SEPANG, July 19 ― Under-fire after its jetliner was downed by an anti-aircraft missile, Malaysia Airlines (MAS) maintained today that the skies over Ukraine’s restive east had been safe enough for commercial airlines.

The national carrier said it had carried out its own threat analysis of the flight path and found the route taken by the ill-fated Flight MH17 to have been safe.

“For MAS, our threat analysis says it is safe,” the airline’s operations director Captain Izham Ismail  told a joint press conference with Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai here.

When pointed out that other airlines had avoided flying over the conflict-ridden area, Izham said that Australia’s Qantas Airways and South Korea’s Korean Air Lines do not typically fly that route in any case.

Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) director-general Datuk Azharuddin Abdul Rahman also insisted that it was the responsibility of the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to issue warning of potential dangers, including military conflicts.

“If there's any conflict or dangerous situation on the ground, they're responsible to come up with a notice,” said Azharuddin, who was also at the press conference.

International news wire Reuters reported the UN body as saying earlier today that it was not their job to warn about missiles or the potential dangers of flying over a certain area.

The US believes that Flight MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from a region controlled by pro-Russia separatists.

All 298 aboard the Boeing 777 died after the commercial plane crashed near a Ukrainian village on Thursday.

Liow pointed out that Eurocontrol, which approves European flight paths under ICAO rules, had reportedly said that about 400 commercial flights flew over eastern Ukraine every day before the crash.

“MH17’s flight path was a busy major airway, like a highway in the sky,” he said.

“It followed a route which was set out by the international aviation authorities, approved by Eurocontrol, and used by hundreds of other aircraft. It flew at an altitude set, and deemed safe, by the local air traffic control. And it never strayed into restricted airspace,” the minister added.