Day: Jul 19, 2014

MH17 Incident: Malaysia Airline Media Statement 4; Friday, July 18, 08:20 PM GMT +0800

Media Statement 4: MH17 Incident

1.    Flight plan

MH17’s flight plan was approved by Eurocontrol, who are solely responsible for determining civil aircraft flight paths over European airspace. Eurocontrol is the air navigation service provider for Europe and is governed under ICAO rules.

The route over Ukrainian airspace where the incident occurred is commonly used for Europe to Asia flights. A flight from a different carrier was on the same route at the time of the MH17 incident, as were a number of other flights from other carriers in the days and weeks before. Eurocontrol maintains records of all flights across European airspace, including those across Ukraine.

In April, the International Civil Aviation Organization identified an area over the Crimean peninsula as risky. At no point did MH17 fly into, or request to fly into, this area. At all times, MH17 was in airspace approved by the ICAO.

2.    Altitude

MH17 filed a flight plan requesting to fly at 35,000ft throughout Ukrainian airspace. This is close to the ‘optimum’ altitude.

However, an aircraft’s altitude in flight is determined by air traffic control on the ground. Upon entering Ukrainian airspace, MH17 was instructed by Ukrainian air traffic control to fly at 33,000ft.

3.    Nationalities

Following this afternoon’s press conference, Malaysia Airlines can confirm that a further 16 passengers’ nationalities have been verified. The latest breakdown of nationalities of those on board the flight is as follows:

·         189 Netherlands

·         44 Malaysia

·         27 Australia

·         12 Indonensia

·         9 UK

·         4 Belgium

·         4 Germany

·         3 Philippines

·         1 Canada

·         1 New Zealand

Four passengers’ nationalities remain to be verified.

4.    New flight route

Following this incident, Malaysia Airlines now avoids Ukrainian airspace entirely, flying further south over Turkey.

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MH17 Incident: Malaysia Airline Media Statement 3; Friday, July 18, 01:30 PM GMT +0800 

Media Statement 3 : MH17 Incident

The B777-200 aircraft bearing registration no. 9M-MRD that operated MH17 on 17 July, 2014 had a clean maintenance record. The aircraft’s last maintenance check was on 11 July 2014. The next check was due on 27 Aug 2014. The maintenance was conducted at Malaysia Airlines’ hangar at KLIA. The aircraft had a clean bill of health.

The aircraft was manufactured in July 1997, and so had 17 years in service.

The aircraft had recorded 75322 hours with a total of 11434 cycles.

All communication system on the aircraft were functioning normally.

The B777-200 uses the Rolls-Royce Trent-800 engine and has a 282 seat capacity.

Malaysia Airline Official MH17 Cargo Manifest and Airway Bill

* Please click here for Malaysia Airline official full lists of  MH17 passenger and cabin crew manifest.

Friday, July 18, 06:40 PM GMT +0800 Cargo Manifest and Airway Bill for MH17.

Below are the Cargo Manifest and Airway Bill that were made public and shared.

 

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