Despite the tension between Ukraine and Russia and various reports of Ukrainian and Russian military aircraft being shot down, much of what was going on was at a lower altitude. looking at flight-tracking websites like Flightradar24 and FlightAware, MH17 flying between Amsterdam Schipol and Kuala lumpur lost contact over the restive Eastern Ukrainian and Russian border while flying at 33,000 feet.
While there are several caveats here, Russia does make highly advanced as well as portable Surface to Air Missiles (SAM) such as the 9K38 (known to NATO as the SA24) although such missiles usually do not have such high-altitude range or the accuracy at those altitudes.It is also likely that the plane could also have been brought down by an Ukrainian missile. SAM systems have being highly-sophisticated in the recent past, and Ukraine has apparently shot down a Russian Tupolev Tu-154 in the past.
The possibility that the plane was brought down by a air-to-air missile from a fighter jet also cannot be ruled out.Given the high tension in the area, if an aircraft used an incorrect IFF (International Friend or Foe) code that is transmitted from each and every plane it could have triggered air-defence alarms. Recently, two Turkish Airlines aircraft using the same IFF code triggered Indian air-defence alarms when crossing over from Pakistan leading to fighters being scrambled.
Ukrainian airspace remains critically vital for almost all flights between Asia and Europe. In fact, as the news broke, two Air India flights AI 116 and AI 130 from Heathrow to Delhi and Mumbai respectively were flying over Ukrainian airspace. Will this incident force airlines to alter their routesIJ
And what about Malaysian Airlines, yet to recover from the devastating disappearance of MH370, also operated by a Boeing 777-200ER just over three months ago, can the airline possibly survive a double-whammyIJ