
For those of a morbid disposition the first video's of the mutilated bodies of the crash victims are hitting Facebook and Youtube. (e.g. vicenews). I'm a big fan of free speech and all, but you do wonder if this is necessary. Can you imagine if you have families or friends on that flight and you find them back on such a video. It's probably all legal, but again that doesn't mean you have to put it out there. At the bare minimum it's very poor taste to put it up on the internet.
Although I don't (think so far) I really know any Dutch persons on the flight, I sort of have met one of them. There was a lady who ran a famous restaurant in Rotterdam. I've been there several times with my family. She used to come round all the tables to check that everything was in order and everybody was enjoying their food. Very sad.
Jeroen