INITIAL DUTCH SAFETY BOARD REPORT ON FLIGHT MH17 CONCLUDES PLANE WAS HIT BY OBJECTS
By Howard Wheeldon, FRAeS, Wheeldon Strategic Advisory Ltd.
09 Sep 14. On the day that the EU has formally adopted new sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis without specifying yet when these might come into force the Dutch Safety Board which is leading the investigation into the bringing down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 has now produced a preliminary report of what evidence it has found so far.
The report says that Flight MH17 broke up mid-air having been hit by numerous objects that pieced the plane at high speed. Importantly the preliminary report says that there was no evidence of technical malfunction or human error on the part of the pilots or anyone else on board. At this stage the report suggests that the plane ‘probably’ broke up as a result of structural damage caused by a large number of objects penetrating the aircraft from outside but there is little room for doubt that the aircraft was hit by one or several missiles. While the evidence so far outlined comes as little surprise the vague suggestion that more than one missile could have been involved is worrying.
The Dutch authorities have said that the final report into the tragedy should be published within a year. In conducting the investigation so far they have used information gathered for the two black data recorder and voice recorder boxes, air traffic control, satellite images, photographs and film of the scene. The report does not attempt to lay blame or to attribute any liability for the incident so far but there can now be no doubt that it was shot down.
While I have not as yet been able to read the report in full there is surprisingly no mention in press reports of criticism of attempts by Russian seperatists who controlled the area where large parts of the aircraft came to rest interfering with the investigation process, delaying the implementation of the investigation and the subsequent search for bodies and the likely tampering and removal of certain evidence. No detailed information from the two ‘black boxes’ which when found had been despatched to the UK Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) for examination has been provided as yet although there is no suggestion that valid information has failed to be recovered.
The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) was known to have been damaged but as far as I am aware the memory module was considered sufficiently intact to allow ‘valid data’ to be collected. Thankfully there has been was no suggestion that the CVR might have been tampered with or was manipulated in any way by the Russian seperatists that found them and later handed them over to the Dutch authorities. The same of course cannot be said of the aircraft itself with various allegations that parts of the aircraft were moved and potential evidence was tampered with.
While this is not the first time that a commercial passenger aircraft has been shot down the senseless manner in which it was done and the lack of reason has not only left a dreadful scar on the families of the 298 passengers that lost their lives on July 17th but on the whole world of aviation.
The Dutch authorities charged with the investigation have had their work severely hampered and in this matter Russian seperatists who are blamed by many external parties involved particularly for their part in delaying the removal of bodies do carry a very high level of guilt. Nevertheless, this is a preliminary report and it is right at this stage that an open mind is maintained in terms of what occurred post the crash. Clearly there has been sufficient evidence found to allow the authorities to arrive at an initial conclusion of what brought the plane down and for that we should be thankful.
In the year ahead while it will of course be difficult for the families of all those Chines, British Dutch and other passengers on board to keep an open mind as to who was resp