The missile that downed Malaysia Airlines flight 17 exploded less than a metre from the cockpit, killing the crew inside instantly and breaking off the front of the plane, the Dutch Safety Board said on Tuesday as it presented the results of an official probe into the crash in eastern Ukraine.
It added that the tragedy that killed all 298 people aboard the plane on July 17, 2014, wouldn’t have happened if anyone had thought to close the airspace of eastern Ukraine to passenger planes as fighting raged below.
The report did not consider who launched the missile. However, it identified an area of 320 square kilometres from which the launch must have taken place. All the territory within the area was in rebel separatist hands at the time of the crash. Safety Board chairman Tjibbe
Joustra said the 15-month investigation found the warhead was that used on a Buk surface-to-air missile system. Joustra said that Ukraine authorities had “sufficient reason” to completely close the airspace in that area, but “nobody gave a thought” to the possible threat to civil aviation.
Missile fragments found in the cockpit crew’s bodies, as well as paint traces, enabled investigators to identify the Buk, Joustra said. The investigation found that the missile killed the three crew in the cockpit instantly, while the passengers and other crew died due to reduced oxygen levels, extreme cold, powerful airflow and flying objects as the plane broke up and crashed.
The investigators unveiled a ghostly reconstruction of the forward section of MH17. Some of the nose, cockpit and business class of the Boeing 777 were rebuilt from fragments of the aircraft recovered from the crash scene and flown to Gilze-Rijen air base in southern Netherlands.
On Tuesday in the village of Hrabove where the jet came down, lyudmila Grigoryak — whose house was the closest to the crash site — brought red carnations to the field of dry grass where small pieces of the fuselage are still scattered.