It's horrible, Rob. And a slap in the face how "local conflicts" can affect everyone randomly.
Whoever downed that passenger plane, most likely didn't do it on purpose, but believed to be "shooting at the enemy" (insert your favorite enemy here). The forseeable political backlash would help neither the Ukraine nor the separatists, that was plain to see. Plus, The Netherlands aren't really a player in the Ukraine. As such, it wasn't a "terrorist act" (as it had no political aim), but even worse, totally senseless, arbitrary "collateral damage". Which brings us back to my first sentence: "Local conflicts" are catastrophies waiting to happen.
Hindsight is 20/20, but I do wonder why some airlines avoided flying over Ukraine and others did not. They knew they were shooting at aircraft there and bragging about it. The assumption that 10.000 meters would be "too high" for the rocket systems employed by both parties in the conflict was another accident waiting to happen - both Ukraine and the separatist had rockets that can go twice as high.