Wreckage was spread over a 50 square-kilometer (19 square-mile) area on the ground.
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Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said today he had no doubt the flight was shot down by Russian special forces as “drunken separatists” could not have operated the missile.
“It was a Buk”, he said.
“The Dutch Safety Board did not find any indications of conscious actions performed by the occupants after the missile’s detonation”.
One passenger was found wearing an oxygen mask, but it was “unclear how the mask got there”, the board said.
Air traffic restrictions had been in force over eastern Ukraine since July 1, 2014 because of the hostilities in the conflict between pro-independence militants and Ukrainian government troops.
Robby Oehlers, whose cousin Daisy was among the 298 people killed when the Boeing 777 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, said the conclusion from the Dutch investigation was shared with family members at a meeting in The Hague.
Investigators were able to rule out “other potential causes, such as an explosion inside the aeroplane or an air-to-air missile”.
Joustra went on to question why the passenger aircraft had been given permission to fly over an area where intense fighting between the Ukraine and Russian Federation was taking place.
In the Dutch Safety Board’s opinion, Ukraine had sufficient reason to close the entire airspace over the eastern part of Ukraine as a precaution. These fragments held traces of paint tied to Buk missiles.
He confirmed that MH17 was downed by a Russian-made, surface-to-air Buk missile and that the missile was sacked from eastern Ukraine.
“Nobody thought that civil aviation was at risk”.
A preliminary report issued a year ago stated that the plane was likely struck by multiple “high-energy objects from outside the aircraft”. Parts of the nose, cockpit and business class were rebuilt from fragments of the aircraft recovered from the crash scene.
Additional forensic investigation will be needed to establish the exact launching location; however, such an investigation lies outside the scope of the Dutch Safety Board’s mandate.
The makers of the Buk said their tests had shown that the aircraft could not have been hit by a missile fired from rebel-controlled territory.
“I’m just going to have to go away and think, “Yes, Liam died instantly” as did 297 other people because if you think otherwise it will hurt forever”, passenger Liam Sweeney’s relative Barry Sweeney told the BBC.
Fredriksz’s son Bryce was killed in the disaster.
Hours before the report was released, the missile’s Russian maker presented its own report trying to clear the separatists, and Russia itself, of any involvement in the disaster. That was clearly indicated.
The DSB took the lead in the crash investigation at the request of Ukraine, which remains locked in conflict with pro-Russian separatists in its eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions. It had earlier suggested that it could have been a model of Buk that is no longer in service with the Russian military but is part of the Ukrainian military arsenal.
He says, “It was a Buk”.
So says the investigation report published by the Dutch Safety Board today.
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The relatives of the victims on board MH17 were briefed by investigators before the report was released to the public and before Joustra made his statements.
