By Andrew Roth and Brian Murphy, NY Times, October 13, 2015
MOSCOW–The Dutch Safety Board announced its findings Tuesday that a Russian-developed Buk missile brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine last year. But the final report isn’t expected to bring closure: Russia and the West will continue to wrangle over who is to blame.
In its announcement, the board noted that Ukraine should have closed off its airspace to civilian aircraft and said that the Boeing 777, carrying 298 people, should not have been flying over a war zone.
On July 17, 2014, the Malaysian jetliner flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur broke apart over southeast Ukraine, where pro-government and pro-Moscow separatist fighters were locked in bloody fighting.
“A 9n314m warhead detonated outside the airplane to the left side of the cockpit. This fits the kind of warhead installed in the Buk surface-to-air missile system,” said Safety Board head Tjibbe Joustra. A video reconstruction of the impact released by the board detailed how the missile can travel at three times the speed of sound and detonate via proximity fuse; about 800 “pre-formed fragments” struck the jet. “This impact, combined with the blast of the explosion, causes the cockpit and the business class section to separate,” the video notes. “As it descends, the airplane disintegrates.”
The findings, however, did not assign responsibility, or what generation of the missile brought down the plane. The Buk system, first developed in early 1970s by the Soviet Union, is part of the Russian arsenal, but older versions are no longer deployed. Various types of Buk missiles, however, are also used Ukraine and some other former Soviet republics.
Western officials and experts blamed separatist forces, who they said were being aided by the Russian military. Russia responded by pointing the finger at the West, saying that Ukraine’s army may have shot down the plane and Ukraine’s government was complicit in the passengers’ deaths for allowing a jetliner to fly through a war zone.
The Dutch probe, however, is not over. A separate criminal investigation is underway, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte asked Russia for “complete cooperation.”
The Dutch Safety Board report discredits one Russian theory, that the passenger plane was shot down by a Ukrainian air force jet. But both the Russian and Ukrainian armies have Buk missile systems, and Russian officials can and probably will continue to argue that the Ukrainian army was behind the attack on the plane.
MOSCOW–The Dutch Safety Board announced its findings Tuesday that a Russian-developed Buk missile brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine last year. But the final report isn’t expected to bring closure: Russia and the West will continue to wrangle over who is to blame.
In its announcement, the board noted that Ukraine should have closed off its airspace to civilian aircraft and said that the Boeing 777, carrying 298 people, should not have been flying over a war zone.
On July 17, 2014, the Malaysian jetliner flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur broke apart over southeast Ukraine, where pro-government and pro-Moscow separatist fighters were locked in bloody fighting.
“A 9n314m warhead detonated outside the airplane to the left side of the cockpit. This fits the kind of warhead installed in the Buk surface-to-air missile system,” said Safety Board head Tjibbe Joustra. A video reconstruction of the impact released by the board detailed how the missile can travel at three times the speed of sound and detonate via proximity fuse; about 800 “pre-formed fragments” struck the jet. “This impact, combined with the blast of the explosion, causes the cockpit and the business class section to separate,” the video notes. “As it descends, the airplane disintegrates.”
The findings, however, did not assign responsibility, or what generation of the missile brought down the plane. The Buk system, first developed in early 1970s by the Soviet Union, is part of the Russian arsenal, but older versions are no longer deployed. Various types of Buk missiles, however, are also used Ukraine and some other former Soviet republics.
Western officials and experts blamed separatist forces, who they said were being aided by the Russian military. Russia responded by pointing the finger at the West, saying that Ukraine’s army may have shot down the plane and Ukraine’s government was complicit in the passengers’ deaths for allowing a jetliner to fly through a war zone.
The Dutch probe, however, is not over. A separate criminal investigation is underway, and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte asked Russia for “complete cooperation.”
The Dutch Safety Board report discredits one Russian theory, that the passenger plane was shot down by a Ukrainian air force jet. But both the Russian and Ukrainian armies have Buk missile systems, and Russian officials can and probably will continue to argue that the Ukrainian army was behind the attack on the plane.
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