The Boeing 777 was shot down on 17 July 2014 over an area of Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed rebels, who for several days refused to allow access to the sprawling crash site. All 298 people aboard the aircraft died in the crash. With deadly accuracy more than six miles up, it detonated just in front of the Malaysia Airlines jetliner, sending hundreds of jagged steel shards ripping through its aluminum skin at up to 5,600 mph and shearing the cockpit from the rest of the plane.
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The board said its investigation was not concerned with blame or liability, which fell to a separate criminal investigation.
Investigators presented their final report on Tuesday afternoon.
Zaroshchenskoye village in eastern Ukraine was under the control of Ukrainian military forces rather than insurgents, he said.
The board recommended worldwide aviation rules be changed to force airlines to be more transparent about their choice of routes.
This was despite the fact that 16 Ukrainian aircraft and helicopters had been downed since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. While there were a few restrictions on civil aviation, they were not enough to protect aircraft from such systems.
This is part of the reconstructed wreckage of the MH17 airplane which was displayed after the final report into the crash.
Nearly 160 flights passed through the airspace on the day of the crash. Mr Guard also pointed out the Dutch findings had limited scope because it was a safety investigation not a criminal investigation.
Malyshevsky said at that time all evidence pointed to the conclusion that the flight was downed probably by a 9M38M1 missile on the BUK-M1 system which has not been produced in Russian Federation since 1999.
Investigators found the type of missile that was sacked was a Russian-made 9N314M BUK, launched from eastern Ukraine.
“In our opinion it was carried out exclusively from territory controlled by Russian fighters and there is no doubt that drunken separatists are not able to operate Buk systems and this means these systems were operated exclusively by professional Russian soldiers”, Yatseniuk told a government meeting.
Ms Bishop said the report provided critical insights into the cause of the crash consistent with the Australian government’s initial assessment. Officials say the crash site is located in an armed conflict area and access is very limited.
The Dutch Safety Board identified an area of 320 square kilometers from which it said the missile that downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was launched.
That information was presented to the Dutch investigators, but was not taken into account, Novikov claimed.
According to the Guardian, a Dutch official heading the investigation dismissed the attempts to divert attention from the official investigation.
Families of the victims were also told that passengers and crew were likely to have lost consciousness upon the missile’s impact.
The Dutch prosecutor leading the JIT said its effort would continue into 2016, though he noted the heavy burden in proving a criminal case.
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It was established the impact on the ground was “non-survivable”.
