MAS Flight MH370
Families of passengers missing and presumed deceased have valuable compensation rights discussed below.
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”MH-370
Date: 0120 (local) on 8 March 2014.Aircraft: Boeing 777-200ER.
Route: Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, MH370/MAS370.
P.O.B.: 227 passengers, 12 crew.
Altitude: 33,000 ft.
Location: Indian Ocean, 1,800km off the coast of Western Australia.
Description: Air traffic control lost contact with aircraft less than an hour after takeoff. At 0724 (local) Malaysia Airlines reported the flight missing.
Injury phase: The aircraft tracked west from its last reported over-water position east of the Malay Peninsula, to the tip of the island of Sumatra, before turning south. Its altitude from that point is unknown but its track has been estimated – by examination of the “Doppler effect” of hourly “handshake” signals received by geo-stationery satellite – to have been southerly. The last of such transmissions was 7 hrs 38 mins after departure from Kuala Lumpur. The aircraft is presumed to have ditched or plummeted into the southern Indian Ocean after fuel exhaustion. It is unknown whether occupants perished due to hypoxia at altitude or as a result of the eventual impact with water.
Operational decisions: The 25 min delay in registering no communications from the aircraft; and four hour delay in activation of Search and Rescue phase after aircraft declared as having lost contact, arguably compromised the interception and/or recovery of the aircraft.
Potentially liable parties: Malaysian Airlines, Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation.
MAS Flight MH-17
Families of passengers missing and presumed deceased have valuable compensation rights discussed below.
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’MH-17
Date: 1320 on July 17 2014.Aircraft: Boeing 777-200.
Route: Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, MH-17.
P.O.B.: 283 passengers, 15 crew.
Altitude: 33,000 ft.
Location: 30km northeast of Donetsk (Ukraine). Transponder ceased normal operations at 1318.
Injury phase: Aircraft was at 33,000 ft, just 1,000 ft above airspace closed by the Ukraine authorities from ground level and on an approved route (airway L980) over the northeast of the country enroute to TAMAK waypoint on the Russian border. The aircraft came down near the villages of Shakhtarsk and Hrabove about 30km inside the Russian border. Wreckage has been identified in an area of about 15km from the townships.
Potentially liable parties: Malaysian Airlines; Ukrainian airspace authority; European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, (Eurocontrol); leaders of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk Republic; the Donetsk Republic itself; and the Russian Federation.