A BUK MISSILE brought down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 last year over eastern Ukraine killing all 298 people on board, the official inquiry into the air disaster has concluded.
“Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane against the left-hand side of the cockpit.
“This warhead fits the kind of missile that is installed in the BUK surface-to-air missile system,” the chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, Tjibbe Joustra, told a press conference.
He added that Ukraine should have closed their airspace during the conflict.
“It was a BUK missile that hit the left upper part of the cockpit,” a visibly shaken relative, Robby Oehlers, told reporters, just after being briefed by Dutch officials in The Hague.
He said a wave of sadness had swept through the room as hundreds of relatives who lost loved ones were briefed.
The official Dutch-led investigation seeks to end 15 months of speculation about why the Boeing 777 broke up in mid-air last year killing all 298 people on board.
The reported findings were swiftly disputed by the missile maker Almaz-Antey even before the official unveiling of the investigators’ report.
The Dutch Safety Board, which led the international team of investigators, has stressed its mandate was not to determine who pulled the trigger, amid a separate criminal probe by Dutch prosecutors.
But two sources told the daily Volkskrant newspaper “the BUK missile is developed and made in Russia.”
“It can be assumed that the rebels would not be able to operate such a device. I suspect the involvement of former Russian military officials.”
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