Airlines taking risks as Mideast skies filled with ‘hot pieces of flying metal’

Misleading advice and frequent airport closures are making it difficult to evacuate thousands of foreigners stranded in the conflict zone around the Persian Gulf.

A wide area of ​​the Middle East is now considered too dangerous to fly, forcing some flights to Asia to burn more fuel around the danger zone. Flight radar shows an oval-shaped area about 2,500 kilometers wide and 2,000 kilometers north-to-south, centered over Iran, almost devoid of civil aviation as the country endures bombing by the US and Israel.

The main threat to civil aviation in the Gulf – affecting the airspace of more than a dozen countries – is not the hundreds of anti-ballistic missiles and drones launched by Iran, although they certainly pose risks.

An even more serious threat is the heat-seeking air defenses of countries involved in the conflict.

air defense batteries brought down A case of friendly firing between three American F-15 fighter planes came to light in Kuwait on Monday. It was another reminder that when missiles and fighters start flying, air defense teams may react without properly verifying their targets.

Two of the most infamous cases occurred in the skies over and around Iran and involved two of the three main parties in the war. The first was the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes destroyer in 1988. The second was the shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines. ps752 By Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps in 2020.

In an area where tragic mistakes have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilian air travelers, the decision whether or not to fly remains largely ad hoc and may depend on the judgment of the individual pilot.

Canadians concentrated in UAE, Lebanon

Air traffic surged from several airports in the Middle East on Wednesday as both scheduled and chartered flights transported people from Oman, Saudi Arabia and Yemen out of the conflict zone. There was also some traffic from Bahrain, Qatar and Lebanon.

External Affairs Minister Anita Anand said on Wednesday evening that the government is working to stop the booking of seats on charter flights from the UAE and commercial flights from the UAE and other countries.

Anand said there are 200 more seats available for Canadians wishing to leave Lebanon in the next three days. He said only 164 out of more than 23,000 Canadians have requested evacuation from Lebanon – a much lower number than in some previous rounds of the conflict.

Only 2,000 of the more than 100,000 Canadians across the region are requesting help leaving.

The departures board at Beirut International Airport showed mostly cancellations on Wednesday, but Lebanon’s own national carrier Middle East Airlines continued to cycle some flights.

At least one flight, MEA267, departing from Beirut to Istanbul, appeared to make some type of unusual maneuver, deviating dramatically from its path shortly after takeoff before returning to its flight path over the Mediterranean Sea.

Confusion and panic remain among foreigners stranded in the Middle East as they try to understand the sometimes contradictory instructions to leave.

State Department Urged Americans to “Leave Now” There were angry reactions from some in the region’s 15 countries on Tuesday, saying there were no flights available.

The US Embassy in Jerusalem also asked citizens to leave Israel by land using Israeli government shuttles to Jordan, but added that “the US government cannot guarantee your safety.”

European, North American carriers still mostly absent

Europeans are no longer consistent. Several European Union governments advised their citizens to leave the region by air, while the European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued a warning that no one should fly in the airspace of 11 countries.

“The use of air assets capable of operating at all altitudes, including air-defense systems, cruise and ballistic missiles, and interception capabilities, makes the entire affected airspace vulnerable to spillover risks, misidentification, miscalculation, and failure of interception procedures,” EASA warned. Conflict Zone Information Bulletin.

It added that “there is a high risk to civil aviation,” recommending that carriers “will not operate within the affected airspace at all flight levels and altitudes.”

European airlines appear to be largely heeding that advice.

The majority of air passenger traffic in the Gulf region has been from regional carriers such as Saudi, Emirates, Etihad, FlyDubai, Royal Jordanian and Turkish Airlines.

Courtney Miller, aviation security expert at Visual Approaches, told CBC News that one incident in particular was worrisome for the aviation industry, which has already experienced the Iran-Israel exchange last year.

“I think the attacks carried out by Iran in some neighboring Arab countries were not as expected, especially the drone attack on Dubai airport,” he said.

“Typically when we talk about these impacts on aviation, we’re just concerned about the security of the area, not necessarily whether the airport will be targeted.”

This raises concerns whether civil aviation could be intentionally targeted, Miller said.

Should you stay or go?

The war presents a series of important choices for an aviation industry that prides itself on being the safest way to travel mile after mile.

“They’re working to reduce that risk. But we’re talking about war here. So in addition to hitting the airport, there are hot pieces of metal flying in the air,” Miller said.

Despite several high-profile disasters, a fairly ad hoc system continues to control the aviation industry in its decisions regarding wartime flying.

When a national government chooses not to close its airspace, it may rely on airport authorities or individual pilots to make life-or-death decisions on the safety of their passengers as they communicate with national authorities and airports, Miller said.

The Dutch Safety Board issued a series of recommendations to airlines operating in conflict zones as a result of a lengthy investigation into the downing of a Malaysian Airlines jet over Ukraine in 2014.

“Airlines around the world have said they have become more aware of the risks of flying over conflict areas since the crash of flight MH17,” the board’s report said. “Many airlines now make more active efforts to gather accurate information and are more willing to share it with other airlines.”

But it also said that there are some outstanding issues which need to be resolved.

“Investigators found that very few changes related to airspace management have been made by countries dealing with armed conflict within their territories,” the report said.

Miller says his best advice for people in the area is that distance matters.

“If you need to get home to your family, are there any ground-based options to go 50, 100 miles away from what’s happening? If I were in Kuwait, I could go to Saudi Arabia to find a ride out there, and I personally would feel more comfortable putting some distance between me and where the action is happening,” he said.

Miller says that, as a former pilot, he would like to know all the details about the flight path of any plane he boards. But he will not be in any hurry to travel by air.

“A key question will be, what other options do I have?” He said. “We’ll learn more as time goes on…I’ll probably consider staying here as long as I can.”