“Flight MH17 crashed as a result of detonation of a warhead outside the airplane against the left-hand side of the cockpit”, Dutch Safety Board’s Chairman Tjibbe Joustra said in a press conference.
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According to the Dutch Safety Board, whatever happened to the plane, happened quickly, leaving the passengers dazed or even unconscious.
Speaking to reporters in the Hague after being shown early copies of the report, relatives also revealed that all the passengers died or lost consciousness as soon as the missile hit.
It adds that the plane should never have been flying there as Ukraine should have closed its airspace to civil aviation.
“During the period in which the conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine expanded into the airspace, neither Ukraine nor other states or global organizations issued any specific security warnings to civil aviation about the airspace above the eastern part of Ukraine”, the DSB said. On April 15th this year, the worldwide search team said they would go to the crash site again, to search for victims’ bodies and their private belongings.
It was indeed a missile that caused the death of the 298 occupants of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over the Ukraine on 17 July 2014. That information was presented to the Dutch investigators, but was not taken into account, he claimed. “This warhead fits the kind of missile that is installed in the BUK surface-to-air missile system”.
In Kuala Lumpur Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said that as a party to the investigation “Malaysia remains single-minded in our pursuit of decisive action that will lead to prosecution of the trigger-happy criminals”.
On Tuesday, Russian Federation released a competing report on the incident, saying the missile most likely came from Ukrainian-held territory, and that the missile was and is not part of Russia’s arsenal.
Almaz-Antei also refuted allegations that the missile was shot near the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, which was controlled by Ukrainian insurgents.
Moscow has rejected accusations it supplied the rebels with Buk anti-aircraft missile systems.
Russian concern Almaz-Antey had said in June that a preliminary investigation suggested that the plane was downed by a model of Buk that is no longer in service with the Russian military.
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On September 9th, the Dutch Safety Board said the plane was hit by “high-energy objects from outside the aircraft”, fuelling speculation that a ground-to-air missile shot down the plane.
