Malaysia Continues Investigation into Crash of Flight MH17 in Ukraine

December 25th, 2015

Awake Goy

nsnbc : Malaysian investigators will continue the investigation of the crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014 until October 2016. The Ukrainian parliament approved of the Malaysian government’s request to prolong their stay in the country and the investigation.

247 Ukrainian Members of Parliament voted in favor of prolonging an agreement with the Malaysian government until October 18, 2016. The initial agreement was concluded in August 2014.

The Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200 was according to the Dutch-led international investigation shot down by a BUK missile system while the airliner was on flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. All 298 passengers and crew on board the airliner died in the crash. The majority of passengers, 193, were Dutch citizens.

The international investigation was led by the Dutch Safety Board. However, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the UK, the USA and Russia delegated experts to participate in the investigation, thus legally binding the participating countries to submit to Dutch law, meaning that no evidence other than the final report would be disclosed to the public and the press.

The Dutch Safety Board concluded that the airliner was shot down by a BUK surface to air missile system without pointing out whether the missile was launched from Ukrainian government controlled territory or from territory held by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. BUK manufacturer Almaz Matey disputed the finding, claiming that a full-scale experiment showed that the missile was launched from a region controlled by the Ukrainian government.

The dispute about the tragedy has been used for geopolitical chess games and propaganda by both Russian and western media and governments while all of the directly and indirectly involved, as already mentioned, not to disclose evidence to the public so independent media and experts could scrutinize the veracity of the report and claims.

In July 2015 the United Nations Security Council called for a comprehensive and independent investigation. A Malaysian draft resolution that calling for the establishment of an ad hoc tribunal was, however, vetoed by Russia. The Dutch Safety Board was not tasked with pointing out a guilty part which will be the task of a criminal investigation.

The Malaysian government’s request to prolong the period in which Malaysian investigators can conduct their in situ investigation of the tragedy in Ukraine suggests that Malaysia does not necessarily want to rely on the Dutch Safety Board (DSB), the UN Security Council or other governments to come to a conclusion about the causes of the crash.

The final report issued by the Dutch Safety Board stressed that dozens of flight operators and over 160 flights were flown over eastern Ukraine where a conflict was in progress. The report concluded that the Ukrainian government had failed to close the airspace above the conflict area and that dozens of flight operators had acted negligently by flying above eastern Ukraine.

The DSB’s report leaves a cohort of unanswered questions. One of them is why flight MH17 was flying a progressively northerly route in the days up to July 17, 2014, having it fly above an area with intense conflict on the day of the crash. nsnbc international has repeatedly called for the release of all evidence to media so independent experts can evaluate all available evidence and data on behalf of the bereft families and loved ones and the global flying public.

CH/L – nsnbc 25.12.2015