MH17 Ukraine Disaster: Dutch Safety Board Reveals Investigation Findings

[video type='youtube' id='f9J1YuVdOas' height='365'] The Dutch Safety Board released a reconstruction of their investigation into the causes of the crash of flight MH17 on 17 July 2014 in eastern Ukraine. The Board has confirmed that Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crashed as a result of a Russian-made Buk missile. However, it does not say who fired it, but says airspace over eastern Ukraine should have been closed.

At a press conference in Gilze-Rijen, central Netherlands, the chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, Tjibbe Joustra, has explained that “it was definitely a BUK missile that hit flight MH17,”writes the BBC. The missile is said to have hit the front section of the plane from the left, and their analysis suggests that the missile was launched from “somewhere in an area of 320 sq km in Eastern Ukraine.”

The BUK missile is a self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air weapon, originally developed by the Soviet Union and then Russia. It was originally developed to defend against cruise missiles, smart bombs and aircraft. This video, released by the Dutch Safety Board, shows what it believes happened during the attack.

Following the Dutch Board's revelations, Russia has released a statement denying it had any hand in bringing down the plane and stated that they had decommissioned the Buk missile production in 2011.