A commercial airliner goes down in eastern Ukraine, and the evidence indicates that it was shot down.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17)[a] was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on 17 July 2014, while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed.Contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border, and wreckage from the aircraft fell near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km (25 mi) from the border.The shoot-down occurred during the war in Donbas over territory controlled by Russian separatist forces.
The responsibility for investigation was delegated to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT), who concluded that the airliner was downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine. According to the JIT, the Buk that was used originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Federation and had been transported from Russia on the day of the crash, fired from a field in a rebel-controlled area and the launch system returned to Russia afterwards.
The findings by the DSB and JIT are consistent with the earlier claims by American and German intelligence sourcesand claims by the Ukrainian government. On the basis of the JIT's conclusions, the governments of the Netherlands and Australia held Russia responsible for the deployment of the Buk installation and were pursuing legal routes as of May 2018.The Russian government denied involvement in the shooting down of the airplane, and its account of how the aircraft was shot down has varied over time.Coverage in Russian media has also differed from that in other countries.
This was Malaysia Airlines' second aircraft loss during 2014, after the disappearance of Flight 370 four months prior on 8 March, and is the deadliest airliner shoot-down incident to date.
Aircraft
Flight 17, which was also marketed as KLM Flight 4103 (KL4103) through a codeshare agreement,was operated with a Boeing 777-2H6ER,[b] serial number 28411, registration 9M-MRD. The 84th Boeing 777 produced, it first flew on 17 July 1997, exactly 17 years before the incident, and was delivered new to Malaysia Airlines on 29 July 1997.Powered by two Rolls-Royce Trent 892 engines and carrying 280 seats (33 business and 247 economy), the aircraft had recorded more than 76,300 hours in 11,430 cycles before the crash.The aircraft was in an airworthy condition at departure.
The Boeing 777, which entered commercial service on 7 June 1995, has one of the best safety records among commercial aircraft. In June 2014 there were about 1,212 aircraft in service, with 340 more on order.
Passengers and crew
The incident is the deadliest airliner shoot-down incident to date.All 283 passengers and 15 crew died.By 19 July, the airline had determined the nationalities of all 298 passengers and crew.
The crew were all Malaysian, while over two-thirds (68%) of the passengers were Dutch. Most of the other passengers were Malaysians and Australians; the remainder were citizens of seven other countries.
Among the passengers were delegates en route to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, including Joep Lange, a former president of the International AIDS Society, which organised the conference.[28] Many initial reports had erroneously indicated that around 100 delegates to the conference were aboard, but this was later revised to six.[29] Also on board were Dutch Senator Willem Witteveen,[30] Australian author Liam Davison,[31] and Malaysian actress Shuba Jay.[32]
At least twenty family groups were on the aircraft and eighty passengers were under the age of 18.
The flight crew were captains Wan Amran Wan Hussin (49), and Eugene Choo Jin Leong (44), and first officers Ahmad Hakimi Hanapi (29), and Muhamad Firdaus Abdul Rahim (26),. Captain Wan had a total of 13,239 flight hours, including 7,989 hours in the Boeing 777. Captain Eugene had a total of 12,385 flight hours, including 7,303 hours in the Boeing 777. First Officer Ahmad had a total of 3,190 flight hours, including 227 hours in the Boeing 777. First Officer Muhamad had a total of 4,058 flight hours, including 296 hours in the Boeing 777.
Investigation
Two parallel investigations were led by the Dutch, one into the technical cause of the crash, and a separate criminal inquiry. The technical report was released on 13 October 2015, and the criminal investigation reported some of their findings in September 2016 .According to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, the country in which an aviation incident occurs is responsible for the investigation, but that country may delegate the investigation to another state; Ukraine has delegated the leadership of both investigations to the Netherlands.
On-site investigation
In the hours following the crash, a meeting was convened of the Trilateral Contact Group. After they had held a video conference with representatives of insurgents affiliated with the Donetsk People's Republic (who controlled the area where the aircraft crashed), the rebels promised to "provide safe access and security guarantees" to "the national investigation commission" by co-operating with Ukrainian authorities and OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) monitors.[130] During the first two days of investigation, the militants prevented the OSCE and the workers of Ukrainian Emergencies Ministry from freely working at the crash site. Andrei Purgin, a leader of the Donetsk People's Republic, declared later that "we will guarantee the safety of international experts on the scene as soon as Kiev concludes a ceasefire agreement".
By 18 July 2014, the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder had been recovered by separatists, and three days later were handed over to Malaysian officials in Donetsk.The voice recorder was damaged but there was no evidence that data had been tampered with.
The National Bureau of Air Accidents Investigation of Ukraine, which led investigations, both off- and on-site, during the first days after the crash,had by August 2014 delegated the investigation to the DSB because of the large number of Dutch passengers and the flight having originated in Amsterdam.
On 22 July 2014, a Malaysian team of 133 officials, search and recovery personnel, and forensics, technical and medical experts arrived in Ukraine.[89] Also Australia sent a 45-member panel headed by former Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who had earlier supervised the MH 370 probe. Approximately 200 special forces soldiers from Australia were also deployed to provide support for the JIT investigators. The United Kingdom sent six investigators from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) and the UK Foreign Office sent extra consular staff to Ukraine.It took until late July before the full international team could start working at the crash site, under the leadership of the Dutch Ministry of Defence.
On 30 July 2014, a Ukrainian representative said that pro-Russian rebels had mined approaches to the crash site and moved heavy artillery.
On 6 August 2014, the experts left the crash site due to concerns about their safety. In mid-September they unsuccessfully attempted to regain access to the site.On 13 October 2014, a Dutch-Ukrainian team resumed recovery of victims' personal belongings.In mid-November 2014, work was undertaken to remove part of the wreckage from the crash site. Earlier efforts by the recovery team to salvage the MH17 wreckage had been frustrated by disagreements with the local rebels. The recovery operation took a week. The debris was transported to the Netherlands where investigators reconstructed parts of the aircraft.
In August 2015, possible Buk missile launcher parts were found at the crash site by the Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT).
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