Tag: Dutch Safety Board

German intel report on MH17 contradicts Western version

The German BND foreign intelligence agency’s new report on the Boeing crash in Ukraine in fact contradicts the Western version on the causes of the tragedy. On Monday this opinion was voiced by Alexey Pushkov, the head of the foreign-affairs committee in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.

“The German intelligence report questions the main version which was accepted by the West and stated by a range of Western politicians and almost all mass media that Russia had handed over to militias the Buk missile systems that were used to shoot down the Malaysian Boeing,” Alexey Pushkov said.

“The German intelligence stated: The Boeing was downed by a Buk missile system ‘captured by militias.’ That means Russia was not involved. And the Buk could have been launched by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Pushkov said on Twitter.

This came after BND President Gerhard Schindler claimed his agency had found that Donbas militia was responsible for shooting down the Malaysian Boeing using a Buk missile system, though no evidence was unveiled.

Self-defence leader Andrej Purgin said on Sunday in response that pro-Russian groups could not have shot down MH17. According Purgin the Buk missile system is very complicated and self-defence forces do not have the knowledge to operate such a system.

He blamed the leadership in Kiev for the disaster. It is incomprehensible Purgin said, that the government had not closed the airspace over the conflict area.

“The new version means that Russia has no relation to the downed Boeing,” Pushkov stressed.

“If this was done by a Ukrainian missile, Russia has no relation at all to this tragic event,” Pushkov said.

The Dutch Safety Board, which is leading the probe and coordinating the international team of investigators, said in its preliminary report published September 9 that “Flight MH17 with a Boeing 777-200 operated by Malaysia Airlines broke up in the air probably as the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside.

Meanwhile there will not be hearing about the plane crash of flight MH17 in the Netherlands because coalition parties are blocking it.

It appears the VVD and PvdA do not find it necessary to study satellite images showing the the downing of the plane.

On July 17, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 passenger airliner on flight MH17 en route from the Dutch city of Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur crashed in the Donetsk Region in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.

The hearing could “hamper” the ongoing investigation by the Prosecution into the cause of the disaster,  VVD MP Han ten Broeke told NU.nl.

The CDA and D66 insisted Sunday on a hearing after satellite images and various photographs were provided by German intelligence (BND).

Source: ItarTASS/nu.nl/ RIANovosti

Dutch foreign minister says MH17 victim wore oxygen mask

A passenger of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was found with an oxygen mask over the mouth when the body was recovered from the crash site, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said on Wednesday.

Timmermans’ statement came in response to a comment from TV host Jeroen Pauw that the final moments aboard Flight MH17 were not as suggested by Timmermans in his speech at the U.N. Security Council in the week after the tragedy.

Timmermans had reportedly said during his U.N. speech on July 21 that the passengers on board the Malaysia Airlines plane remained conscious after the aircraft was struck by a suspected missile.

“I’ve been thinking how horrible the final moments of their lives must have been, when they knew the plane was going down,” Timmermans reportedly said at the time. “Did they lock hands with their loved ones, did they hold their children close to their hearts, did they look each other in the eyes, one final time, in a wordless goodbye? We will never know.”

A preliminary report of the investigation by the Dutch Safety Board into the crash stated that the jetliner broke apart in mid-air after being hit by “a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside.”

Timmermans’ announcement indicates that some passengers on board Flight MH17 may have remained conscious after the aircraft was reportedly hit by a surface-to-air missile. It contradicts findings that claimed that the people aboard the jetliner, which was traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, had been killed instantly after the strike of a BUK missile.

Jeroen Pauw  accused Timmermans of making an emotional speech about the last moments of those on board the plane to the United Nations shortly afterwards.

The first report on the crash shows there is no single moment when the passengers could have realised that a rocket was approaching the plane, Pauw said.

In his rebuttal, Timmermans said one of the passengers was found with an oxygen mask on. ‘So there was time to do that,’ the minister said.

The plane had 298 people on board, of whom 196 were Dutch. So far 262 of the victims have been identified. The Netherlands is in charge of the investigation.

Timmermans was invited to a Dutch late-night talk show “Pauw,” Dutch News reported.

Experts said earlier that the passenger may not have noticed the attack. “The passengers probably lost consciousness immediately,” said researcher James Vosswinkel to Bloomberg. Joris Melkert, lecturer in aeronautical engineering at Delft University concluded that the device disintegrated in the air.

Relatives of the victims this morning received yet another email confirming that an oxygen mask was found on an Australian victim.

About 228 coffins have been reportedly flown back to the Netherlands for identification of the victims. However, forensic experts have not been able to recover all the bodies from the crash site due to the ongoing conflict in the area.

 

Too many omissions in Dutch report on MH17

No real international investigation of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine has been conducted, Russia’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, said, adding that there are too many blank spots in the newly released Dutch report on the tragedy.

The document, released by the Dutch Safety Board’s Tjibbe Joustra (DSB) on Tuesday, said that the Malaysian Boeing-777 crash was the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that struck it from the outside.

“It is very hard to call this investigation a truly international one. Many questions have been left unanswered. There are too many omissions,” Churkin said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 channel.

The Dutch report “did little to advance our understanding of what happened,” only confirming what was already known before, he stressed.

It says that the Malaysian plane “didn’t fall by itself, but was shot down. However no further thoughts in this regard are being presented,” the envoy said.

According to Churkin, Dutch investigators have also completely ignored the issue of at least one Ukrainian warplane that reportedly was in midair near the Malaysian plane when the disaster occurred on July 17.

“The report says another three commercial airliners were cruising in the vicinity at the moment of tragedy, but it does not say anything if Ukrainian warplanes were there, too. Our Defense Ministry said at least one military jet might have been there and eyewitnesses also say they saw one or two jets in the sky,” Churkin stressed.

“For some reason however the problem is bypassed,” he added.

It also looks “very strange” that the text of the DSB report doesn’t say a word about the UN Security Council’s resolution on MH17, the envoy said.

The Russian envoy also wanted to know the reasons for the 40-day delay in delivering the recordings of the conversation between air traffic controllers and the jet from the Ukrainian side to the investigators.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Grigory Karasin, repeated the call for more transparency in the MH17 crash investigation as he met with Malaysian defense minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, in Moscow on Tuesday.

During the meeting, it was “noted that the [Dutch] probe was incomplete,” the Russian Foreign ministry said in a statement.

Moscow believes that “very important expert examinations have actually not been conducted on the crash site. Without them, valid conclusions on the reasons of what happened are impossible.”

The ministry pointed out that some expert examinations are already impossible to carry out now due to protraction of investigation.

“Russia insists on maximally transparent work of the international commission, fulfilling all norms of ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and is ready to participate in it on a team basis,” the statement said.

All 298 people aboard the Malaysia Airlines jet died as it crashed in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on July 17. The majority of those on the plane – which was allegedly shot down – were citizens of the Netherlands.

The disaster has prompted NATO to become more deeply involved in the Ukraine conflict, blaming Russia despite a glaring lack of evidence.

It was initially alleged that the plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. However, claims were also made that the flight was shot down by a Ukrainian military jet which was in the area at the same time.