The tragedy of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 could have been avoided if information about missile launches in the Ukraine area had been shared with carriers, according to Emirates president Tim Clark.
Clark claims that some airlines were aware of the danger of surface-to-air missiles in the region, but that they did not pass this intelligence on.
Flight MH17, which was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and carrying 298 people, was shot down, reportedly by pro-Russia rebels, over Ukraine in July (see news, July 17).
The first report into the disaster, published last week, concluded the B777 broke up in mid-air after being hit by "a large number of high-speed objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside" (see news, September 9).
In the aftermath of the tragedy, Clark called for an international airline conference to discuss how best to respond (see news, July 21).
He is now calling for an information "clearing house" to be coordinated to warn all airlines of any impending threats.
Clark told the BBC: "There was evidence that these missiles had been on site, in situ for a number of weeks beforehand.
"Emirates did not know of that fact, and I don't think many others did. Had we known that, we would probably have reacted in a manner that would have seen a complete avoidance of Ukrainian airspace, probably as an industry.
"We have a concern that information was known by certain stakeholders... and should have been passed... at least to the industry, to the organisations that regulate the industry.
"We understand now that certain carriers were aware of that and had already taken avoidance action."
malaysiaairlines.com, emirates.com
Graham Smith
