All of the land was in the hands of pro-Russian separatists fighting Ukrainian forces at the time of the disaster, according to daily maps of fighting released by the Ukrainian National Security Council. At 1:20 pm, a Russian-made Buk ground-to-air missile was launched; fragments recovered from the area of the crash attest to that fact. Either way, the Dutch investigators said today the plane never should have been in that airspace to begin with. The report confirms that the plane was shot down by a Russian-built surface-to-air missile, as long suspected, but not by whom or from exactly where.
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[Video: This video by the Dutch Safety Board was based mostly on its investigation reports in to the causes of the accident of flight MH17 on Jul. 17, 2014.
He said the crash was caused by the detonation of a warhead outside the cockpit, killing the crew and causing the aircraft to break up.
The three crew members in the cockpit were killed immediately by shrapnel from the missile.
The Dutch Safety Board led the investigation.
What Is Still in Dispute: Where the missile was sacked, and therefore who fired it. The Dutch report said the evidence pointed to an area of about 125 square miles from which the missile was probably fired.
Joustra added that “Ukraine’s position is that there was insufficient reason for closing the airspace above the eastern part of the country”.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says Australia will not be “bullied” into backing down in the quest for justice for victims of the Malaysian airlines flight MH17 after a report found it was hit by a Russian-made Buk surface to air missile.
But it also stated: “It can not be ruled out that a few occupants remained conscious for a few time during the one to one-and-a-half minutes for which the crash lasted”.
“Bringing such a highly sophisticated, extremely unsafe anti-air missile into Donbass is an example of actions which could be and should be treated as an act of terrorism and a war crime”, Klimkin said.
Other parties, including the operator Malaysia Airlines and the worldwide Civil Aviation Organisation, also did not identify the potential threat posed by the conflict to overflying planes.
Rosaviatsia had previously written to ICAO, criticizing DSB investigators over their inquiry methods into the MH17 flight crash.
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Russian Federation disputes that a Buk may have been used. “But here is the important information – it was a Russian missile from a Russian BUK system in the territory occupied by Russians”, said Petro Poroshenko, Ukrainian President.
