...fly over a war zone? Could be a sprinkling of bad management there too.
I don't think that particular comment is fair to MH's management, most long haul airlines fly over zones of conflict every single day on a risk managed basis. We don't know what MH's risk management process was, but they were very, very far from being the only airline flying over Eastern Ukraine at the time. Some very big names were in those skies in the same time frame.