Originally Posted by
BB97
The route was approved by Eurocontrol ATC, safe per ICAO, IATA.
However the airline has a responsibility to apply contingency planning as is done with high terrain on a route. Escape routes are planned by an airline to cater for the event of engine(s) failure or a depressurisation over areas of very high terrain.
Therefore it is no excuse to say that the route was approved by the Eurocontrol ATC. It must be assumed that an engine failure or depressurisation can occur at anytime. A B777 at a cruise altitude cannot maintain normal cruise altitude with a 50% loss of thrust due to an engine failure. At the sort of weight at that stage of flight, the one engine inoperative maximum altitude would have been in the region of 20,000 to 23,000 feet (depending on actual weight and air density). The point is that it is not relevant to say that as the upper limit of the war zone is 32,000 feet and as the aircraft was at 33,000 feet it was therefore, "safe". No consideration was given to a possible engine failure, depressurisation or cargo fire, requiring an immediate descent and placing it well with the assumed missile range. As we now know, 32,000 feet was a painfully flawed assumption in any case.
This route was taken for purely commercial reasons, now the airline is hiding behind an ATC approval. Since then, they have also flown over Syria.
The original route closure was up to FL240. This was subsequently raised to FL320. It would appear that was to allow for the descent to max altitude one engine inoperative. So someone thought that only aircraft FL240 and below were potential targets and those above FL240 were safe, then added float down margin so made the closure up to FL320. So first available cruise level was FL330.
Nobody thought that civil aircraft would be targets and no civilian authorities were aware of (or understood) the capabilities of the SAM's being used in the region.