Airlines Advised To Not Fly Over All Of Ukraine Over 'Extreme' Risk; Russia Shuts Down Eastern Ukrainian Airspace

Russia has issued a notice to air missions (NOTAM), closing almost all of Eastern Ukrainian airspace.

What Happened: The civil aviation notice comes with “no limit or ending time,” according to a tweet by Open Source Intelligence Monitor. 

Russia has Issued a Civil Aviation NOTAM closing almost all of Eastern Ukrainian Airspace near the border with Russia No Limit or ending time is currently provided. pic.twitter.com/mLSxUN5XJ6

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) February 23, 2022

Safe Airspace, a conflict zone and risk database set up in response to the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, raised the risk level related to Ukraine to Level 1. 

“Regardless of the actual movements of Russian forces into Ukraine, the level of tension and uncertainty in Ukraine is now extreme. This itself gives rise to significant risk to civil aviation. For this reason, and based on OPSGROUP member discussions, we assess Ukraine as Level 1 - Do Not Fly,” read a notice posted on Safe Airspace’s website.

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Why It Matters: While the primary risk is an unintended targeting of civil aircraft by the military, the secondary risk identified by Safe Airspace is “potential lack of Ukrainian Air Traffic Control Service at short notice (Cyber Attack), and other unforeseeable non-normal operating environments for civil aircraft.”

A check of the flight tracking website FlightRadar24 indicates that most of the airspace over Crimea, and Ukraine appears to be void of civilian air traffic.

Air Traffic Map — Courtesy FlightRadar24

Markets in the United States closed lower on Wednesday with S&P 500 SPY down 1.8% at 4,225.50 and the Nasdaq losing 2.6% at 13,037.49.

Stocks of major airlines all dropped, amid a market-wide rout, on Wednesday.

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