No country, no airline and no one deserves a single or double tragedy that has struck Malaysia Airlines, Malaysia and Malaysians. And those who died or vanished in either MH17 or MH370.
It goes without saying then that we should not add words to deepen the pain in our hearts for these two tragedies. Malaysia Airlines – one of the world's safest carrier – lost 510 passengers, 27 crew member and two planes in the space of 131 days.
But no, some people want to speculate and assign blame immediately to our flag carrier and linking what happened to its lacklustre financial performance. Would any airline try to save fuel and fly over a conflict area?
Several journalists in international magazines and business websites are asking that question. Even the PAS Youth leader is asking why the Malaysia Airlines pilot took a risky route and that MH17 should have followed other commercial planes and flown around Ukraine.
Here's the thing. The route was declared safe above 10,000 metres and MH17 was not operating in restricted airspace, according to a preliminary assessment from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
The Flightglobal website said while eastern Ukraine has been the scene of armed conflict, including attacks on low-flying military transports, IATA stated that the airspace in which the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER was flying "was not subject to restrictions".
Why this condescending attitude that it is Malaysia Airlines' fault?
Would it be fine if the pro-Russian separatists' boast that it shot down an AN-26 transport plane was correct? Would it be different if another commercial jet crashed?
“They were the wrong airline in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Vivian Lines, global vice-chairman and crisis-management expert at Hill+Knowlton Strategies in Singapore, told the Wall Street Journal.
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