Dutch report says Buk missile shot down Flight MH17, but does not include who launched it

                   Buk Missile Launcher (Владимир Саппинен)

                   Buk Missile Launcher (Владимир Саппинен)

The report from the Dutch investigationinto who and what caused Malaysian Flight 17 to crash last year was released:

Dutch Probe: Buk Missile Brought Down MH17

October 13, 2015

A Dutch-led investigative panel into the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine said the plane was shot down by surface-to-air missile from a Russian-made Buk missile launcher.

Dutch officials announced their findings Tuesday at a conference center in The Hague, with a partially reconstructed portion of the plane looming in the background.

Battered metal fragments collected from the crash site were draped on a metal skeleton, reassembled by the investigators in an effort to determine exactly why the plane crashed into the Ukrainian countryside.

Tjibbe Joustra, chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, told family members and media that the plane was hit on the left side by shrapnel from the detonation of a missile fired from the ground. He said the plane broke up immediately, while still in the air.

Joustra said Ukraine was responsible for closing the airspace above the armed conflict zone and chose not do so.

“Nobody considered the possibility that civil aircraft at cruising altitude was at risk,” he added.

The region was the scene of fighting between Russian-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces.

n a White House statement, National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said the Dutch report issued Tuesday ” is an important milestone in the effort to hold accountable those responsible for the shoot-down of the aircraft and the killing of those aboard.”

“Our assessment is unchanged — MH17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from separatist-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine,” Price said. …

The majority of passengers on the Amsterdam-to-Kuala Lumpur flight were Dutch, but the July 17, 2014, flight also contained citizens of Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, and Ukraine. Representatives from each of those countries were part of the investigation. …

The Dutch panel did not assign blame for the crash, despite Western suspicions that Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine shot down the plane, mistaking it for a military aircraft.

Russia’s state-run missile manufacturer, Almaz-Antey, said earlier Tuesday that its own investigation indicates that the Buk missile was fired from the town of Zaroshenske, which it said was under control of the Ukrainian government at the time of the accident.

Almaz-Antey head Yan Novikov also said Russian experts have concluded that the missile believed to have brought down the plane was an older Russian-made model, which is no longer used by the Russian military.  http://www.voanews.com/content/dutch-probe-to-release-mh17-crash-report-tuesday/3003561.html

October 13, 2015

(CNN)A missile warhead that exploded outside the cockpit brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, a Dutch report released Tuesday found.

The Boeing 777 was heading from Amsterdam to Malaysia when it was shot down on July 17, 2014, over Ukrainian territory controlled by pro-Russian separatists. All 298 people aboard the aircraft died in the July 2014 crash.

The Dutch Safety Board has lead an international investigation into the crash, at the request of Ukraine, which remains locked in conflict with pro-Russian separatists in its eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Dutch Safety Board chairman Tjibbe Joustra said the warhead the downed the plane fit a Buk rocket system, referring to Russian military technology. But Russian officials who participated in the investigation said it was not possible to confirm the warhead or type of system, according to Joustra.

Joustra said that “none of the aviation parties involved” — including Ukrainian authorities who failed to close off the airspace — “recognized the risks posed to civil aviation by the armed conflict on the ground.” He said the parties viewed the conflict from a military perspective and nobody considered the risk to civil aviation.

“As a precaution, there was sufficient reason for Ukraine authorities to close the airspace above the eastern part of the country” where armed conflict was taking place , Joustra said at Gilze-Rijen airbase in the Netherlands.  http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/13/europe/mh17-ukraine-dutch-report/

It is terrible many died in this senseless event.  This long-awaited report did not say what many wanted it to.

As far as blame goes, there basically is a claim by the west that Ukrainian separatist in the east caused the flight to be shot down, whereas in the east there is a claim that Kiev linked forces in the west shot the flight down. The USA tends to believe the former and Russia that latter. The reality is that someone possibly mistook a civilian aircraft for a military one and shot it down.

The situation in Ukraine remains volatile and tense. Despite the armed conflict, Ukraine and Russia do maintain various relationships, including the fact that Russia supplies oil to Ukraine.  But the leadership of the two nations do not get along well... read full article at cogwriter.com

 

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