Agree with Douglas from El Paso. More than one source has reported investigators' conclusions that Air France 447 pilots and instruments were mislead by signals from impaired (iced?) pitot tube airflow sensors. Whether its crew reacted incorrectly in this context is less well established.

Mr Fallows is a fine journalist and I have no doubt a fine pilot. He's not an engineer.

Mr. Fallows discounts the "open intel" of the news media that hostilities in the Crimea are ongoing. With that knowledge, the highly prudent move for airlines would be to re-route around the area. There are obvious possible additional costs (fuel, possible landing/refueling costs), but it would minimize more permanent losses.

Your commentator, James Fallows, in his remarks on the downing of Iran Air flight 655 by the US Navy, concluded that this was a tactical mistake at the operational level. Maybe so, but please remember that during the same period of time, in 1988, the US was engaged in other hostilities towards Iran. For example, the US attacked the Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf, creating an environmental disaster.

The context is important. The US justified its aggression towards Iran by saying Iran was mining the shipping routes in the Persian Gulf. However, the International Court of Justice stated "the actions of the United States of America against Iranian oil platforms on 19 October 1987 (Operation Nimble Archer) and 18 April 1988 (Operation Praying Mantis) cannot be justified as measures necessary to protect the essential security interests of the United States of America."

It is also noteworthy that in 1990, the captain of the USS Vincennes, William Rogers III, was awarded the Legion of Merit decoration "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer ... from April 1987 to May 1989.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Vincennes_(CG-49)#Iran_Air_Flight_655_tragedy

I recall that the cause of the Air France crash that Fallows mentioned was the failure of an outboard sensor caused by icing. I don't recall Fallows' mentioning this.

Contrary to what was implied by the discussion, not all airline hijackers are islamic.

Regarding the Buffalo crash, James Fallows stated the pilots reacted wrongly to icing conditions. While the pilots did react wrongly, and the conditions were conducive to ice accumulation, investigators concluded that ice was not a factor in the accident.

The discussion of the examples of airliners shot down brought to mind the crash of TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996, exactly 18 years before the Malaysia Airlines jet was shot down on July 17, 2014. Despite many eyewitness accounts of a flare shooting skyward seconds before the plane exploded, the TWA 800 disaster was found to have been caused by a mishap in a fuel tank, not a missile.

The fact that most airlines were flying over the Ukraine war zone, that they were doing the *normal* thing, doesn't absolve them of some responsibility for what happened, especially since at least a couple of others knew better and avoided it. Most people in this country 250 years ago thought enslaving Africans was OK. Others knew better, but wouldn't speak out against it, much less work to abolish it, for reasons of perceived personal advantage. Yet another group, albeit a very small one, knew slavery was wrong and took a moral stand. Whose actions are worthy of respect today?

I continue to be amazed, despite my incredulity regarding the US corporate-funded media (and more than a bit regarding OTM) that, in all the MH-17-related discussion of passenger-aircraft shootdowns and other disasters, one is so rarely mentioned: Siberia Airlines flight 1812[1]. It wasn't that long ago (2001), and it directly (though inconveniently) involves one of the Ukrainian combatants (unfortunately *not* the separatists :-) It even killed Israelis, which is always above-the-fold for the USCFM (compared to Palestinian deaths, anyway). Is your incentive to blame anyone but the Ukrainian military so strong that you can't even *mention* that, BTW, they have already shot down one commercial flight?

It also strains credulity that Malaysia Airlines didn't notice that there seems to be this little war going on in eastern Ukraine. When Jim Fallows says, "most airline companies are not in a position to do sort of political risk intel," I hafta "sort of" guffaw. MA is a publicly-traded corporation "keen on selling shares"[2]--can you say "fiduciary responsibility"?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Airlines_1812
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysian_Airlines#Corporate_information