Civilian Airlines in a Military Zone area

A Military Accident or Just simply Negligence? 

I am not here to blame either sides or even a country for that matter.  I am here to see to it that this event won’t happen in the near future or even totally avoid such peculiarity.  It has been one of the most unlikely events that would happen in transportation industry.  Civilian plane being shot down by military!  A grain in haste tack perhaps, but it has been happening for the past number of years.  In fact based on my research there have been approximately 23 incidents or even more reported in history.  These events usually happens during or after a world war era or a territorial war between two or more country. 

In our time Russia has always been involved in such horrific event either directly or indirectly.  But don’t get me wrong United States on its part has also been involved in such event.  In fact they have done it several times.  It was believed that one of the hijack September 21 plane was shot down during the said event to avoid collision in White house.  There are a lot of reason for such event to happen, but all in all, “It must be avoided or in fact, It should not Happen at all” 

Other events:

Kaleva OH-ALL

Junkers Ju 52-3/mge "Kaleva" OH-ALL was a civilian transport and passenger plane operated by the Finnish carrier Aero O/Y, shot down by two Soviet Ilyushin DB-3 bombers on June 14, 1940, while en route from Tallinn, Estonia, to Helsinki, Finland.^[1] This occurred during the Interim Peace between Finland and the Soviet Union, three months after the end of the Winter War, and a year before the Continuation War began. A few minutes after taking off in Tallinn, Kaleva was intercepted by two Soviet Ilyushin DB-3T torpedo bombers. The bombers opened fire with their machine guns and badly damaged Kaleva, causing it to ditch in water a few kilometers northeast of Keri lighthouse. All 9 passengers and crew members on board were killed.^[2]

KNILM PK-AFV

PK-AFV, also known as Pelikaan, was a Douglas DC-3 (Dakota) airliner operated by KNILM from 1937 to 1942. On March 3, 1942, while on a flight from Bandung, Netherlands East Indies, to Broome, Australia, the plane was attacked by three Japanese Mitsubishi A6M fighter planes; PK-AFV crash-landed on a beach near Broome. Four passengers were killed. Among its cargo were diamonds worth at the time an estimated £150,000–300,000 (in 2013 an approximate £6–13 million), and the vast majority of these were lost or stolen following the crash.^[3][4]

BOAC Flight 777

BOAC Flight 777, a scheduled British Overseas Airways Corporation civilian airline flight on 1 June 1943 from Portela Airport in Lisbon, Portugal, to Bristol (Whitchurch) Airport near Bristol, England, was attacked by eight German Junkers Ju 88s and crashed into the Bay of Biscay, killing several notable passengers, including English actor Leslie Howard.^[5]

1950s

Cathay Pacific VR-HEU

VR-HEU, a four-engined propeller-driven Douglas DC-4 airliner operated by Cathay Pacific Airways,^[6] en route from Bangkok to Hong Kong on July 23, 1954, was shot down by People's Liberation Army Air Force Lavochkin La-7 fighters off the coast of Hainan Island, killing ten on board.^[7][8][9]

El Al Flight 402

El Al Flight 402, a Lockheed L-049 Constellation pressurized four-engine propliner, registered 4X-AKC, was an international passenger flight from Vienna, Austria, to Tel Aviv, Israel, via Istanbul, Turkey, on July 27, 1955. The aircraft strayed into Bulgarian airspace, refused to land, and was shot down by two Bulgarian MiG-15 jet fighters several kilometers away from the Greece border near Petrich, Bulgaria. All seven crew and fifty-one passengers on board the airliner were killed.^[10][11]

1970s

Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114

Libyan Airlines Flight 114 was a regularly scheduled flight from Tripoli, Libya, via Benghazi to Cairo. At 10:30 on February 21, 1973, the Boeing 727 left Tripoli, but became lost with a combination of bad weather and equipment failure over northern Egypt around 13:44 (local). It entered Israeli-controlled airspace over the Sinai Peninsula, was intercepted by two Israeli F-4 Phantom II fighters, refused to land, and was shot down. Of the 113 people on board, 5 survived, including the co-pilot.^[12][13]

