SHARES in Malaysia Airlines closed down 11 per cent in Malaysia following the crash of flight MH17 in Ukraine en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
Some Asian stock markets also ended the day lower on fears the crash may intensify political tensions between the West, Ukraine and Russia.
This is the second catastrophe to hit the Malaysian airline this year after flight MH370 disappeared in March.
Questions are being asked about whether the carrier can now survive.
“Even if this is pure coincidence, it’s never happened in history that a flag carrier has seen two wide-body aircraft disappearing in a few months,” said Bertrand Grabowski, head of aviation at DVB Bank, which acts as a banker to Malaysia Airlines.
“The support from the government needs to be more explicit and perhaps more massive.”
The company has been losing money for many years and its market value has fallen by about 40 per cent in the past nine months.
Reports suggest that state investment firm Khazanah Nasional, the major shareholder in the airline, is looking to take the carrier private.
The firm has invested more than $US1billion ($F1.84b) into the airline in recent years and had previously indicated that a major restructuring was on the cards.
