Investigating the "Incident"

"We don't have an operational role at ICAO. We don't open or close routes. We don't indicate whether airspace is safe or not, except on the exceptional bases I mentioned -- a command-and-control conflict or (bad relations between neighbouring nations.
"It's always the responsibility of our (191) member states to issue warnings regarding the safety of civilian air traffic."
"Normally we're relegated to fact-finding, to providing clarifications on responsibilities (specified under the ICAO charter."
"Both Russia and Ukraine are contesting their authority over that airspace and their management of it. So in that type of situation, where there's no clear authority and where there is a potential of safety hazards due to the fact that there is no clear authority, we felt that it was prudent to issue that advisory."
Anthony Philbin, International Civil Aviation Organization spokesman

On April 2nd, 2014, ICAO, according to its spokesman Mr. Philbin, forwarded a safety advisory to its members states, 191 in total, alerting them to the potential of an air-traffic management conflict in the Simferopol region. That was in recognition of Russia having annexed Crimea. But it was in an entirely different, disputed area where the surface-to-air missile struck down the Malaysian Airlines passenger jet on Thursday.

ICAO has authorization within its mandate to issue advisories "when the command-and-control structure is no longer effective", "or when diplomatic relations between adjacent states may not be good. Then they may ask us to send out a safety warning on their behalf." In this particular instance, neither Russia nor Ukraine asked, leaving the situation as such that "ICAO recognized there wasn't a clear authority. Two different sets of instructions may have been sent to the same aircraft", he explained.

Most European and North American airlines took precautions by not flying over the disputed zone. Malaysian Airlines took a calculated opportunity, unwilling to waste additional flight time, jet fuel, and cost on any concerns that it could conceivably be placing passengers on its Boeing 777 in danger by flirting with chance. Chance was not benign this time around; their flirtation turned into an obscene disaster, leaving them for the second time in the space of several months, wringing their hands in impotent grief.

The country of the aircraft's registry -- Malaysia -- "is also expected to be involved [in the accident investigation]. And if there are states that have lost a significant number of passengers [the Netherlands, obviously], they are also expected to have a say." Responsibility for, and authority over accident investigations rests with the involved states and Ukraine in this instance will lead the probe.

Ukraine claimed crews were allowed access to the crash site but could not remove anything from the wreckage: New York Daily News

Some investigation that will be. Ukraine charges that the ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine have retrieved the jet's black box and sent it on to Moscow. No entity secured the vast, ranging crash site. Western reporters have mentioned the presence of 'drunken thugs' scouring the site of the crash, securing for themselves souvenirs of the horrific graveyard of 298 innocent people.

Officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have been denied full access to the site. "There'll be discussions now between a team that ICAO assembles to interface with Ukrainian officials, and then we'll determine what our full role will be", explained Mr. Philbin. Who had no information on whether ICAO had received a direct request from Russia.

Given that Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vladimir Churkin had requested that an international commission into the incident be drawn up under the under the ICAO.