MH17 report blames Russian missile

Two hundred and ninety-eight people – including two New Zealanders – were killed when the plane was blown out of the sky in July 2014.

The board said the jet should never have been flying there as Ukraine should have closed its airspace to civil aviation, adding that nobody gave a thought to the dangers to passenger aircraft.

An animation showed the route the doomed plane took, how it changed course to avoid a thunderstorm, then demonstrated how the front section sheared away after impact.

‘They agreed that the final decision about how such a mechanism is applied will be based on the results of the criminal investigation, which is being conducted jointly by Ukraine, the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia and Belgium, ‘ Poroshenko’s site quoted the pro-Western leader as telling Rutte.

Zaroshchenskoye village in eastern Ukraine was under the control of Ukrainian military forces rather than insurgents, he said.

Joustra did note, however, he found it extremely problematic Ukrainian authorities allowed planes to continue to fly over the conflict zone.

The report stops short of assigning blame for the crash. “We have concluded as a precaution there was sufficient reason for the Ukrainian authorities to close the air space above the eastern part of their country”, he said.

Calculations show that the missile was launched somewhere in an area of 320 sq km in eastern Ukraine, although additional investigations – which fall outside the Dutch Safety Board’s remit – are needed to confirm the launch location.

Instead, the evidence points to the left side of the cockpit being hit by a warhead and subsequently breaking off from the rest of the plane.

“Not all of the representatives endorsed the conclusion that a 9N314M warhead was involved”.

The missile systems could only have been operated by ‘trained Russian servicemen, ‘ he added.

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

Both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries have Buk missile systems in their arsenal.

The Russian government on Tuesday argued that the DBS ignored Almaz-Antey’s conclusions about the crash, and questioned the transparency of the investigation.

Ms Bishop said the report provided critical insights into the cause of the crash consistent with the Australian government’s initial assessment.

“As a result, a few occupants suffered serious injuries that were probably fatal”. The impact on the ground was not survivable.

Others would have been rendered unconscious by the sudden decompression of the aircraft and a lack of oxygen at 33,000 feet, the board’s official report found.

Rutte’s comments followed the publication of a final report by the Dutch Safety Board, which concluded that MH17 was shot down by a missile typically used with a Russian-made BUK system.

According to the Guardian, a Dutch official heading the investigation dismissed the attempts to divert attention from the official investigation.

Teri Schultz tells Newscast that a separate, Dutch-led criminal investigation is underway to determine who is responsible.