Initial Report Points to ‘External Cause’ of Flight 17 Crash over Ukraine

A person holds the preliminary report on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 at the Dutch Safety Board in The Hague, The Netherlands, 9 September 2014. Photo EPA/BGNES

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 disintegrated over eastern Ukraine after it was likely hit by multiple objects “from outside the aircraft”, the AP reported on Tuesday.

Citing conclusions from a preliminary report into the deadly disaster over territory held by pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine that claimed the lives of all 298 passengers and crew on board Boeing 777 on July 17, the newswire said: "The damage observed in the forward section of the aircraft appears to indicate that the aircraft was penetrated by a large number of high-energy objects from outside the aircraft.”

While the report by the Dutch Safety Board says that “this damage resulted in a loss of structural integrity,” leading to break-up in flight of the aircraft, it doesn’t state explicitly that Flight 17 was shot down by a missile.

However, according to Christopher Yates, an aviation safety specialist at Yates Consulting, the report "is extremely consistent with damage from a missile for the simple reason there are penetration marks,” AP said.

Investigators found no evidence that the crash resulted from a technical problem or crew error, said the report.

The report also doesn’t indicate who might have been responsible for the accident. A full report by the Dutch Safety Board, which is leading the international investigation into the cause of the crash, is expected within a year.

According to Yates, what caused the crash could only have been a missile of the type able to reach the altitude at which the aircraft was flying when it was struck – potentially a Buk surface-to-air missile and not a shoulder-fired missile which wouldn’t have reached that altitude.

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