The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) yesterday said it had instructed all carriers to avoid flying over Ukraine after a Malaysian civilian airplane was apparently shot down on Thursday, killing all 298 people on board.
The agency added that neither China Airlines (華航) nor EVA Airways (長榮航空) — the nation’s two biggest airlines — used the same route as the Malaysian carrier.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was reported to have been shot down by an surface-to-air missile, likely by Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“We have sought to verify with the Malaysia Airlines office in Taipei and see if there was any Taiwanese passenger on board the airplane,” the agency said in a statement.
“The office said it is still trying to identify the nationalities of some of the deceased passengers,” it said.
China Airlines said that none of its passenger or cargo flights to Europe fly over Ukraine, adding that it changed its route soon after the Kiev government on April 3 declared part of its airspace as a danger zone for civilian aircraft.
“Flights from Europe to Asia will continue flying through the airspace of Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and India,” the airline said.
EVA Airways president Austin Cheng (鄭傳義) confirmed that one of its flights from Paris to Taipei flew over Ukrainian airspace at about 8pm on Thursday, but added that the plane took a route further south from the one flown by the Malaysian airplane and that it left Ukrainian airspace two hours before the airstrike.
Cheng also condemned the missile attack.
“Many airlines chose to fly over Ukrainian airspace because it is time-efficient,” he said.
“We had changed the aviation route when the conflict between Ukraine and Russia escalated earlier this year,” he said. “After the conflict eased, we evaluated the situation and thought it might be safe to fly over Ukrainian airspace again because the flights would be operating at 30,000 feet [9,144m] above the ground, but we chose a route further down south to lower the risk.”
EVA said its Paris-Taipei flight took the aviation route labeled “L984” on Thursday night, but the Malaysian Airlines flight was flying the route labeled “L980.”
The two routes are about 400km apart over Ukraine, it said.
Nevertheless, Cheng said that the airline’s flights to Europe will now pass through Turkey instead, which will increase the estimated travel time by 20 minutes.
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