A sophisticated missile made in Russia and launched from a rebel-held region of Ukraine brought down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which crashedin July 2014, according to the final report by the Dutch Safety Board. The report (PDF),which was made public today, says the Boeing 777 was cruising at 33,000 feet on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when the missile warhead detonated just outside the left front window of the cockpit. The airplane was sprayed with hundreds of metal fragments and three crew members in the cockpit were killed instantly by the blast. The forward section of the airplane broke off, and with structural integrity lost, the aircraft broke up and hit the ground within 90 seconds. All 298 on board were killed.
The Russian company that produces the Buk missile system has tried to cast doubt on the investigators’ findings, according to The Wall Street Journal. Yan Novikov, chief executive of Almaz Antey, held a news conference this morning in Moscow, and argued that the company had conducted its own experiments and found the jet had been downed by a different type of missile launched from a different location than the Dutch conclusions, and was likely fired by Ukrainian government forces and not by Russian-backed rebels. The Dutch report also said the Ukrainian government should have shut down the airspace to civil air traffic. A criminal investigation into the incident is continuing.
This video was released by the Dutch Safety Board.
