Originally Posted by
Expatrick
You seem, on the one hand to imply that airlines should have known (that the airspace was unsafe) while also implying that no one could know that was the case.
At least that's how it seems to read.
Ukraine airspace is "owned" by the military and released by them, at their discretion, for civil use, in conjunction with UkSATSE (Ukr AMC). Both the Ukrainian military & AMC are closest to the situation and should have the relevant awareness. If in doubt, close it down!
Aha. OK, let me explain.
When deciding, one usually makes decisions based on "hard" facts. Unless the consequences are severe, then one starts to caution towards the safe side, especially in aviation. So, when there is a developing war zone, still not full scale, presumably partial safe, one can assume, the development towards a full-scale unsafe situation does continue, and some moment in time will reach the "unacceptable" qualification.
So, even when the airspace owner declares the airspace safe, the logic of continuity suggests a growing unsafe situation (until proven otherwise). Depending on one's judgement, a use/not-use switch comes sooner or later. So, some airlines started to avoid Ukraine earlier than others. Even when MH17 would not have been shot down, it could very well be, all airlines would have decided to avoid Ukraine airspace, within a week or so. Though, this is difficult to judge, 8+ years later.
Does this explain the perceived contradiction ?
In general, I don't think, there was operational knowledge, the Buk was in Ukraine. IIRC, when shooting down the MH17. On July 14/15 an armament convoy arrived in Luhansk/Donetsk, the Buk is reported to have arrived 2 days later in Donetsk around 9:00 (am) on July 17, presumably, direct from Russia along the same route from the border, subsequently departed Donetsk around 10:30 (am) and it got deployed immediately after it arrived from Donetsk in Snizhne.
Oh, the Buk is there to protect the armament against air-based attacks, against which the armament itself does not have protection.
So, the Buk was less than a day (maybe 12 hours) on occupied Ukraine territory, before MH17 was shot down. That's incredibly short, to get this kind of information spread through government organizations, military or not (the US took 3 days to realize and wake-up, there was a China Spy balloon overhead Montana).
See:
Bellingcat about the MH17-Buk route