Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine by a Buk surface-to-air missile system trucked across the border from Russia and fired from a village under the control of pro-Russia rebels, according to the international team that has investigated the MH17 downing.
The deadly missile system was returned to Russia the same night.
The Joint Investigation Team (JIT), led by the Netherlands Public Prosecutors’ Office and police, concluded that flight MH17 was shot down on July 17, 2014, by a missile of the 9M38 series, launched by a BUK-TELAR, from farmland in the vicinity of Pervomaiskiy (or: Pervomaiskyi).
"At that time, the area was controlled by pro-Russian fighters,'' the JIT said on September 28..
"The investigation also shows that the BUK-TELAR was brought in from the territory of the Russian Federation and subsequently, after having shot down flight MH-17, was taken back to the Russian Federation.”
MH17, a Boeing 777-200 with 283 passengers and 15 crew onboard, was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was hit by the ground-to-air missile. The incident is the deadliest airliner shootdown incident to date. Wreckage from the aircraft was distributed over various sites within an area of 50 square kilometres. All 298 occupants were killed. The crew were all Malaysian and among the passengers were 196 Dutch citizens, while many of the other passengers were Australians and Malaysians. The flight was operated as a codeshare with KLM.
There are two official probes into the MH17 tragedy – a technical inquiry led by the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and a separate criminal investigation by the Joint Investigation Team. The technical report was released on October 13 last year.
The Dutch Safety Board report concluded that the crash of flight MH17 was caused by the detonation of a 9N314M-type warhead launched from the eastern part of Ukraine using a Buk missile system.
It also found that Ukraine had sufficient reason to close the entire airspace over the eastern part of Ukraine as a precaution. The airspace over the eastern part of Ukraine was much in use: between 14 and 17 July 2014, 61 operators from 32 countries routed their flights through this airspace. On the day of the crash, until the airspace was closed, 160 commercial airliners flew over the area. Malaysia Airlines prepared and operated flight MH17 in accordance with regulations.
The JIT consists of investigators and experts from the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, Malaysia and Ukraine, and focussed on finding out who was responsible for the incident. Its ultimate goal is tracing and prosecuting the perpetrators.
“The most important (aspect) in the JIT investigation is that we can substantiate our conclusions with legal and convincing evidence. In doing so the bar is high: the evidence must stand before a court,'' the JIT stressed during a press conference presenting its first results of the two-year long investigation. "We are confident that the evidence which we have collected removes any kind of doubt about the cause of the crash,” Ultimately it will be up to the court to render a final judgment.''
The JIT’s investigation has been comprehensive and meticulous.
Read the JIT's e-zine on how it investigated the MH17 tragedy
Between 100 and 200 investigators and other experts have been working on the case and currently and, on a daily basis, almost 100 investigators, public prosecutors and other experts are still doing so.
During the past two years, dozens of containers with thousands of wreckage parts were examined in detail, piece by piece. Of those parts, 1448 were processed in a databank as being relevant to the investigation.
Sixty requests for legal assistance were sent to more than 20 countries and the JIT received reactions to many of them. Twenty weapon systems were examined. Five billion internet pages were recorded and assessed for their relevant content. Half a million videos and photographs were examined in detail and saved, and more than two hundred witnesses were heard.
In addition, approximately 150.000 intercepted telephone calls were listened in on, summarised and assessed for their relevance and authenticity. After this, more than 3500 intercepted conversations were processed entirely, translated and analysed. All this was recorded in more than 6000 official reports.
The JIT investigated different scenarios.
The possibility of an accident caused by technical or human failure and the possibility of a terrorist attack from inside the aircraft could be ruled out quickly.
Also ruled out wasthe air-to-air scenario, the possibility that flight MH17 had been shot down by another airplane equipped with a weapon system, because radar images and air traffic data show that there was no other aircraft flying in the vicinity of flight MH17 that could have shot it down
“On the basis of a large amount of evidence we can conclude that the final scenario, being flight MH17 was shot down by a ground based air defence system, is indeed the scenario which took place,” the JIT said.
What’s next?
Investigators now know for sure what happened to flight MH17, but what remains is the answer to the question: who was responsible for this? Which people were involved in the delivery, security and removal of the BUK-TELAR and/or the shooting down flight MH17?
The JIT team has identified, through different sources such as intercepted telephone conversations and witness statements, about 100 people who played an active role in getting hold of the BUK-TELAR and organising the transport to the launch location. There are also those who had a facilitating or supporting role. But, the JIT warned, these people are not automatically suspects.
“To assess whether persons who were involved acted culpably, and can therefore be regarded as suspects, it is important to get a better picture of the chain of command with regard to the use of the weapon,'' it said. "Who gave the orders for the delivery of the BUK-TELAR? Who gave the order to shoot down MH17? Did the crew take their own decision or did they execute a command from higher up? What did the persons who were involved in this operation know?”
The investigation will now fully focus on the answers to these kinds of questions.
“Working alongside the other JIT countries and with the broad support of the international community, we will continue striving to ensure that those responsible for the MH17 disaster do not escape justice,” Dutch Prime Minister Rutte vowed on Wednesday.
“The investigation is asking a lot of the victims' families, for whom answers cannot come quickly enough. Patience is a lot to ask of people who can face grief, disbelief and anger on a regular basis. We are always mindful of that struggle. We will continue to stand side by side with the victims' families,” he said.
