Flight #MH17 – Countering the sickening blame games on this dark day

It has been a dark difficult day for me like for so many others today. Remembering the victims of Flight MH17, thinking about everything that was written and said about this horrible incident, including my own words. We wend to church today, my girlfriend and newly found family at my side. We mourned together, we prayed together. We were close, as family and that means more to me than I am able to express. Back at my aunt’s house, tears overwhelmed me and I cried, my family cried with me. Again I felt flashes of anger boiling inside me, feelings I don’t want to have but I can’t avoid. My aunt sensed it, held my hand and just sat there with me. I felt what it means to have a family on this dark sad day.

And then I got a message from my dear friend Anna, a shocking message which sums up all the damage done by all the blame games going on since the massacre of Flight MH17. She wrote me “Do you hate me today?”. I tried to call her immediately but she didn’t answer the calls. But she wrote another message. “Your press all say we did it. Please don’t hate me for this!”.

My dear sweet friend finally answered the phone after many tries.

I don’t hate you, how could I hate you? Why should I hate you, you are my friend!

But they all blames us for killing your people a year ago. They all hate us for it, you also.

I don’t care what they write or what they say and no matter what, I don’t hate you. You are my friend!

But what if it was us? What if we did this?

We both know it wasn’t you and we both don’t know who it was. We will have to wait what the investigations show and no matter what it will show, it wasn’t you.

Will you still talk to me when they say it was us?

When that happens, I will talk even more to you than I do now. You are my friend, we have been friends since we were kids.

Flight #MH17 – Who allowed this to happen?

There are ongoing investigation into the crash of Flight MH17 by JIT and DSB which might or might not identify who is responsible for the attack on the commercial airliner in 17 July 2014. But there is another question to be answered which might help saving lives in the future:

Who allowed this to happen?

A friend does trainings coachings on the topic of Health and Safety for companies and his booklet provides a practical checklist for incidents every manager should ask himself whenever an incident occurred.. Two questions from this checklist keep circling my mind in relation to the crash of Flight MH17:

What have you done to prevent this?

What will you do to prevent this from happening again?

Looking at the days before the attack on Flight MH17 and at the current situation in various war-zones and unstable regions around the world, the answer to both questions appears to be “ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!”

Flight #MH17 – Investigations and jurisdiction

After the downing of Flight MH17 over embattled Eastern Ukraine on 17/07/2014, killing 298 civilians on board the plane, 3 (!) investigations were initiated by two separated bodies of authority:

1. The Dutch Safety Board (DSB), under authority of the United Nations body International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and in agreement with the Ukrainian State Aviation Administration (SAA) and Ukrainian National Bureau of Incidents and Accidents Investigation of Civil Aircraft (NBAAII) , opened the Aviation Security Investigation for the incident in which it is to determine what caused the crash of Flight MH17 and is also expected to provide recommendations to prevent such incidents in the future. The DSB has published a preliminary report in which it excluded technical and human failure as possible causes for the crash. An updated reported was distributed to the participants, being:
   1. The Netherlands (*)
   2. Ukraine (*)
   3. Russian Federation
   4. United States of America
   5. Malaysia
   6. United Kingdom
   7. Belgium (*)
   8. Australia (*)
2. The DSB under the same authority, opened an investigation into the decision making process under which the airspace over embattled Eastern Ukraine was not closed prior to the incident, despite multiple aviation incidents in which military planes have been shutdown from various flight levels in the days prior to the crash of Flight MH17.
3. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) (*), per agreement between the member countries under the leadership of the Justice Department of The Netherlands, opened the criminal investigation into the crash of Flight MH17 in which it will seek evidence of the guilty party/parties and adequate evidence for prosecution.

Although these investigations by the DSB and JIT will have significant overlap in available data and resources, it is important to understand the difference. First and foremost, the DSB will focus on the Aviation Safety related issues of the incident and recommendation for prevention. This investigation is bound by the rules of and authorized by the ICAO, which also stipulates that all ICAO members are obliged to participate in and contribute to the investigation on request of the leading committee. ICAO also stipulates that all members are bound to recognize the final outcome of the investigation and the ruling by the investigative body. None of this applies to the work of the JIT!

Flight #MH17 – It happened before, a sad history of attacks on commercial airlines

It has been almost a year since Flight MH17 was attacked and brought down over Eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 innocent civilians on board the commercial airliner. Although we are still under shock of this horrible incident and the next of kin of the victims are still struggling with the traumas of this dramatic event, this is by far an unique incident. It happened before and it might happen again. This is an overview of the sad recent history of attacks on commercial airlines:

• Iranian Air Flight 655 was shot down on 03/07/1988 by the USA, killing 290 innocent civilians on board.
• Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 was shot down on 04/10/2001 by Ukraine, killing 78 innocent civilians on board.
• Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down on 17/07/2014 killing 298 innocent civilians on board and it is still to be determined who is responsible for this incident.

These flights have several facts in common:

• All flights were registered standard commercial flights flying within their agreed flight path under internationally recognized Air Traffic Control.
• All flights were transmitting international standard identification codes which clearly identified them as commercial flights.
• All flights were shot down by military air defense systems.
• At first, those responsible for this horrible incident denied responsibility…

Flight MH17 has however some facts which set it aside from the 2 other very traumatic incidents: