When a Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down over Ukranian airspace Thursday, many questions were raised about why it was flying over a conflict zone in the first place.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration had issued a notice in April prohibiting U.S. commercial flights from flying over the Simferopol region of Crimea. In the wake of Thursday's crash, the FAA expanded the no-fly zone to eastern Ukraine.
But Ukraine isn’t the only conflict zone too dangerous for commercial flights; there are 14 hotspots that U.S. aviation authorities have warned commercial pilots against.
Many of the warnings are centred in certain regions of the highlighted countries in the map above. For instance, the Sinai Peninsula is the focus of the FAA warning in Egypt, rather than the whole country.
The warnings vary in severity as well. In some countries, like Ukraine, Iraq, Libya and North Korea, planes are prohibited from entering the airspace altogether. In others, such as Kenya and Iran, the U.S. has issued warnings that the area is high-risk.
These countries include:
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