Dutch investigators say Buk missile downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

Luke Skywalker · Oct 13, 2015

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[h=4]Dutch investigators say Buk missile downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17[/h]Russia has denied involvement in the incident on July 17, 2014, that killed all 298 people aboard.

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Dutch investigators say Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was taken down by a Buk missile fired from eastern Ukraine. All 298 people on board were killed in the July 2014 crash. VPC

In this July 25, 2014 file photo, a Malaysia Airlines crew member places a flower next to candles forming the letters MH17 after a multi-faith prayers for the victims of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 at Malaysia Airlines Academy in Kelana Jaya, near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.(Photo: Lai Seng Sin, AP)

The**Dutch Safety Board has*concluded that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which crashed over Ukraine in July 2014, broke up*after it was was hit by a Russian-made Buk missile fired from eastern Ukraine.
Dutch Safety Board*(DSB)*chairman Tjibbe Joustra briefed reporters Tuesday on the findings of the*final report into the incident*—*which does not say who was responsible*—**and showed them a*reconstruction of the front of the Boeing 777.
The investigators found the surface-to-air missile*exploded less than a yard from the cockpit, killing three crew members. The front of*the plane broke off and the aircraft came down*over eastern Ukraine, where a conflict was raging between Russian-backed*separatists and government forces.
Ukraine should have closed its*airspace*to civil aviation,*Joustra said.*“None of the parties involved recognized the risk from the armed conflict on the ground,” he said.
Western officials have long said the Boeing 777-200 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was hit by a surface-to-air missile.*Russia has denied involvement in the incident on July 17, 2014, that killed all those*aboard.
Ukraine says the missile was launched in Snizhne, an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
On Tuesday,*the*Russian state-controlled manufacturer of*Buk missiles*said*its own investigation*contradicts that report's conclusions.
Almaz-Antey,*said it*conducted two experiments*—*in one of which a Buk missile was detonated near the nose of an airplane similar to a Boeing 777 —*that dispute*the report's*conclusion.*The experimental aircraft’s remains showed a much different submunitions damage pattern than seen on the remnants of MH17, the firm said in a statement, the*AP said.
Speaking at a news conference*before the Dutch report's*release,*the firm's*head Yan*Novikov said:*“We have proven with our experiments that the theory about the missile flying from Snizhne is false." He said*evidence shows that if the plane was hit by a Buk, it was fired from the village of Zaroshenske, which Russia says was under Ukrainian government control at the time.
Ned Price, spokesman for the*National Security Council, called the report an important milestone in the effort to hold those responsible accountable for shooting down the plane through an international investigative effort.
“The report also serves to remind us of this terrible tragedy and the impact it continues to have on those left behind,” Price said.
Robert Latiff, a retired Air Force major general who is now a professor at University of Notre Dame, said if separatists launched the missile, they probably lacked training in the weapons system, which includes radar and communications technology to track a plane’s transponder identification code. Russian troops would have been too professional and disciplined to make that kind of error, Latiff said.
“The people who ‘pulled the trigger,’ so to speak should have, as a matter of training, insured that the target was not a commercial aircraft by checking for this code first,” Latiff said. “I suspect this was not the case, and some nervous, anxious, or trigger-happy soldier was at fault.”
The Dutch Safety Board investigated the incident because 193 of the people on board were from the Netherlands. The plane’s voice and data recorders were recovered within days of the crash.
The cockpit voice recorder offered no clues that the crew was aware they were about to be shot down. Two bursts of sound were captured in the final 20 milliseconds of the recording, with each lasting only four one-hundreds of a second.*“Crew communication gave no indication that there was anything abnormal with the flight,” the Dutch report said.
USA TODAY
What caused Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 disaster? We'll know more Tuesday

Ukraine received information in June 2014 that “illegal armed units within the area” possessed portable surface-to-air missiles, according to the report. Ukraine’s military aircraft were being shot at and shot down.
On June 5, Ukraine ordered civil aircraft to fly at least 26,000 feet above the conflict territory. By July 14, three days before the Flight 17 incident, Ukraine raised the order for planes to fly at least 32,000 feet high. The order came the same day a Ukranian Antonov An-26 military transport aircraft was shot down.
But European air traffic control found that the restrictions did little to reduce flights over the region, a popular route for flights between Europe and Asia. After the airspace was closed where Flight 17 was shot down, the number of flights over all of Ukraine fell from about 1,300 daily to 700, according to the report.
Wreckage also helped investigators piece together what happened. But investigators found it difficult to reach the crash site and gather evidence because fighting continued in the area.

In this July 17, 2014 file photo people walk amongst the debris of Malaysia Airlines flight 17, at the crash site of a passenger plane near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine.*(Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky, AP)

The governments of Netherlands, Malaysia and Australia, which each lost travelers in the incident, have asked for an international tribunal to prosecute whoever shot down the plane. Russia vetoed the proposal at the United Nations Security Council, but Ukraine’s foreign minister said in July that another attempt would be made after the Dutch report was published.
USA TODAY
Malaysia Flight 17 'black box' will not answer why

The incident was the second disaster in one year for Malaysia within a few months. Flight 370 went missing March 8, 2014, on a trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and the search continues off the coast of Australia for the plane, after a wing part*washed up on an island near Africa.
The Ukraine incident sparked a worldwide effort to get governments to share more information about conflict zones where planes should avoid flying. The issue is complicated because intelligence agencies that could warn where it is dangerous to fly don’t want others to figure out how they got their information.
The International Civil Aviation Organization, a branch of the United Nations that sets policies, set up a web page to check which countries have been declared no-fly zones.
ICAO
Conflict Zone Information Repository

The decisions about where to fly are hotly debated. For example, the European Aviation Safety Agency issued a warning Friday that warships were launching long-range missiles from the Caspian Sea at Syria, leading to flight risks above the Caspian Sea, Iran and Iraq. But the agency didn't urge airlines to avoid the region.
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Dutch investigators say Buk missile downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

Luke Skywalker

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