The suspected shooting down of a large passenger plane while flying at altitude presents airlines and their passengers with an extremely serious new development in air travel, according to aviation experts.

IT IS extremely rare for turbulence to be so bad that it causes a large passenger airline to crash.

British aviation experts are mystified as to how a modern aircraft operated by a top international airline came so close to disaster when flying into one of the best-equipped airports in the world.

Aviation experts in the UK were mystified tonight as to how a modern aircraft operated by a top international airline came so close to disaster when flying into one of the best-equipped airports in the world.

THE pilots in the Cypriot airliner disaster could have become incapacitated in seconds, aviation experts said yesterday.