I would first like to offer my deepest condolences to the families who had lost their love ones in the horrible incident. My thoughts go out with you and I pray that you would be strong in these trying period.
I am writing in with the hope to raise the awareness that Singapore Airlines has a need to answer to why there were still flying over the eastern Ukraine Air space despite mounting tensions over that area, even though other airlines have already stopped flying over the disputed area and had taken on a longer alternative route due to security concerns.
It was definitely not comforting to know that from airline tracking records of Flightradar24, an SQ flight was just 25km away from MH17 when it was shot down from the sky. After the release of this data, what made it worse was Singapore Airline's almost immediate statement on Facebook stating that "Customers may wish to know that Singapore Airlines flights are not using Ukraine airspace", purposely missing out an all important word of either "anymore". or "since". (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-airlines/1270454...) - The Facebook post is still there
It was only a a later media statement that SQ stated that "Singapore Airlines is no longer using Ukrainian airspace". However, they did not comment (meaning they did not deny) on the report that the SQ flight was 25km away. (http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/transport/story/malaysia-airl...)
It was later confirmed during Malaysia's Transport Minster's press confirm that 15 out of 16 Asia Pacific Airlines uses that route, and prior to that Asiana Airlines (one of the 16 Asia Pacific Airlines), Singapore Airlines would be thus one of the 15 to use that route.
As such, I would like to call on Singapore Airlines to explain why there were still using this route despite the on-going tensions, rather than being more security conscious like some of the other airlines and choose to take a longer detoured route?
Kokky
TRS Contributor