Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on 17 July 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board.
The aircraft is believed to have been downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile, which Ukraine and Western governments believe to have been fired from territory controlled by pro-Russia separatists. The Boeing 777-200ER airliner lost contact near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border and crashed near Torez, 40 km (25 mi) from the border. The crash occurred in the conflict zone of the ongoing Donbass insurgency, in an area controlled by the Donbass People’s Militia.
A Ukrainian Interior Ministry official, Anton Gerashchenko, said a Buk surface-to-air missile hit the aircraft at an altitude of 33,000 ft (10,000 m). On the day of the incident witnesses in Torez reported sightings of what appeared to be a Buk missile launcher. AP journalists reported sightings in Snizhne. Unnamed US intelligence officials stated that sensors that traced the path of the missile, shrapnel patterns in the wreckage, voice print analysis of separatists’ conversations in which they claimed credit for the strike, and photos and other data from social media sites all indicated that Russian-backed separatists had fired the missile.
The crash of MH17 marks the fifth Boeing 777 hull loss, the third in just over a year. With 298 deaths, MH17 is the deadliest air incident in Ukraine, and the deadliest airliner shootdown in history. The crash was Malaysia Airlines’ worst incident and its second of the year, after the disappearance of Flight 370 (9M-MRO) on 8 March, en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur.
Background
Since the start of the conflict, several Ukrainian Air Force aeroplanes have been downed.
On 14 June, an Air Force Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft was shot down on approach to Luhansk International Airport; all 49 people on board died. After that incident, on 29 June, Russian news agencies reported that insurgents had gained access to a Buk missile system after having taken control of a Ukrainian air defence base (possibly the former location of the 156th Anti-Aircraft Rocket Regiment (156 zrp), Ukrainian Air Force). On the same day, the Donetsk People’s Republic claimed possession of such a system in a since-deleted tweet.
On 14 July, a Ukrainian Air Force An-26 transport plane flying at 21,000 ft (6,400 m) was shot down. Militia reportedly claimed via social media that a Buk missile launcher had been used to bring down the aircraft. American officials later said evidence suggested the aeroplane had been shot down from Russian territory.
On 16 July, a Sukhoi Su-25 close air support aircraft was shot down. The Ukrainian government said the Russian military had shot down the aircraft with an air-to-air missile fired by a MiG-29 jet in Russia; a spokesman for the Russian defence ministry rejected that report as “absurd”.
Ukrainian officials advised pilots on 1 July not to fly below 26,000 ft (7,900 m) over eastern Ukraine. This was increased to 32,000 ft (9,800 m) on 14 July.
On 15 July, following his visit to Kiev, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski warned about the dangers posed by the continued Russian military support for pro-Russian separatists, especially ground-to-air missiles. By 17 July, Russia had closed more than a dozen airways at various altitudes near the conflict zone.
On the same day, an unnamed Associated Press journalist saw a Buk launcher in Snizhne, a town in Donetsk Oblast that is 16 kilometres (10 mi) southeast of the crash site. The reporter also saw seven separatist tanks at a petrol station near the town. Associated Press journalists reported that the Buk M-1 was operated by a man “with unfamiliar fatigues and a distinctive Russian accent”.
Investigation
On 21 July, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that he had been told by Alexander Borodai, leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, that the black boxes would be handed over to Malaysian authorities. Later that day, the flight data recorder and thecockpit voice recorder were handed over to Malaysian officials in Donetsk by rebels. The Malaysians reported that both recorders were “in good condition”. The black boxes are currently being examined at a facility operated by the UK AAIB. On 23 July it was reported that the CVR was damaged but there was no evidence that it had been tampered with, and that valid data had been downloaded.
Both US and Ukrainian officials declared that a surface-to-air missile strike is the most likely cause of the crash, and if so, then the missile was fired from a mobile Soviet-designed Buk missile system (known as SA-11 “Gadfly” to NATO), as this is the only surface-to-air missile system in the area capable of reaching the altitude of commercial air traffic. According to defence analyst Reed Foster (from Jane’s Information Group), the contour of the aluminium and the blistering of the paint around many of the holes on the aircraft fragments indicate that small pieces of high-velocity shrapnel entered the aircraft externally, a damage pattern indicative of an SA-11. Concurring with that, ballistics specialist Stephan Fruhling (of the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre) added that a large hole in one of the aircraft fragments was caused by a violent blast of decompression from holes inflicted by hot shrapnel from an SA-11 proximity fuzed warhead.
