Hostile Downing of Civilian Airplanes

I do not know who is to blame for the tragic crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian government blames the pro-Russian separatists for bringing down the plane and they blame Kiev's forces. What we know for sure is that 298 innocent people aboard died at no fault of their own being the victims of one of the several conflicts on our planet.

In commercial aircraft cabins are pressurized to 8,000 feet above sea level, an altitude that lowers the amount of oxygen in the blood by about 4 percentage points. This may lead to some discomfort but no ill health effects for persons in good health.  If a gradual decompression occurs it may go unnoticed as instruments can only detect it. This type of cabin decompression may result from the failure of the crew to pressurize as an aircraft climbs to cruising altitudes. This is what happened in 2005 in Helios Airways flight 522, when the pilots failed to maintain proper cabin pressure resulting in loss of consciousness for crew and passengers due to hypoxia.  The blast from the SA-11 one of the most modern surface-to-air missile that hit flight MH 17, likely caused uncontrolled total decompression and dramatic deceleration rendering crew and passengers on board instantly unconscious or dead.  Research has found that trauma from a mid-air explosion occurs from the force of the blast, the massive deceleration when a plane cruising 500 miles an hour suddenly stops in mid-air, and the loss of cabin pressure that causes hypoxia within seconds at 33,000 feet, leading to loss of consciousness and/or death before the plane’s impact from crashing on the ground.

What is clear that MH 17 is the deadliest accident of a civilian passenger plane being shot down in modern times. Sadly, there is a long history of passenger airplanes that were shot down due to military force. Here are some of the worst events:

In 1954, a Cathay Pacific C-54 Skymaster carrying 19 passengers and crew was flying from Bangkok to Hong Kong when a Chinese fighter plane off the coast of Hainan Island shot it down. Ten people died.  China said it had mistaken the plane for a military aircraft on an attack mission.

In 1955, seven crewmembers and 51 passengers were killed when El Al flight 402 headed to Tel Aviv from Vienna strayed into Bulgarian airspace, an Eastern bloc country.  It was intercepted by two Bulgarian fighter planes that shot it down.

In 1973, a passenger aircraft heading to Cairo from the Libyan capital Tripoli got lost due to bad weather - a sandstorm - drifted into Israeli airspace.  Missiles from two Israeli Phantom fighters hit the Libyan Airlines flight 114 plane and led it to crash land in the dunes of the Sinai desert. Only five of the 113 people on board survived.

On June 27, 1980, an Itavia Airlines flight 780 plane left the northern Italian city of Bologna for Palermo, in Sicily. Wreckage of the plane was found in the Tyrrhenian Sea. There were no survivors among the 81 on board. Initial theories suggested a terrorist bomb blast on board, but subsequent investigations concluded the plane was likely caught in the midst of a dogfight between NATO fighter jets and Libyan MIGs.

In 1983, two Sukhoi SU-15 jets intercepted Korean Air Lines flight 007 from New York City to Seoul, after it had veered 800 miles off course and had entered Soviet air space. A missile strike sent the plane into the Sea of Japan as it was judged to be a spy plane resulting in 269 fatalities. Initially, Soviet Union denied knowledge of the incident. However, the pilot and Soviet leaders later admitted knowing that it was a civilian plane but insisted it could have been on a spy mission as it refused to change course or follow the soviet fighters and land as instructed.

In 1988, the United States Navy guided missile from USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air flight 655 from Tehran to Dubai.  All 290 on board died. The plane was mistaken for an F-14 fighter plane that had been sold to Iran before the 1979 revolution. Iran condemned the incident, calling it a "criminal act” while the US insisted it was a accident. The US has never formally apologized for the attack, but in 1996 agreed on a settlement of $66 million paid to the families of the victims.

In 1993, three civilian planes belonging to Transair Georgia were hit by missiles, killing 136 people altogether. Abkhazian rebel missiles hit two planes, with 27 people aboard one and 108 on the other. A third plane came under fire as it was boarded, leaving one crewmember dead.

In 2001, 78 passengers and crewmembers were killed when Ukraine accidentally shot down a Siberian Airlines flight 1812, sending it plummeting into the Black Sea.  A S-200 rocket hit it during military exercises.  The plane was on route from Tel Aviv, Israel to Novosibirsk. Ukraine officials denied responsibility for the incident.  However, they later admitted that its military had mistakenly shot the plane during training exercises.

In 2014, the Malaysian Airlines flight 17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was flying over Ukraine when it disappeared from radar.  According to Malaysia Airlines, flight MH 17 departed Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport at 10:15 GMT on 17 July and was due to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 22:10 GMT.  The airline lost contact four hours later at 14:15 GMT.  There were 283 passengers and 15 crewmembers aboard the Boeing-777. The crash of MH 17, in which 298 died, is the latest and deadliest in the series of such tragic incidents and hopefully the last one.  As in similar events there are many touching stories as the Dutch father who lost his only teenage daughter who wrote an open letter to President Putin.  In recent days hundreds of flowers have been laid outside Departures 3 at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam in remembrance of the victims of flight MH 17.

Two additional crashes in the days that followed that of TransAsia airlines ATP 72 and Air Algerie AH 5017 together with the mysterious disappearance of flight MH 370 raised questions about the safety of air travel in the lay press.  According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) 3.1 billion travellers flew on 32 million flights in 2013. During the entire year there were 90 accidents that resulted to 9 deaths.  This makes flying on commercial airlines clearly the safest way to travel by far.

It is with sadness that I join in grief the relatives and millions of non-relatives alike and dedicate this writing in the memory of the 298 innocent victims of flight MH 17.