Malaysia Airlines picks Syria route now

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airlines re-routed a Kuala Lumpur-to-London flight over Syrian airspace on Sunday after its usual route over Ukraine was closed, flight tracking data showed on Monday. Flightradar24 posted a flight map on its Twitter account on Monday showing the change in the route. Flight tracking data showed this flight had previously crossed over eastern Ukraine.

After Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down last Thursday in eastern Ukraine, airlines began to avoid the airspace. On Friday and Saturday the Kuala Lumpur-London flight, MH4, had taken a different route over eastern Turkey, tracking data showed.

Hundreds of flights routinely crossed over Ukraine before MH17 incident, and it is not unusual for international airlines to overfly war zones such as Syria or Afghanistan.

The US Federal Aviation Administration, whose regulations are among the strictest, "strongly discourages" US operators from flying to, from or over Syria, according to a May 2013 notice.

Malaysia Airlines said MH4's flight plan was in accordance with the International Civil Aviation Organization's approved routes. reuters

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