A report released Tuesday by the Dutch Safety Board shows that officials have come to the conclusion that Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 crashed as a result of a Russian-made 9M38 Buk missile.
The report explores four primary issues:
• what caused the plane to disintegrate mid-air
• why it was flying over a conflict region
• why some relatives had to wait four days before receiving confirmation that loved ones were on board
• to what extent passengers and crew were aware of what occurred during their final moments
"MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane," said Dutch Safety Board Chairman Tjibbe Joustra as the agency published its final report, adding that the missile was fired from eastern Ukraine. This is the first time the agency has openly endorsed the belief that a missile was used to shoot down the aircraft.
Despite the discovery however, investigators have yet to assign blame to any as to who fired the missile, reported The Wall Street Journal. Rather, a separate criminal probe investigating culpability for the missile is still underway. However, a spokesman for the Dutch National Public Prosecution Service said the process won't be completed until 2016.
Earlier on Tuesday, officials from Almaz-Antey - the firm which manufactures Buk missiles - tried to preempt the Dutch report, saying the evidence suggested the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air Buk missile fired by Ukrainian forces.
Video footage used during the presentation allegedly illustrates that based on the way the ship crashed, the missile would have had to have been fired from Ukrainian-controlled territory, reported the BBC. They further argued that the missile used in the incident was decades-old and no longer in use by Russian military.
Russia says Dutch investigators have not taken account of its findings.
