PARIS: The downing of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane shows that flying over Russia during the war in Ukraine poses a “higher risk” to civilian flights, the European Union’s aviation safety agency said on Friday.
EASA said in a safety bulletin that the conflict “risks the unintentional targeting of civil aircraft in the airspace of the Russian Federation due to potential civil-military coordination deficiencies and the possibility of misidentification”.
The agency renewed its recommendation for airlines to avoid flying over western Russian airspace. Russia has banned EU airlines from flying through its airspace, but airlines from China, Turkey, the Gulf states and other countries are still allowed.