On 19 July, Vitaly Nayda, the chief of the Counter Intelligence Department of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), told a news conference,
“We have compelling evidence that this terrorist act was committed with the help of the Russian Federation. We know clearly that the crew of this system were Russian citizens.”
He cited what he said were recorded conversations in which separatists expressed satisfaction to Russian intelligence agents that they brought down an aeroplane. The separatists denied that the recorded talks were related to the crash of MH17 and blamed the Ukrainian government for shooting it down. According to Nayda, a Buk launcher used in the shoot-down was moved back into Russia the night after the attack.
On 21 July, the Russian Defence Ministry held a press conference and said that just before the crash, a Ukrainian Su-25 ground-attack aircraft approached to within 3 to 5 kilometres (1.9 to 3.1 mi) of the Malaysian airliner. The Ministry also stated that satellite photographs showed that the Ukrainian army moved a Buk SAM battery to the area close to the territory controlled by the rebels on the morning of 17 July, hours before the crash. They said the installation was then moved away again by 18 July.
US officials said that satellite data from infrared sensors detected the explosion of flight MH17. American intelligence agencies said that analysis of the launch plume and trajectory suggested the missile was fired from an area between Torez and Snizhne. Satellites are also likely to have registered the heat signature of the launch of the missile and the activation of the missile launcher tracking radar.
An anonymous US intelligence official stated that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 may have been shot down in error by pro-Russian separatists, citing evidence that separatists launched a SA-11 surface-to-air missile that blew up the Malaysian airliner. The official dismissed Russian allegations that MH17 took evasive action and said the claim that the Ukrainian government had shot down MH17 was not realistic, as Kiev had no such missile systems in that area, which was rebel-controlled. US intelligence officials also claim that Russia was attempting to disguise the flow of weaponry it was delivering to the rebels by sending older weapons that matched Ukraine’s inventory.
In an interview with Reuters on 23 July 2014, Alexander Khodakovsky, the commander of the pro-Russian Vostok Battalion, acknowledged that the separatists had an anti-aircraft missile of the type the US has said was used to shoot down the plane and that it could have been sent back to Russia to remove proof of its presence; he later retracted his comments, claiming that he had been misquoted and stating that rebels never had a Buk.
Recovery of Casualties
A Ukraine Foreign Ministry representative said that the bodies found at the crash site would be taken to Kharkiv for identification, a city 270 kilometres (170 mi) to the north. By the day after the crash, 181 of the 298 bodies had been found.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte complained about the lack of respect shown to the personal belongings of the dead which were reportedly looted. He initially announced his disgust about the handling of the bodies of the casualties that were reportedly being “dragged around” and “thrown”, but later stated the bodies were handled with more care than originally estimated. On 20 July, Ukrainian emergency workers, observed by armed separatists, began loading the remains of the passengers of MH17 into refrigerated railway wagons for transport and identification.
Dutch authorities stated on 23 July that they found 200 bodies on the train when it arrived at Kharkhiv, leaving almost 100 unaccounted for. Two Dutch and one Australian aircraft flew the first bodies out of Kharviv later that day. The aircraft landed at Eindhoven Airport just before 16:00 local time. The day afterwards another 74 bodies arrived.
Russian government edits of Russian Wikipedia articles
On 18 July, The Daily Telegraph, along with other sources, reported that the Russian government agencies had edited Russian Wikipedia pages relating to the MH17 incident in order to remove statements that it helped provide the missile system used to shoot down the aircraft. The Toronto Star also reported that an IP address associated with Putin’s office also made edits to the article. Among the pages that were said to have been edited was the Russian version of an article listing civil aviation incidents, to say that “the plane [Flight MH17] was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers”.
