Russian Federation ‘doubts’ Dutch MH17 probe

Relatives of people killed on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 said yesterday they have been told an official investigation has concluded the jet was destroyed by a Buk missile, but the Russian maker of the weapon says its own probe contradicts the Dutch findings.

Investigation showed that the missile exploded more than 20 meters from the plane’s port-side engine, while re-enactment proved that the port-side would not be damaged if the missile were fired from Snizhne, said Mikhail Malyshevsky, adviser to the general designer of Almaz-Antei.

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.

According to the investigation, 160 commercial flights flew over the area where the Ukraine conflict was taking place on the day of the MH17 crash.

“As part of the (Joint Investigation Team), Malaysia remains single-minded in our pursuit of decisive action that will lead to prosecution of the trigger-happy criminals”, Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said. The aircraft was flying over rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine at the time of the incident.

Investigators also drew up a list of recommendations to prevent similar disasters in the future, criticising Ukraine for its decision to restrict rather than close airspace over a conflict zone.

Information from the first experiment, in which a missile was sacked at aluminum sheets mimicking an airliner’s fuselage, was presented to the Dutch investigators, but was not taken into account, Almaz-Antey chief Novikov said. The Dutch Safety Board’s tests, including analyses of metal and paint samples from missile fragments, conclusively debunk Russia’s claims about the missile.

He said the key findings presented to families were: “That it was a Buk missile, made in Russian Federation”.

The warhead was carried on a class of missile installed on the Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile system.

Bishop told Seven Network television that a criminal investigation of the “atrocity” will continue.

In an appendix to its main report, the DSB said Russian Federation indicated that MH17 was downed by a missile that could have been fired from either the ground or an aeroplane.

“Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane”, Joustra said.

The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) said whatever happened to the plane happened quickly, leaving the passengers dazed or unconscious. Much of the reassembled wreckage was twisted and riddled with holes. On Tuesday it revealed the reconstructed front section of the plane at a hangar in the Gilze-Rijen airbase in southernNetherlands.

Russian Federation has vehemently disputed that theory, and it continued to do so yesterday with a competing presentation, saying that the missile must have been fired from Ukrainian-held territory, and that it was of a type that is no longer found in Russia’s arsenal. “That Ukraine should have closed the air space and that the passengers absolutely felt and knew nothing”.

“They showed us the fragments that were inside the plane”, Oehlers said, adding that in the room “it was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop”.