Malaysia Airlines may need to convince judges from several countries that it was not negligent to send a plane over war-torn eastern Ukraine if the airline hopes to avoid an outsize legal exposure for the downing of Flight MH17, aviation lawyers said.
The lawyers said they expected at least some of the families of the 283 passengers on board the flight to sue Malaysia Airlines for damages above the amount they can already seek under an international agreement.
There was no consensus among the lawyers about whether there was a strong case that Malaysia Airlines was negligent. Some lawyers said the carrier could argue that other carriers had used the same airspace many times in the past week.