There was some speculation and confusion a few posts back about the cargo's destination and the flight stages involved in getting it there.
Firstly, its not actually relevant really, but just to add some clarity, I don't see anything unusual about the routing for this flight. Bear in mind National are under no obligation to discuss anything with anybody about the cargo's ultimate destination, which was probably not DWC! Dubai was where it was going next, but quite likely only for a tech stop with crew rest. Where it was going after that is quite frankly nobody's business and we cant expect it to be disclosed.
Quite probably, it was eventually destined to go to a US Military location back on the US mainland. I can already hear the armchair navigators spinning their plastic desk globes around and itching to shout me down on this point, but there's a few detailed things to consider:
* These are professional civilian flight crews and they don't particularly like to crew rest in war zones, so it is quite normal to get in, load up and get out, then crew rest in nearby civilised areas like UAE, or wherever the remaining FDP/Fuel will let them get to.
* These guys operate hot and high at close to max load, so the sectors do tend to be a bit short, add to that a positioning flight into the territory, loading, flight across territory due to fuel limitations and you can see how your FDP is running low already, so off to next nearest familiar civilised tech stop location.
* These flights are not scheduled, so there are no RPL's, they all need to be planned on a sector by sector basis, there are no "blanket permits" for these territories and every territory overflown must be individually contacted to obtain overflight or landing permits. Add into the mix a "diplomatic cargo" such as this one and before you know it every one of the regions in that area will start to demand additional details/time and in many cases can be quite obstructive - for example: where do you need to overfly to get to Dubai? Iran or Pakistan. Good luck trying to organise THAT carrying a military cargo from a US air base, irrespective of whether it is a civilian carrier! It's not impossible but its time consuming and there's every chance the original plan gets re-written several times, maybe even going the long-way-round. Once you get to DWC you're then looking at onward routes involving Iraq, Israel or Egypt. Your sectors back to the US won't be predictable until you are past the Med.
The point I am trying to make is that flights like this in these areas are operationally challenging at every imaginable level and you can't just draw a line between Afghanistan and Dubai and then just file to the closest ATS routes.
I reiterate that whatever the actual operational details of this flight's particular routing were, it is irrelevant to the unfortunate incident that occurred. I just wanted to clarify that there is nothing unusual about the routing scenario that has been mentioned by others.