( CNN ) -- I watched the steady hand of my first officer , Jim , advance the thrust levers of our Boeing 777 . With the assistance of 115,000 ponds of thrust from each of two GE engines , the airplane began its lumbered roll down the center line of Runway 22 Left at JFK . We accelerated toward a rotation speed of 153 knots . At rotation speed , Jim applied gentle pressure to the control yoke , lifting the nose of our 602,000-pound airplane skyward . This would be one of the most critical phases of our flight to London . The immediate threat at that moment was the possibility that one of the GE engines would fail or tear itself apart internally at the most vulnerable time , an event we 'd practiced for repeatedly on flight simulators -- an event controllable through mechanical design and good old fashioned pilot skills . As airline pilots , this is one of the many eventualities we prepare for on every trip . As a result of September 11 , we also prepare for terrorism . And now it appears that we will be adding missile evasion to the list . It is almost inconceivable that tragedy would strike the same struggling airline twice in such a short period , but the truth speaks for itself . From over 800 flights traversing Ukranian airspace during the week before the crash of Malaysia Flight 17 it was the only airplane targeted by a missile . The crews aboard the four ill-fated flights on September 11 all had one expectation at the end of their trip assignments . They would come home to their loved ones , kiss their wife or husband , pet the dog , and listen to their children talk about the day at school . This was the expectation of the crew aboard Malaysia Fight 370 last March , and the crew of Malaysia Flight 17 last week . None of these crews went to work with the expectation that they had the potential to be casualties of war , nor did their passengers . For a relatively small air carrier it is the equivalent of losing family members , an emotionally devastating event . And like most airline crews , those at Malaysia Airlines will continue to serve at their professional best despite the circumstances . They must do this while defending themselves against criticism that the airline or the pilots could have prevented the catastrophe had they taken a different route than the one through Ukranian airspace . This begins the blame game and is a typical reaction to an unimaginable event , especially an airplane crash with such large loss of life . But the fact of the matter is that the route is assigned by air traffic control , as it is by air traffic control systems all over the world . The flight crew was simply complying with that clearance . Pilots do n't have the authority to change an assigned route on their own unless an emergency takes precedence . And even in an emergency certain guidelines must be followed . As an example , on the North Atlantic track system , which defines the routes between North America and Europe , the requirement to offset from an assigned route by 15 miles in an emergency is crucial to preventing conflict with other traffic . As for the airline dispatchers , they are responsible for filing route requests that serve the airline safely , comfortably and economically . But they have to plan their flights within the confines of air traffic control guidelines and restrictions and may not have many choices in certain areas other than to select a given altitude . If the dispatcher is aware of restrictions , the requested route that he or she files will reflect that . In the case of MH17 , and with many other airlines transiting the Donetsk region of Ukraine where MH17 was downed , such safety restrictions had caused the plane to fly at a higher-than-usual altitude : 33,000 feet ( Ukrainian officials had raised the minimum altitude requirement to 32,000 feet ) . Lockerbie relative : Grieve MH17 through love , not revenge . In the United States , airspace is blotted all over the country with restricted areas that are primarily for military use . Routes filed by civilian airplanes have to avoid these areas . Pilots do not stray into restricted airspace without air traffic control permission . Some of these areas are `` hot '' continuously and others are hot only at certain times , and at certain altitudes . Yes , if it is determined that a war zone on the ground could pose a threat , an option is to use a route that circumnavigates the airspace . But the war zone overflown by MH17 was never considered a definitive threat to civilian airplanes . Threat information is only as good as the intelligence supplied by air traffic control and its cooperating governments . So how is a missile attack thwarted on an airliner ? The answer , unfortunately , is not very well . In 2003 , an event reported in the back page of the newspapers involved a DHL Airlines cargo A300 that was struck by a surface-to-air MANPAD missile just after departure from the Baghdad International Airport . Ironically , the crew was executing a rapid climb maneuver to limit their exposure to just such an occurrence . The left wing sustained serious damage . All three hydraulic systems lost pressure because of a rapid fluid leak . The loss of hydraulic fluid also meant the loss of pressure to the primary flight controls . Through the innovative piloting skills of the three-man crew , the airplane completed a successful landing by using differential power . The DHL Airbus A300 was fortunate to have encountered a missile of limited capabilities . If the reported circumstances of MH17 's crash are accurate , for an airliner to have evaded a high-speed radar-guided missile would have been beyond its maneuvering capacity . Years back , when the MANPAD ( stands for man-portable air defense system ) threat was becoming a major topic of discussion as the next terrorist scenario , my airline considered installation of an automatic missile warning and detection system . With FAA approval , through a company that designed such things , three of our B767 's were outfitted with the system . To use a bad pun , it never got off the ground . Cost , of course , was an issue . And from a practical standpoint , being alerted to a missile was a great tool , but an airliner 's inability to quickly maneuver away from the danger still made the outcome inevitable . And with warfare technology becoming more sophisticated and deadly , an airline missile detection system may have been outdated on the day it was installed . Ultimately the truth surrounding the fate of Malaysia Flight 17 must be determined , lest we jump to inaccurate conclusions . The destruction of Korean Airlines Flight 007 in 1983 is just such an example . Although indeed a Russian fighter jet fired upon the Boeing 747 , it was later determined that the pilots had allowed the airplane to drift into Soviet airspace by not selecting the appropriate navigational mode on the autopilot . The airspace involved was an area that U.S. airplanes , ( some of them military versions of airliners like the 707 ) traversed nearby to toy with the Russians . The role of professional accident investigation is to find the cause of such tragedies regardless of their origin . We can only hope that the investigation is not further impeded by extraneous situations .
Les Abend : Pilots prepare for emergencies . 9/11 added terror , MH17 added missile evasion . Some say plane could have avoided region , but he says crew followed air traffic control . He says pilots ca n't just change route , they follow regulations . Plane already at higher altitude . Abend : Airplanes not able to dodge missiles . Such technology would be quickly obsolete .