Originally Posted by
BFSGrad
SFAR 77, which is currently active, prohibits air carrier ops below FL320 in the Baghdad region. BAW35 was well above this altitude during cruise flight.
As an aside this FL320 restriction does not come from US military intelligence but is given by the Iraqi authorities to allow overfights and get the dollars associated with the overflight charges. It was excatly the same restriction in force over east Ukraine at the time of MH17 for excatly the same reasons : money..
The question we had as ATC at the time of Ukraine was what would a pilot would do if instructed to decend to FL310 due to conflicting traffic .Refuse the instruction .? before mentioning TCAS, Russian military transponders are ot visible on TCAS and are not RSVM either Just like in Yemen at the moment there are SAM deployed in Iraq. Some iIraqi militia having them are controlled by Iran . Most of the western controllers working in Baghdad ATC have left the country. Why do some airlines ( not all) are still overflying Iraq ? : same reason as in Ukraine in 2014 : saving money.
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