Special: Malaysia Airlines plane crashes in Ukraine

SYDNEY - Airlines including Qantas Airways and Air Berlin altered their flight paths months ago to avoid Ukrainian air space after fighting flared up in the region, raising questions about why others did not do the same.

The issue of whether to avoid flying over conflict zones has come into sharp focus since the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 on Thursday with 298 people in board.

International civil aviation regulators had imposed no restrictions on crossing an area where pro-Russian rebels are fighting Ukrainian forces, and the majority of carriers had continued to use a route popular with long-distance flights from Europe to southeast Asia.

But the fact that a handful of companies decided to circumnavigate the disputed territory underlined inconsistencies in airlines' approach to passenger safety.

Aviation experts said piecemeal and potentially conflicting advice from aviation regulators further confused the situation, and called for clearer guidance on which areas to avoid.

In addition to Qantas and Air Berlin, Asiana Airlines Inc , Korean Air Lines Co Ltd, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd and Taiwan's China Airlines decided to avoid Ukrainian airspace several months ago.

"Although the detour adds to flight time and cost, we have been making the detour for safety," said a spokeswoman for Asiana, which has been diverting its once-weekly cargo flight some 150 km (93 miles) below Ukrainian airspace since March 3.

The European Aviation Safety Agency did issue a safety bulletin, accompanied by recommendations from both the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and Brussels-based Eurocontrol, on April 3, advising that Crimean airspace should be avoided. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March.

But those directives did not apply to the airspace over Ukraine being traversed by Flight MH17 when it was brought down.

"A RED HERRING"

A Malaysian Airlines executive, who requested anonymity, said the downed carrier "followed every safety procedure.

"Some airlines are saying that they avoided the area, but that is a red herring," the executive told Reuters. "There was no reason to avoid this area in question," he added, noting that airlines regularly flew over conflict areas like Afghanistan.

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said on Friday the national airline took no undue risk in flying over Ukraine, a route he stressed was approved by the ICAO and widely used by other airlines. ICAO closed the route after the plane crashed.

"We've flown this route for many years, it's safe and that's the reason why we are taking this route," Liow told a news conference where reporters repeatedly questioned why the airline chose to fly over a war zone.

Thai Airways International, which had also continued to fly over the area until the crash, said there was no reason not to do so.

"Ukraine is not a war zone. Crimea is war zone," spokeswoman Charlene Suddhimondala said.

"Whether we flew over Ukraine really depended on fuel and weather conditions. If the weather was good, sometimes pilots opted to fly over Russia which meant passing through Ukraine."

Some independent experts did not agree.

Geoff Dell, an accident investigation and safety specialist at CQUniversity in Australia, said airlines had their own intelligence operations which should be making decisions in such situations.

"It's blatantly obvious they shouldn't have been anywhere near it," Dell, who was working as a senior safety manager for Qantas during the first Gulf War, said of Flight MH17.

"Any sort of unrest breaks out, civil wars or such, you change your flight path so that you don't have to go anywhere near it. Of course it comes at a cost, because you have to fly further."