Korean Air Lines Flight 902

Korean Air Lines Flight 902 (KAL902, KE902) was a civilian airliner shot down by Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 fighters on April 20, 1978, near Murmansk, Russia, after it violated Soviet airspace and failed to respond to Soviet interceptors. Two passengers were killed in the incident. 107 passengers and crew survived after the plane made an emergency landing on a frozen lake.^[14]

Air Rhodesia Flight RH825

Air Rhodesia Flight RH825, was a scheduled flight between Kariba and Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe), that was shot down on September 3, 1978, by Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) guerrillas using a Strela 2 missile. Eighteen of the fifty-six passengers survived the crash, but ten of the survivors were murdered by the guerrillas at the crash site.

Air Rhodesia Flight RH827

Air Rhodesia Flight RH827 was a scheduled flight between Kariba and Salisbury that was shot down on February 12, 1979, by ZIPRA guerrillas using a Strela 2 missile in similar circumstances to Flight RH825 five months earlier. None of the fifty-nine passengers or crew survived.^[15]

1980s

Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870

Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 crashed in the Tyrrhenian Sea on June 27, 1980. Around forty minutes after take off from Bologna, Italy, an unknown object was seen approaching the aircraft and soon after, the plane disappeared from radar screens. All eighty-one people on board were killed and parts of the wreckage were floating on the water. The cause of the crash is unknown, but one of the leading theories is that it was shot down by NATO forces or jet fighters. This is supported by the then Italian Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga, who attributed the downing to French interceptors, later covered as a part of the Gladio clandestine operation by NATO.^[16] On 23 January 2013 Italy’s top criminal court ruled that there was "abundantly" clear evidence that the flight was brought down by a missile.^[17]

Korean Air Lines Flight 007

Korean Air Lines Flight 007, also known as KAL 007 or KE007, was a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 civilian airliner shot down by a Soviet Su-15TM fighter on September 1, 1983, near Moneron Island just west of Sakhalin island. 269 passengers and crew, including US congressman Larry McDonald, were aboard KAL 007; there were no survivors. An official investigation concluded that the course deviation was likely caused by pilot error in configuring their air navigation system.^[18]

Polar 3

On February 24, 1985, the Polar 3, a research airplane of the Alfred Wegener Institute, was shot down by guerrillas of the Polisario Front over West Sahara. All three crew members died. Polar 3 was on its way back from Antarctica and had taken off in Dakar, Senegal, to reach Arrecife, Canary Islands.^[19]

Air Malawi 7Q-YMB

On November 6, 1987, an Air Malawi Shorts Skyvan 7Q-YMB was shot down while on a domestic flight from Blantyre, Malawi to Lilongwe. The flight plan took it over Mozambique where the Mozambican Civil War was in progress. The aircraft was shot down near the Mozambican town of Ulongwe. The eight passengers and two crew on board were killed.^[20]

Iran Air Flight 655

Iran Air Flight 655 (IR655) was a commercial flight operated by Iran Air that flew from Bandar Abbas, Iran to Dubai, UAE. On July 3, 1988, towards the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the aircraft flying IR655 was shot down by the U.S. Navy Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes when it fired a SM-2MR surface-to-air missile. The airplane was destroyed between Bandar Abbas and Dubai, killing all 290 passengers and crew. It was later claimed by United States Government that USS Vincennes was in Iranian waters at the time of the attack, and IR655, an Airbus A300, was misidentified as an Iranian F-14.^[21]

T&G Aviation DC-7

On December 8, 1988 a Douglas DC-7 chartered by the US Agency for International Development was shot down over Western Sahara by the Polisario Front killing 5. Leaders of the movement said the plane was mistaken for a Moroccan Lockheed C-130. The aircraft was to be used to spray insecticide to control a locust outbreak.^[22]

1990s

1993 Transair Georgian Airline Shootdowns

In September 1993, three airliners belonging to Transair Georgia were shot down by missiles and gunfire in Sukhumi, Abkhazia, Georgia.^[23][24][25]

