'It was clearly a war zone': Aviation experts question why Flight PS752 was cleared to fly

Justhours after Iran fired ballisticmissiles at twobases in Iraq housing U.S. and coalition troops, Ukraine International Airlines FlightPS752was shot down after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini airport, killing all 176 people on board including 57 Canadians.

Now, questions are being raised over why the plane was allowed to fly in what some aviation security experts say was clearlya conflict zone.

Earlier this week, Canada and the U.S.saidthey had evidence indicatingthe plane was hit by a missile launched by Iran, but Iran initially denied the allegation. Then, Saturday morning local time, Iranian state TV, citing a military statement, saidthe country "unintentionally"shot down theUkrainian jetliner becauseof "human error."

Andrew Nicholson, CEO ofOsprey Flight Solutions, a U.K.-based organization that provides risk management analysis for the aviation industry, said airlines should not have been operating in and out of that area on Wednesdaygiven that Iran had launched missile attacks against Iraq just hours earlier.

It was inevitable that Iranian forces would have been on high alert in case the U.S.launched a counterattack, he said.

Iran's statement said the military was at its "highest level of readiness" andmistook the planefor a "hostile target" after it turned toward a "sensitive military centre" of the Revolutionary Guard.

"The threat to civil aviation was certainly heightened, there's no doubt about that," Nicholson said."It is a very serious question that has to be asked ofthe relevant authoritiesshould they have even been allowed to take off?"

'Absolutely not'

Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the U.S. Department of Transportation, says the answer is"absolutely not."

"It was clearly a war zone and once the war operations started, once the missiles were fired, certainlythere needed to be additional consideration as to, should we be operating here?" she said.

Watch:Aviation expert says Flight PS752 should neverhave been cleared for takeoff.

'It's a missile strike': Aviation expert on Iran plane crash

5 years ago

Duration 8:39

Aviation expert says the downed plane in Iran should not have been in the air in the first place

Iranhad launched the missile strikes in retaliation for the U.S.'stargeted killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani just days earlier in Iraq. Both moves seemed to risk heightening hostilities between the U.S. and Iran.

Schiavo said theplane could not have taken off unless Iranian air traffic control gave itclearance. Beyond that, it was entirely within the discretion of the airline dispatchand the pilot.

She pointed out that many of the world's airlines had been avoiding the area.Air Canada is the only Canadian carrier with flights in the region, but the airline confirmed to CBC News on Wednesday that it has not had flights that go through Iranian air space since the middle of last year.

"Would it have been more prudent just to say, 'We're not going to have operations in and out of there forthree or four days'?" Schiavo said. "That discussion came up big time withMH17."

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot downover territoryheld by pro-Russia separatists in Eastern Ukraine in July 2014, killing 298 people, including one Canadian.

In its report into that crash, the Dutch Safety Board concluded that the aviation parties involved hadnot adequately recognizedtherisks of the armed conflict in the area. But it also found that the current system of assessing risks associated with flying over conflict areas is "in urgent need of improvement."

Risk assessment a challenge

Risk assessment, said Nicholson, continuesto be a challengefor the aviation industry.

The most important part of a risk assessment is having "a thorough understanding of the situation that you're operating in," he said.

"Understanding what that threat is,is not easy. You have to have a significant amount of resourcesand a significant amount of expertise to be able to do that."

But there have beensignificant improvements in risk management since the downing of MH17, he said.

The Montreal-basedInternational Civil Aviation Organization, for example, has taken a leadership role by publishing advice for their UN member states to assist them with the assessment of risks to civil aircraft operationsover or near conflict zones. Member states, however, are responsible for this assessment and for advising operators.

OPSGROUP, an organization that provides flight operations intelligence for pilots,launched the free website Safe Airspace to provide guidance after MH17. In a recent interview with Reuters, founder Mark Zee said the major airlines have the resources to run their own security departments to handlerisk assessment.

"For everyone else and that is thousands of operators I can tell you that many of them have a really hard time making a decent risk assessment. I see it in the emails we get every day."

WATCH | CBC's Susan Ormiston examines why Flight PS752was cleared to fly in wake of missile strikes:

Why Flight 752 could take off amid missile strikes

5 years ago

Duration 2:08

If Iran was firing missiles at U.S. military bases in Iraq that night, why was Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 able to take off? CBC Newss Susan Ormiston looks for answers.

Different view

ButPhilip Baum, a U.K.-basedaviation security expert, saidthe MH17 disaster isn't exactly comparable to what may have happened withFlightPS752.

"I think that was very different because MH17 was flying over a conflict zone."

Flight PS752 had just departed an airport, but most crashes in whichaircraft have been hit by missileshave occurredwith aircraft at cruising altitudes, he said.

Baum also noted that other airlines at the Tehran airport had continued with their flights before PS752took off.

He said ifhe had been doing a risk assessment of the area in Iran, he wouldn'thave necessarily recommended grounding all flights.

"Yes, you could say it was near a conflict zone.But the problem was Iraq. It wasn't Iran," he said.