This has happened before sadly , Korean air 007. 1983
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea...nes_Flight_007

Interesting that most US airlines and British airlines already has changed their flight paths a few weeks ago to avoid the region ,

Not that rare at all:

Iran Air A300 downed by USS Vincennes on 3 July 1988 with all onboard lost
DHL A300 down by SAM-7 (shoulder-launched) on 22 November 2003 with all 3 onboard ok.

There may be more.

Unfortunately, its not an unheard of occurrence, thankfully it doesn't occur often.

Some others I have found. Some of the aircraft below may not have been shot down but indications are that they were.

Siberian Airlines Flight 1812 - possibly shot down over Crimea 4 Oct 2001. May have been accidentally shot down by Ukraine Military during exercise.

1993 Three Transair Georgian Airliners shot down over Georgia at different times.

Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 27 June 1980. Went missing off coast off Sicily. Italian investigations and court have stated they believe French fighters shot it down during secret NATO operations.

Another Korean Airliner, this time in 1978, shot down by Soviets but only 2 people died after aircraft landed on frozen lake after straying into Soviet airspace.

Plenty of others I haven't listed.

When talking about about airspace over conflicts, I am watching Flight Radar 24 as many, many major airlines fly over Northern Iraq - isn't that currently controlled by Isis or whoever they are? If there was an aircraft incident over that region, wouldn't we be in exactly the same situation as Ukraine, but possibly with even more radical players involved? Sounds to me like the safest way to Europe right now is actually via the USA. I don't really want to fly over ANY part of Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan - it starts to put a lot of air routes to Europe into doubt right? I am very surprised that no mention has been made of Northern Iraq - the largest airliners in the world are streaming over there right now...

The Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 crash was covering in the last season of ACI (s13e06 - Massacre Over The Mediterranean) it seems that that the a/c may of been lost due to a bomb in the rear toilet area. I expect that it still available on YouTube.

Yes, I find it odd that routes over Northern Iraq seem to be continuing since ISIS have come to prominence - just about everything from the Gulf seems to go that way. I have always been surprised that so many overfly Afghanistan too. Strangely Iran gets very few, or maybe they prohibited overflights while sanctions are in place and have now relented as flights over Iran have increased in the past week. And now the US have said no to US registered aircraft flying into Tel Aviv too (after a rocket fired from Gaza made it that far!!), quickly followed my many European airlines.

RAAF C17 just arrived at Eindhoven with bodies onboard. Very distressing...

MH17 Prelim Crash Report

http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/uploads...nteractief.pdf

No surprises here:

MH17: Downed Malaysia Airlines flight shot down by BUK missile fired from eastern Ukraine, Dutch Safety Board says

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-1...--mh17/6851490