Flying over Iran/Iraq/Syria ....

[Barnsley]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... India.html

Any airlines that are from countries that are unlikely to be shot at?

[JR8]

Any airlines that are from countries that are unlikely to be shot at?

They mistook a Malay civil aircraft for a Russian military one so identification (by a p'd up rabble of soldiers?) is a perhaps a deeper issue.

But read the comments after the article and you'll see the question is pretty well answered.
For example:
- The missiles in question are 'ground-hugging' in their trajectory, i.e. low altitude.
- And, they're surface-to-surface missiles, not surface-to-air, so targeting aircraft is not possible. Unlike what happened in Ukraine.

Last time we flew E>W we skirted Ukraine (then a high-risk zone/war-zone) completely. And IIRC for another section we were flying higher than is common, around 34-6k feet IIRC.

[ecureilx]

They mistook a Malay civil aircraft for a Russian military one so identification (by a p'd up rabble of soldiers?) is a perhaps a deeper issue..

Years ago USN shot down an Iranian Airbus climbing to cruise altitude, mistaken as an F14 reducing altitude to possibly fire a sea skimming missile because the computer said so.

No offense to anybody ...

What stops a rag tag bunch of trigger happy "rebels" with missiles able to reach high altitude ?

[Barnsley]

They mistook a Malay civil aircraft for a Russian military one so identification (by a p'd up rabble of soldiers?) is a perhaps a deeper issue..

Years ago USN shot down an Iranian Airbus climbing to cruise altitude, mistaken as an F14 reducing altitude to possibly fire a sea skimming missile because the computer said so.

No offense to anybody ...

What stops a rag tag bunch of trigger happy "rebels" with missiles able to reach high altitude ?

Thats my point , who knows who has what these days , as seen by the Malaysia Airlines shooting down, and what folk are prepared to do.

[menudown]

best is to avoid flying over areas where likely shot by this Russians...their missiles couldn't identify between commercial and fighter plane...there's a possibility they end up shooting their own plane

[JR8]

This week saw a Russian jet crash over the Egyptian Sinai desert. The jury is still out on what caused it.
The Egyptian authorities are already battling an ongoing and long-term insurrection vs their own Bedouin people. I wouldn't be surprised if the Bedouin tied up with ISIS, which would make an already dodgy Sinai peninsular a hazard to over-fly. The Bedouin are the group behind bombing Sharm and [IIRC?] Dahab a few years ago.
That flight originated out of Sharm-el-sheikh, a major diving and 'winter-sun' destination for tourists from northern Europe. Sharm is a huge money spinner for the resource poor Egyptian government. It's already been a 'locked down' city, militarily, for 10+ years. What better way to hit the government than knowingly shoot down a plane of tourists returning home from 'the Orlando of the Middle East'.
The Sinai, bordered on it's west by the Suez Canal... perhaps the biggest east<>west trade-route and choke-point in the world.

p.s. re: no-fly zones. Add to that Syria and eastern Turkey, plus the southern ex Soviet republics. I reckon if I looked at a world map I could demarcate a region that if I'd a choice I'd not overfly right now, and it's big. It's right under the EU <> SE Asia flight-path, which relies upon altitude to reduce the risk. All bets are off if 'the enemy' get missiles that can reach 40k feet.

[Strong Eagle]

At present, it would appear that the aircraft was not hit by a missile. Sinai is a demilitarized zone. It would be difficult to smuggle in the kind of SAM weaponry necessary to reach 33,000 feet. Israel watches this area like a hawk... if there had been a missile strike they would have known about it.

More likely, the plain either experienced catastrophic frame failure, perhaps as a result of a poorly repaired tail strike, or, more likely still, a bomb on board the airplane in the aft luggage section was detonated.

[JR8]

Agreed, anything conclusive is going to take time to emerge, meanwhile the theory and rumour-mills will churn.

The Sinai a DMZ? Well yes I think I see your point there, that is why the UN forces are there, to ensure free passage of shipping up the west of the territory to Europe and beyond (Gulf of Suez), and the east side (Gulf of Aqaba) which is the main trade route into Israel/Jordan and points beyond.

But the Egypt/Israel border is notoriously porous; much of it is desert wilderness that's impossible to police 24/7. It's prone to smuggling, there are subterranean tunnels that have been dug and are routine x-border smuggling routes, one gets closed and another gets dug. I think it's fair to suggest it's via these tunnels that the various groups (Palestinians etc) in Israel/'Occupied Territories' arm themselves. Can one assume such trade is all going one way - hmmm not IMHO?

Add the Bedouin (like camel-borne nomadic gypsies) who harbour an old and big grievance against what's notionally their own government, together with ISIS's source of funding, and the worry is that the two sides come together quite naturally.

It'd be something if it was an on-board device. The security at SSH is huuuge. A couple of military checkpoints on the short ride from town, plus at the entrance to the airport (huge perimeter wall, with sentry posts every c50M). Then once more to get off the street and into the departure hall (with full id checking and X-Ray) - where I've seen the hapless pulled out of line for having as much as a 1cm souvenir sea-shell in their luggage. Then the screening at check-in/customs and a final one at the gate.

IME it would have to be some form of 'inside job' to get through all of that, and I somehow doubt the scale of such required would be possible. Hence why until shown otherwise I'm thinking high-altitude SAM, or simple structural frame failure is probably the cause.