However, last Tuesday there was a shootdown at 22,000 feet, indicating a vehicle mounted anti-aircraft system was in play.
In the words of a commercial pilot on another forum, "elevation is not your friend":
Ranges for MANPADs generally assume the target is high performance aircraft that can maneuver aggressively and deploy countermeasures (chaff, flares, jamming) in response to onboard and remote (e.g. AWACS) tracking, lockon, and/or launch warnings. Indeed, defeating a MANPAD these days is often more about geometry and maneuvers (at 6 to 9Gs) to bleed the missile of its finite supply of kinetic energy, something commercial aircraft are unable to do.
A fighter might be safe from recent versions of Manpads at 20,000, but a commercial airliner might not be 100% safe at 33,000. An SA11 would require well over 50,000 even with counter-measures.
No airline had any business flying over eastern Ukraine, even before the shootdown of the Ukrainian military transport.
Not a manpad.
"elevation is not your friend"
No, but altitude surely is friendly as a defense against portable air defense missiles.
A fighter might be safe from recent versions of Manpads at 20,000
No might about it, unless he is flying around at 20k gear down in a straight line. At 33k, any aircraft is safe from a manpads.
Commercial passenger liners fly over war zones constantly, above 32,000 feet.
Ben Gurion International does over 100,000 takeoff and landings a year. No airport in the world is more at risk.
With respect to your ‘commercial’ pilot friend, altitude is your friend.
Flying over the top, over the max altitude of MANPADS is done all the time and is the safest course of action. And an SA-12 just barely makes it to 12,000-15,000 feet. . .well below the altitude of the jet and only when the target is non-maneuvering.
No max maneuveing is necessary at altitude when defending against MANPADs because the MANPAD bleeds off energy quickly when it has to adjust its trajectory to continue its tail-chase pursuit of the target. Min-G to a 2-G, an “S” turn and the heater runs out of energy and can’t make the altitude. The heater does not fly a lead-pursuit profile because it tracks the heat source, it flies a tail-chase. (Best it can do is leading-edge track the heat source but that is all).
Your reference to the SA-11 is completely different than a heater as it is a semi-active radar-guided missile with a max altitude of around 20,000 feet or so. That is ballistic altitude, not based on a maneuvering target.
So, bottom line, the ranges and altitudes published are for ballistic shots and do not take into consideration aircraft maneuvering. The 6-9 G stuff is an end-game maneuver when you are basically dog-fighting the missile when it closes.