Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was downed by a Russian-made BUK missile fired from eastern Ukraine that detonated outside the jet’s cockpit according to the final report of the Dutch Safety Board. The findings of the Dutch Safety Board — which did not assign blame for the deadly crash — were announced at a press conference against the dramatic backdrop of the Boeing 777’s partially reconstructed fuselage.
“Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside of the airplane, above the left hand side of the cockpit,” explained Tjibbe Joustra, Chairman of Dutch Safety Board. “This warhead was of the 9M314M type carried on the kind of missile that is installed on the Buk surface-to-air missile system. As a result of the detonation the forward part of the airplane was torn off. The airplane broke up in the air, the wreckage came down in an area of about 50 kilometres at the eastern part of Ukraine.”
Victims’ families were the first to know the findings of the investigation at a Dutch military base where parts of the plane have been reconstructed.
