Dutch: Malaysian Airlines Flight Downed By Russian Missile

The Dutch Safety Board report on the crash of flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014 will serve as a cornerstone for additional investigation into the incident, US National Security Council Spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement on Tuesday.

Western countries and Ukraine say Russian backed rebels are to blame – but Russia claims the missile was sacked by Ukrainian forces. From this video you can also see that this was a planned terrorist attack which occurred on territory uncontrolled by the Ukrainian authorities.

The reported findings were swiftly disputed by the missile maker Almaz-Antey even before the official unveiling of the investigators’ report at 11:15GMT at a Dutch air base.

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.

The report said that between the end of April and July 17, 2014, Ukraine had reported that at least 16 of its forces’ helicopters and planes had been shot down.

Rutte, speaking of the separate criminal investigation, said: “In regard to our relationship with Russian Federation, this inquiry has an enormous impact, both in the Netherlands and overseas and certainly in Russian Federation”.

The Dutch Safety Board, which released its findings on the crash Tuesday, did not say who it believed fired the missile.

There was fighting in the area on the ground near where the Kuala Lumpur-bound flight out of Amsterdam crashed.

A body of other evidence, including photographs allegedly showing a Russian convoy travelling towards Ukraine with Buk missile systems shortly before the crash, appears to support this theory. Moreover, it is clear that Ukraine already had sufficient reason to close the airspace over the eastern part of Ukraine as a precaution before 17 July 2014.

The Dutch Safety Board report said the Buk’s impact was instantly fatal only to the three crewmembers in the cockpit of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. It will examine “the cause of the crash”, the issue of “flying over conflict areas” and will try to answer why Dutch relatives waited two to four days before receiving confirmation that their loved ones were on board.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday said there were “many, many unusual things” about the investigation, including the failure to get the worldwide Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to head it.

Earlier, relatives emerged visibly shaken after being privately briefed by Mr Joustra in an conference centre in The Hague.

In August, the JIT said authorities were examining what could be surface-to-air missile parts that were found in the area where the plane went down.

In a dramatic presentation at the Gilze Rijen military air base in Netherlands south, the report was made public by the Board’s chairman Tjibbe Joustra with the backdrop being the mangled reconstructed cockpit of the doomed flight.

Joustra added that Kiev should have closed the air space over eastern Ukraine because of the conflict with pro-Russian separatists.

As a result of the detonation, the forward part of the airplane was torn off.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte called on Russian Federation to fully cooperate with the criminal investigation into the downing of the plane.

Many reports, including an investigation by the open-source group Bellingcat, also suggest the plane was downed by a missile fired from near Snizhne.