EASA Urges Airlines to Avoid Iranian Airspace Over Heightened Air-Defense Risk

Overview

• The advisory applies at all altitudes and warns of an elevated chance that civilian aircraft could be misidentified.
• Airlines are encouraged to prepare alternate routings over neighboring countries, particularly those hosting U.S. bases.
• Satellite reporting indicates the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is moving toward the Middle East as the Pentagon adds air-defense assets.
• The United States and the United Kingdom have ordered partial withdrawals from the al-Udeid air base in Qatar as a precaution, according to press reports.
• The warning invokes Iran’s 2020 mistaken shootdown of a Ukraine International Airlines flight that killed 176 people.