JULY 18 — As a frequent flyer, particularly around the Asia-Pacific region, I, like many, awoke to the horror of more bad news for Malaysia Airlines. This time Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was allegedly shot down over the disputed Ukraine-Russia territory while making its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. This comes in the same year that the world — particularly Australia — has been searching for MH370 in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia. Same country, same flag carrier, but a disaster of potentially even greater proportion in global terms.

But what does Malaysia Airlines’ double disaster really mean?

The first tragedy is human life, of course. It’s early days but there have been reports of a large number of Dutch, Malaysian and Indonesian passengers on board who have lost their lives. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott addressed the nation early this morning to announce that 27 Australians — this has been later revised to 28 — were feared to have perished, and offered his sympathies to the families. Prime Minister Abbott had played a very public role in announcing details of the search for the missing MH370 while travelling in China — so he must be very surprised at how much impact Malaysia Airlines has been having on his own media agenda. The Prime Minister had just steered the abolition of the carbon tax through a dysfunctional Senate but still hasn’t passed his budget.

The second tragedy is one of geo-politics. The world has been watching Vladimir Putin’s stand-off with Ukraine in the ethnically Russian-dominated east of the country but has thought it could be hands off and narrow it to a regional dispute. Now this news puts the cat among the pigeons over if it was shot down, who did it (the Ukrainians or Russian separatists), how and why? Memories of Korean Airlines being shot down by the old Soviet Union come flooding back. This latest incident now drags Asia and the world into the Ukraine crisis.

The third question is more about economics. How will this affect Malaysia? How will it affect the ASEAN states and the Asia-Pacific region more generally? Malaysia Airlines is Malaysia’s national flag carrier and like all flag carriers, its county’s "brand". Like the UK has BA, Australia has Qantas, Malaysia has MAS, and for emerging economies, having your own airline is a mark of economic success. Now MAS, which was already close to bankruptcy before MH370 went missing, could be facing a knock-out blow with MH17. This is a blow to Malaysian pride, ASEAN and the whole Asian region that will have adverse effects on trade, investment, international education and tourism. It harms Malaysia’s economic diplomacy and its aspirations to be a significant player in ASEAN, APEC and on the world stage.

Is it the September 11 of this decade? It’s too early to speculate whether it could be a game changer of global geo-politics and the international economy, but in terms of the Asia-Pacific region, it’s Malaysia’s blackest day.

* Tim Harcourt is the J W Nevile Fellow in Economics at the Australian School of Business, UNSW Australia in Sydney, and author of The Airport Economist.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.