MH17: A 'premeditated mass murder' - Emirates CEO

Emirates chief executive officer Sir Timothy Charles Clark wants the culprits involved in the downing of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) MH17 be brought to justice, describing the incident which killed 298 people as a ‘pre-meditated mass murder’.

“So this aircraft was shot down. Others are saying it was by accident, I don't believe that. I believe the aircraft was taken down in the full knowledge of what it was,” he told aviation journalist Andreas Spaeth in an interview which has been made available on the Sydney Morning Herald.

“Clearly there are players like the Dutch who say this was a criminal action and should be treated accordingly under the normal courts of international justice. It was a criminal act; I would call it premeditated mass murder. I hope that in time those responsible will be brought to book.”

The shooting down of MH17 over the Donetsk region of Ukraine was a ‘game changer’ to the airline industry, said Clark, adding that better intelligence sharing is crucial to help airlines select safer flight paths.

“We as an airline community have sometimes little choice but to travel through these conflict zones, or completely avoid them, just not fly. Now we stopped flying to Erbil, to Damascus, to Tripoli, just recently to Sana'a, we had a question mark over Peshawar in Pakistan. These are things we deal with as management all the time. The more information I get, the easier it makes the job for me.

Emirates stopped flying over Iraq in wake of the MH17 disaster, a decision which Clark said was not made based on concrete information but rather a ‘balance of risk’ decision.

“We took the decision not to fly over Iraq after all this and people say: 'Did you know something?'. I didn't know anything; it was in my view on the balance of risk.”

Although regulators like the United States’ Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Union’s Eurocontrol are responsible for determining safety of civil aircraft flight paths, Clark urged for air air-traffic control agencies and local governments to be more forthcoming about information of their respective airspaces to allow airlines and individual countries make better judgements on flight risks, in order to avoid another incident like MH17.

“It's not all about the airlines taking their decisions; most of the time there is a dialogue between the regulator and everybody else.

"But sometimes, the airlines know more than the regulators. If the regulators of other countries had access to what that particular regulator knows about that particular bit of air space, and we share it in a fairly sanitised manner, so they didn't disclose, I'm sure we'll be far better off.”

Emirates, he added, had not received information of potential danger on the troubled eastern Ukraine route at the time of MH 17.

“As an airline group we should have said 'Look, are we sure that the Ukrainian government has control of the air space in which we fly over, are we sure that we cannot be attacked?”

“Even though they say it's clear above a certain flight level. And if that is the case, then we must be absolutely sure that we do not put our passengers, crew and aircraft at risk.”

In July, Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai defended MAS’s move to fly over the eastern Ukrainian airspace, citing commercial airliners from 15 Asia-Pacific countries had also used the same flight path taken by MH17.

"Both the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have clarified that MH17 was not operating in restricted airspace," he said.

Commenting on the ‘survival’ of MAS, Clark said that no other airline had faced two tragedies within a few months of each other and the carrier would have to revisit its business model and consider rebranding.

“Malaysia Airlines carries the brand of Malaysia. It is their ambassador for trade, very difficult to deal with the stigma. A fresh look at what they do a revisiting of their business model, possibly a rebranding.”

“For it to disappear because it had these two frightful incidents, I think all of us in the industry would say this shouldn't be allowed to happen. We need to find a way to help these guys sort out their problems.”

“With that kind of brand damage, that occurred to them, it's extraordinary difficult. In the end, I'm sure they are going through a major re-think, soul searching of what they have to do, they have to keep the airline going, it's so important for what they are.

"They find a way to do it and people will return to it. So time will tell, but it's not easy. They will try to re-brand it, not just the title, but its whole ethos and DNA, they'll gonna have to try persuade the public that these were accidents beyond their control, and move on from that, that they were so unlucky to be subjected to that.”