Within hours of the tragedy, the media had picked up data from flightradar24, a live flight-tracker website, showing the AI and Singapore Airlines aircraft in the vicinity.
MUMBAI: When Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down in Ukraine on July 17, two other passenger aircraft - of Air India and Singapore Airlines - were flying close to it. While India has denied this, a Singapore government statement in that country's parliament on Monday seemed to confirm it.
Singapore's transport minister Lui Tuck Yew told the parliament that Flight SQ351, headed to Singapore from Copenhagen, was just 90km (56 miles) from the Malaysian plane at that time. TOI had carried a report on July 20 saying AI's Delhi-Birmingham flight was flying barely 25km, or 90 seconds away, from the Malaysian aircraft when the latter was hit. All 298 people on board flight MH17 had died.
Within hours of the tragedy, the media had picked up data from flightradar24, a live flight-tracker website, showing the AI and Singapore Airlines aircraft in the vicinity. The two aircraft were at different altitudes though. The Malaysian one was flying east, while the AI and Singapore aircraft were flying west. The AI pilots were even asked by the Dnipropetrovsk (local Ukrainian) ATC to contact the Malaysian aircraft after it went off the radar.
The Indian civil aviation ministry continues to deny the AI aircraft was near flight MH17.
Yew informed the parliament that the Singapore Airlines aircraft was flying close to the Malaysian one since there are no restrictions for flights above 32,000 ft (9,800 metres) nor any information suggesting threats to aircraft at those heights.
FlightRadar24 image showing SQ351 and AI113 in the same airspace as MH17 when it was last seen on radar.
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