PARIS — A 15-month inquiry into the disintegration of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in the skies over eastern Ukraine has concluded that the aircraft was most likely struck by a Russian-made missile, Dutch air accident investigators said Tuesday. ADVERTISING PARIS
PARIS — A 15-month inquiry into the disintegration of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in the skies over eastern Ukraine has concluded that the aircraft was most likely struck by a Russian-made missile, Dutch air accident investigators said Tuesday.
The findings — based in part on a distinctive shrapnel pattern that was found in the cockpit, near where the missile hit — come from a five-nation investigative team that retrieved and sifted through several tons of debris and human remains and even reconstructed the aircraft as part of its study.
“Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane above the left-hand side of the cockpit,” said Tjibbe Joustra, chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, using a common reference to the flight number. The explosion tore off the forward part of the plane, which broke up in the air. The crash killed all 298 people aboard; the investigation found that many died instantly, while others quickly lost consciousness.
While the findings stop short of assigning responsibility for the crash, a task that has been left to Dutch prosecutors, they appear consistent with a theory widely promoted by the authorities in the United States and Ukraine: that the plane, a Boeing 777, was shot down by Russian-backed separatists armed with an SA-11, or Buk, surface-to-air missile launcher.
Russia has vehemently disputed that theory, and it continued to do so Tuesday 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.
The report is unlikely to produce consensus. Based on the impact pattern, the impact angle and other data, the Dutch board concluded that the missile originated in an area of about 320 square kilometers (about 123 square miles) in eastern Ukraine. But Russian experts say the area must be smaller, and Ukrainian experts say it was smaller still.
Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia, which had 43 citizens on the plane, on Tuesday promised that “Malaysia will remain steadfast until those behind this heinous act are made to pay for their crimes.”
The report on the July 17, 2014, crash was presented at Gilze-Rijen Air Base in the Netherlands. The flight’s 283 passengers and 15 crew members came from about a dozen countries; 193 of the passengers were Dutch.
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