Lionair Flight LN 602

Lionair Flight LN 602, operated by an Antonov An-24RV, fell into the sea off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka under mysterious circumstances on September 29, 1998. The aircraft departed Jaffna-Palaly Air Force Base on a flight to Colombo and disappeared from radar screens just after the pilot had reported depressurization. Initial reports indicated that the plane had been shot down by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels. All seven crew and forty-eight passengers were killed.^[26]

2000s

2001 Siberia Airlines Flight 1812

On 4 October 2001, Tu-154 crashed over the Black Sea. The plane may have been hit by S-200 surface to air missile, fired from the Crimea peninsula during an exercise of Ukrainian military. All on board (66 passengers and 12 crew) were killed. Then President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma and several high commanders of the military later expressed their condolences to the relatives of the victims.^[27]

2003 Baghdad DHL attempted shootdown incident

On November 22, 2003, shortly after takeoff from Baghdad, Iraq, an Airbus A300 cargo plane owned by European Air Transport (a subsidiary of the German express-mail service DHL) was struck on the left wing tip by a surface-to-air missile. Severe wing damage resulted in a fire and complete loss of hydraulic flight control systems.^[28] The pilots used differential engine thrust to fly the plane back to Baghdad, and were able to land without any injuries or major aircraft damage.^[29]

2007 Balad aircraft crash

On January 9, 2007, an Antonov An-26 crashed while attempting a landing at Balad Air Base in Iraq.^[30] Although poor weather is blamed by officials, witnesses claim they saw the plane being shot down,^[31] and the Islamic Army in Iraq claimed responsibility. Thirty-four of the thirty-five civilian passengers on board were killed.^[31]

2007 Mogadishu TransAVIAexport Airlines Il-76 crash

On March 23, 2007, a TransAVIAexport Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 airplane crashed in outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia, during the 2007 Battle of Mogadishu. Witnesses, including a Shabelle reporter, claim they saw the plane shot down, and Belarus has initiated an anti-terrorist investigation, but Somalia insists the crash was accidental.^[32] All eleven Belarussian civilians on board were killed.^[33]

2010s

2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight 17

On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, flying to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, crashed near Donetsk in the eastern part of Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew are reported killed when the plane crashed from roughly 10 km (6.2 mi) altitude. The crash of Flight 17 coincided with alleged claims by Ukrainian separatists of having shot down a military An-26.^[34]

Near misses

2002 Mombasa attacks

On November 28, 2002, two shoulder-launched Strela 2 (SA-7) surface-to-air missiles were fired at a Boeing 757 airliner owned by Israel-based Arkia Airlines as it took off from Moi International Airport in Mombasa. The missiles missed the plane, and it landed safely in Tel Aviv.^[35][36][37]

^{* Wikipedia articles} 

It has been said that there is a bigger chance for a person to be hit by a moving car than to have an airplane accident.  We do consider this event as an accident, an event which has taken lives or even hundreds, thousands of lives in the world.  For that statement, I believed that aeronautics experts should come up with international guidelines in dealing with this situation during or per-departure procedure is being done.  Before departure, airport authority should make sure that the route taken by the plane should not be within a critical areas of concern.  This Critical area could be classified as follows:

-          Countries with undergoing war

-          High risk Militarized Country such as North Korea and the likes

-     Countries with domestic rebellion or even domestic terrorism, but not including areas that are considered under controlled by the government.

-          Unstable Government (allowable but with high precaution)

-          Countries with territorial disputes ( must be properly coordinated

If done accordingly, these rules would mean safer trips and proper coordination to all countries involved, avoiding recurrence of event. 

Going back, with the Malaysia plane that was shot down, it should have been avoided if airline authorities were able to instruct the pilot to avoid such critical area.  Or in that matter, the pilot should have the initiative to ask airport authorities if the path that they are taking is considered safe of military hostility for that matter.  More than that, I think , it should be taken seriously and be discussed under United Nation Rules on Safety of Travel around the world. 

I hope such event would not happen anymore and all of the rest of the world should learn from what had happen.