The Tragedy of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17
July 17,2014 will go down in aviation history as the date when Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 aka MH17( flying from Amsterdam towards Kuala Lumpur)had flown over Ukrainian air space amidst an ongoing war zone between eastern Ukraine and Russia. The airline unfortunately became collateral damage when alleged pro-Russian separatists shot the airline down, thinking that it was a Ukrainian plane,resulting in the sudden loss of lives of 295-298 lives(both passengers and crew),all because of politics and secession issues in the Russian/ eastern Ukrainian landscape. In my opinion, such a tragedy is a war crime.
Ongoing bickering and fingerpointing between Ukraine and Russian authorities/politicians naturally came out. This is a Shakespearean tragedy of utmost proportions with ensuing geopolitical implications as well as possible aviation changes in terms of flight rerouting and resulting airline navigational costs which probably will make the ongoing debate of the logic of flying over a war zone feasible/logical worth the cost of saving the airlines some money. Penny wise,pound foolish?
For Vladimir Putin, the tragedy of MH17 will unfortunately be part of his legacy and it makes me wonder if he’ll ever survive or even talk his way out of this. It reminds me of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Waterloo. His notoriety will only be reinforced especially if he continues to support those pro-Russian rebels for his own political aspirations and survival. With his reputation as a political bully, I wouldn’t be surprised if this former KGB agent remains stubborn and defiant.
For Malaysian Airlines, its future in the aviation world only became more tenous with this current tragedy. It hasn’t solved the mystery of the still missing MH370 since March 8,2014. Being hit twice with 2 high-profile tragedies in the same year is really too much for this airline. Its reputation with a now wary flying public isn’t too good nor promising unless specific rectifying measures have been implemented to ensure future patronage or else,face probable financial demise.
For the families and friends of the deceased, it’s an unfortunate,senseless and unexpected event which they will carry and mourn forever.
How all the governments of this world (especially for the various passengers of different nationalities and citizenships) will deal with this tragedy,we’ll only know in the coming hours,days,weeks and even months. Just watch out how the United Nations and the diplomatic corp of various countries will deal with Russia in the coming days.
For the European countries who have tight economic ties with Russia, it remains to be seen if they’ll have to reconsider if they’ll follow the United States’ initiative for economic sanctions with Russia in light of this tragedy especially if it’ll be proven that pro-Russian separatists were really involved.
Hopefully, recovery efforts will not be affected in that ongoing war zone so that even the investigators and rescue/recovery team’s lives will not become casualty figures as well. In addition, I hope that no tampering of forensic evidence from the crash site will occur (for purposes of a coverup) since that’s now one hell of a crime scene.
My thoughts and prayers are with the deceased. Hopefully , something good and substantial will come out from this and that they didn’t die in vain. I hope that justice will prevail. They were all just going about their daily lives and have no connection nor desire to get involved with Russian/Ukrainian politics before their lives were unfortunately snuffed out.
Josie
josiesvoice 